THERE ARE A TON OF cars I recognize from school in the Waffle House parking lot. Simon turns off the ignition and glances at his phone.
The first thing I see when I step outside the car is Taylor’s bright blond head. “Leah! I had no idea you were coming. I totally thought it was just theater people, but yay!” She presses her key, and her car beeps twice. Kind of funny—I don’t remember Taylor having a Jeep. Especially not one with testicles dangling from the bumper.
“Your car has very realistic balls, Taylor.”
“So embarrassing, right?” She falls into step beside me. “My brother’s home for spring break, and he blocked my car in. I had to take his.”
“Oh, nuts. That’s the worst.”
“Yeah, he’s really testicling my patience,” she replies. And, okay. I’ll be the first to admit: sometimes I fucking love Taylor.
She holds the door open, and I follow Simon and Nora inside. I really love the smell of Waffle House. It’s this perfect combination of butter, maple syrup, bacon, and maybe onions? Whatever it is, they should bottle it up and pour it into a scented marker, so I can draw hot manga characters who smell like WaHo. Right away, I spot a bunch of theater people sitting in the corner. Including Martin Addison.
“I’m not sitting there.” I turn to Nora.
She nods shortly. “Agreed.”
“Because of Martin?” Taylor asks.
“Let’s just sit over here,” I say, pressing my lips together. I mean, the stuff with Martin happened a long time ago, and maybe I should let it go. But I can’t. I honestly can’t. This kid literally outed Simon last year. Actually, he found out Simon was gay, blackmailed him, and then fucking outed him. I’ve barely said a word to him since, and neither has Nora. Or Bram. Or Abby.
I settle in next to Nora in a booth near the entrance, and Taylor scoots into the seat Simon was clearly saving for Bram. When the waitress shows up for a first round of orders, everyone but me orders waffles. All I want is a Coke.
“Are you on a diet?” Taylor asks.
“Excuse me?”
Seriously, who says that? First of all, I just ate twenty shit-tons of M&M’s. Second of all, shut the fuck up. I swear, people can’t wrap their minds around the concept of a fat girl who doesn’t diet. Is it that hard to believe I might actually like my body?
Nora nudges me and asks if I’m okay. Maybe I look kind of surly.
“Oh my God, are you sick?” asks Taylor.
“No.”
“I’m like super paranoid I’m going to catch something. I’ve been drinking so much tea, and I’m resting my voice whenever I’m not in rehearsal, obviously. Can you imagine if I lost my voice this week? I don’t even know what Ms. Albright would do.”
“Right.”
“Like, I’m in almost every song.” She does this weird, high-pitched laugh. I can’t tell if she’s nervous and pretending not to be, or the other way around.
“Maybe you should rest your voice,” I suggest.
I swear she’s more manageable when we’re rehearsing with the band. Also, I have really good isolation headphones.
Taylor opens her mouth to reply to me, but then Abby and the guys arrive all at once. Garrett scoots in beside me, and Bram slides next to Taylor, with Abby and Nick on the ends. And it’s funny, because Taylor’s been sitting here with her usual runway-in-Paris posture, but now she’s leaning so hard toward Nick, she’s practically sprawled over the table. “Hey, I hear you and Simon will be in Boston for spring break.”
Taylor. You’ve been mashed up against Simon’s body in a booth for twenty minutes. But, of course, you couldn’t ask that question until Nick got here.
“Yup,” Nick says. “We’re doing the last set of school visits—Tufts and BU first, and then Wesleyan, NYU, Haverford, and Swarthmore. So we’re flying into Boston, renting a car, and then flying out of Philly.”
“Road trip,” says Simon, leaning forward for a high five.
“With your moms,” says Abby.
I can’t even get my head around how much people are willing to spend on this stuff. There are the plane tickets, hotels, car rentals, everything—and they don’t even know if they’ve gotten into these schools yet. Not to mention the fact that Simon spent hundreds of dollars on application fees alone, even though he’s dead set on NYU. Which I’m sure has nothing to do with Bram’s early acceptance to Columbia.
“That is so awesome!” Taylor beams. “I’ll be in Cambridge, visiting Harvard. We should meet up!”
“Yeah, maybe,” Nick says. Simon almost chokes on his water.
“Abby, are you looking at the northeast, too?” Taylor asks.
“Nope.” Abby smiles. “I’m going to Georgia.”
“You’re not trying to be near Nick?”
“Can’t afford to be near Nick.”
Kind of weird to hear her say that out loud. Especially because I’m going to the exact same school for the exact same reason. The University of Georgia is the only place I applied. They accepted me months ago. I qualify for the Zell Miller Scholarship. It’s a done deal.
But I never know how to feel when I have a thing in common with Abby Suso. I especially don’t know how to feel about the fact that we’re going to the same school. I bet she’ll pretend she doesn’t know me.
So then Garrett gets going about Georgia Tech’s superiority to Georgia. I don’t even care, but I guess it’s good that Morgan’s not here. It’s funny—Morgan’s such a little social justice geek that you wouldn’t expect this, but she’s actually from one of those hardcore UGA families. All football, all the time. The whole house is decorated red and black, with bulldog faces on everything, and the Hirsches always tailgate before games. I’ll never understand the whole football scene. Like, no shade on football, but I’m kind of more focused on the school part of college.
I want to zone out, but Garrett keeps baiting me. “Okay, here’s one. Leah, what are the longest three years of a UGA student’s life?”
“I give up.”
“Her freshman year.”
“Haha.”
Garrett Laughlin. Every day.
Eventually, everyone starts talking about Bram and Garrett’s soccer game last weekend. Nick looks a little wistful, and I really do get it. It’s not that he’ll never play soccer again. He’ll be back on the field as soon as the play wraps up next week. But it sucks when life moves along without you. Sometimes I feel left out even when life’s moving along with me.
The waitress swings by again to take the second round of orders, and within twenty minutes, we’ve got a mountain of food. Simon’s gone off on a rant about the play, so I steal a piece of bacon from his plate when he’s distracted.
“And I just have this sinking feeling it’s all going to fall apart, now that we finally have the orchestra and the sets. Like, sorry, but the sets should have been done a week ago.”
Nora gives Simon the stink-eye. “Maybe they would be, if anyone actually worked on them other than Cal and me.”
“Burn,” says Garrett.
“But at the end of the day,” says Taylor, “the sets don’t even matter. It’s all about the acting.”
Nora sighs, smiling tightly.
We linger over our plates for a bit, and then the waitress brings us all separate checks. Pretty awesome of her. I hate combined checks, because someone always wants to split the bill evenly—and I don’t want to be a jerk, but there’s a reason I didn’t order that twenty-dollar sandwich. We take turns walking up to the cashier to pay, and then we stack our tips in a pile on the table. And of course, Garrett, who ordered scattered, smothered, and covered waffles with sausage and hash browns, leaves literally a dollar. I don’t get that. Leave a fucking real tip. I throw an extra couple of dollars down myself to make up for it.
“Pretty big tip for a Coke,” Abby says, and I bite back a smile. The others are making their way to the door, but she hangs back, buttoning her peacoat.
“My mom used to be a waitress.”
“Well, it’s just really nice of you.”
I shrug and smile, but my lips feel stretchy. I’m always weird around Abby. I guess I just have issues with her. For one thing, I can’t stand people who are that pretty. She’s got these Disney eyes and dark brown skin and wavy dark hair and actual cheekbones. And she has the opposite of a resting bitch face. Basically, Abby is human candy corn. She’s fine in small doses—but too much, and you’ll puke from the sweetness.
She gives me this half smile, and we both step outside. Taylor and her ball sack are gone, and Garrett’s already left for a piano lesson. Everyone else is just standing around. Simon and Bram are holding hands, sort of, but only the tips of their fingers are laced together. Which is about as hot as it gets for the two of them in public.
Nick, on the other hand, wraps his arms around Abby, like he has to make up for the hour spent on opposite sides of a booth. Typical. So, I guess we’re doing the whole lovesick-couples-in-front-of-Waffle-House thing. Maybe Nora and I should make out now, just to stay relevant.
But Abby disentangles from Nick and walks toward me.
“That’s really beautiful,” she says, pointing at my phone case. It’s actually one of my manga sketches—Anna surprised me with it for my birthday this year. “You drew that, right?”
“Yeah.” I swallow. “Thanks, Abby.”
Her eyes widen, just barely, like I threw her off somehow just by saying her name. I guess we don’t talk a lot. Not outside of group stuff. Not anymore.
She blinks and then nods. “So, hey. The University of Georgia.”
“Is a school.”
“Yes.” She laughs—and suddenly, she’s all doe eyes and hesitation. “I kind of wanted to ask you—”
A horn honks, and we both look up. I recognize Abby’s car—or Abby’s mom’s car, I guess, but today, the driver is a boy with the most gorgeous cheekbones I’ve ever seen—wide eyes, brown skin, maybe early twenties.
“Oh my God, my brother’s home! He wasn’t supposed to get in until tonight.” Abby grins, touching my arm briefly. “Okay, hold that thought. We’ll touch base tomorrow.”
A moment later, she’s kissing Nick good-bye. I look away quickly, squinting up at the sun.