Outside the tree house, we can hear the faint sound of the party — shouting, giggling, the occasional crash of something falling — but nobody else comes outside. Jake and I exist in our own little bubble.
We talk about the 4H kids, about the time they get off for the state fair, and Jake shrugs. “I’ve never been.”
“You’veneverbeen?” I’m astounded. My parents are not state fair people — my dad shaking his head at all the fried food, and my mother finding the general ambiance of the heat, stickiness, and animal shit to be uninspiring — but even they’ve taken me a few times. “Aren’t you from here?”
“Wildfern Ridge born and raised,” he responds, but there’s a note of distaste in his voice.
“And you’veneverbeen to the state fair? You know that we’re kind of known for the state fair, right?”
“I do now.” He’s completely relaxed, his head lolling to the side as he looks at me, like he can’t be bothered to hold it upright. “Maybe you should take me.”
“Ishould take you?” For some reason, the thought makes my heart flip.
Throughout my high school experience, there have been moments like this. The time I was stuck with Brittney Shelman, who some might refer to as the Wildfern Highqueen bee, in an elevator for two hours. Coming out of that, we had our own little inside jokes, and I thought we might be friends, but a week later her eyes completely skimmed over me in the hallway.
Once, a football player and I were tasked with cleaning out the FACS classroom before summer break, and we got along fine, mostly talking about how much we hated learning to sew. When I bumped into him downtown and waved in his direction, he’d waved a confused, unsure hand back at me.
Jake Bradford is not the kind of guy who will remember me. He’s the kind of guy who gets stuck with me for a little while, has an average time, then goes back to not really knowing I exist.
But here he is, saying we should maintain contact outside of this moment.
“Sure,” he says casually, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You’ve obviously been before. You can show me around.”
I could point out that it’s never going to happen, but I go along with it, enjoying this too much to ruin the fun with something like common sense. “Fine. But you have to buy me a corn dog.”
His grin splits his face. “Deal.”
My voice ishoarse from talking, but I don’t want to stop.
We’re both on our backs, staring up at the wood planks of the tree house’s ceiling. Outside, the wind whistles gently through the branches, but the space around us has warmed considerably from our combined body heat.
Jake says he can’t believe they actually thought to insulate the tree house, then says he hopes they did it right, or it’s probably crawling with mold.
When Zachery texts me, asking where I am, I lie and tell him I walked home. Other than calling me a killjoy, he doesn’t seem that torn up about my disappearance.
I tell Jake about the last book I read, and how it made me cry. He tells me about his prospects, and the world of high school sports recruiting. That Michigan is his top choice, and his essay is duein less than a month, and he’s nervous he’s not going to be smart enough to get in.
“My hockey skills are good,” he says, with an air of confidence I couldn’t achieve if I tried. “But some of these schools care about more than just the hockey. I’ll need to get an academic scholarship to help pay for tuition and the dorm, and I’m not sure my grades are there.”
I don’t care about the standings, but Zachery checks the academic report every month just to make sure I’m still on track for valedictorian. “Your grades are there,” I say, remembering his name from the list, only a dozen spots below mine. He’s definitely nowhere near failing.
When I tell him I’m not sure I’m going to apply anywhere, he seems shocked. He says he assumed I already had a place at Harvard, and it makes me laugh, my face flushing at the flattery again.
We talk about our Halloween costumes, our favorite dishes at Thanksgiving, who we think is going to win prom court, and how much we don’t care — even though Jake is definitely in the running for prom king.
By the time Jake finally mentions how late it is, and we realize that the party is definitely over and that we need to go home, I’m tired enough to feel loopy, laughing at nothing and touching him way more than I should. He insists that I climb down the ladder first, then hops down next to me, his sneakers crunching in the leaves.
“I’ll walk you home,” he says, and for some reason, I let him. We walk together along the sidewalk, laughing and bumping armslike we’ve been friends forever and not just for the last three hours.
The streetlights glow golden over us, and Jake is close enough to me that I can feel his body heat. He offers me his jacket, but it’s my legs that are cold, and when I ask for leg warmers instead, we both burst into quiet laughter.
When we reach my house, I find myself growing quiet with the knowledge that right now, I’m letting Jake see another little part of me. Or, alternatively, a big part of me.
It’s not that we live in amansion, exactly, but my parents are well-off. And good savers. And my mom has so many hobbies that we have a dozen rooms dedicated to them — writing, painting, pottery…
Our house is tall, with rolling lawns that are green in the summer but looking a bit faded now. As we walk up, a single leaf drifts to the sidewalk in front of us, and Jake picks it up, rotating the stem between his fingers.
“Well,” I blurt out because I don’t know what else to say, “good night.”
