First There Was Forever (2 page)

O
n the first day of school, I went straight to the vending machine after second period to meet Hailey at our spot. She wasn’t there, so I leaned against the cool plastic shell of the machine and waited.

“Excuse us,” a ninth-grade girl said. She and her friend both had crisp back-to-school haircuts and fresh tans. They talked quickly while they shoved quarters down the throat of the machine. After they got their Diet Cokes, they left behind the smell of sunscreen and flowery shampoo.

Emily Friedlander spotted me from across the patio and waved. I waved back. Emily lived down the beach from me in Malibu, and we’d known each other forever without ever really being friends. All Emily cared about was surfing.

“What do you have next?” Emily asked after we’d exchanged an awkward hug. Her blond hair glowed like a fluorescent light. It looked almost white next to her ruddy, sun-stained skin.

“Honors Chemistry,” I said. “With Patty.”

“Really? Me too!” Emily said. “I’m freaking out. It’s going to be so hard. I’m so glad I know someone in the class. Maybe we can even study together.”

“Yeah,” I agreed absently.

The crowded patio had begun to thin out as people made their way to class.

“Should we go?” Emily asked. “I’m not even sure where the classroom is.”

I checked my phone to see if Hailey had texted, but my screen was blank.

“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s go.”

• • •

Honors Chemistry was in a big, bright room on the top floor of the science building. It must have been the highest point on campus because the view out the enormous glass windows was amazing. Sitting at a desk in the front row, I could see all the way past the ramshackle industrial buildings outside to the San Fernando Mountain range that divided the city from the valley. The ridge of the mountains cut a jagged line along the horizon, and the sky above them was a vivid, glossy blue.

“What is the second kind of scientific experiment?” Patty asked.

A senior in the front row raised his hand.

“Yuri?” Patty said.

Patty had memorized all of our names during roll. She was one of those teachers who you could tell was a good teacher right away because she had an even, patient way of talking.

“Exploratory,” Yuri said.

“Right. So, the candle wax lab tomorrow, will that be testing a specific hypothesis, or an exploratory investigation?”

I knew the answer but I didn’t raise my hand.

“Lima?” Patty asked, as if she had heard my thoughts.

“Testing a hypothesis,” I said.

“Which will be?” she continued.

“That the wick, not the wax, is the primary fuel for a burning candle,” I answered. Even though I knew the answer was right, I felt my face get hot.

Science had always been my favorite subject. I liked how everything promised to make sense. There were rules. In labs, I marveled at the way a written formula could match the reality of an experiment so neatly. Not very different from baking something from a recipe.

Patty turned her back to us and started writing on the board. She had white hair, cut within an inch of her skull. It wasn’t styled like a pixie cut, or some fashion statement. It was just plain, short hair, like a little boy would have. Everything about Patty was practical and comfortable. She wore a fleece jacket, khaki shorts, and hiking sneakers.

Most of the teachers at our school, Rustic Canyon Day, dressed like Patty: outdoorsy and casual. Rustic was founded in the seventies by a bunch of hippies in the Santa Monica Canyon. The elementary and middle schools were still run out of the original location, but the high school moved to a set of converted factories in West LA when I was a kid.

Patty ran over by ten minutes, cutting into lunch. When we got out, I texted Hailey and she wrote back that she’d left campus. She said she’d be at the smoking tree after school.

• • •

By the time I arrived at the tree, Hailey and Skyler were already sharing a giant drink from the gas station across the street. They had been becoming friends ever since they had easy-math together the year before, but Skyler and I had zero in common. Now they were wearing identical heart-shaped sunglasses. Their faces were pointed in my direction and, because I couldn’t see their eyes behind their lenses, they possessed a blind, animal-like quality, like deer.

“Hey, Li,” Hailey said.

“Cute shoes,” said Skyler. I looked down at my dirty red Converse and wondered if she was being serious or not. She and Hailey were both wearing wedge sandals and short, colorful dresses, while I was in beat-up jeans and a gray T-shirt. I nervously touched my hair, checking to see if the knot-bun I’d tied it in that morning was still in place.

“I haven’t seen you all day,” I said. “How were your classes?”

Skyler yanked the drink out of Hailey’s hand.

“Classes were whatever,” Hailey said. “But guess what? We went out to lunch with Ryan and Nate today. It was awesome. I think Nate got literally hotter over the summer.”

Skyler wrinkled her nose and inspected the waxy straw of their drink. “Hailey, you’re so nasty, you chewed up the tip. That’s so gross. I don’t want to put this in my mouth.”

“You’ve put plenty of dirtier shit in your mouth, Sky,” Hailey replied.

Skyler cackled.

“Anyway,” I said awkwardly. “My classes were whatever, too. Chemistry is gonna be so hard.”

Hailey nodded.

“Do you want to come over later?” I continued. “My mom and I got these zucchini flowers at the farmers’ market yesterday. We’re gonna stuff them with cheese and fry them for dinner. They’re gonna be amazing.”

“I don’t know,” she said vaguely. “Maybe.”

She glanced at Skyler, who had taken the lid off of the soda and was drinking straight from the cup.

“I’ll call you, okay?” Hailey said to me.

• • •

Mom, Dad, and I ate on the back porch that night and afterward I went up to my room to do homework. It was seven o’clock and Hailey still hadn’t called. I stared out my bedroom window. The setting sun hovered over the ocean, a melting crimson bulb.

My computer beeped. It was a chat request from Emily, seeing if I had done the chemistry reading yet. I wrote back and told her I was about to start. I checked my phone one last time to make sure I hadn’t missed any texts from Hailey, and then I plopped on my bed and opened the textbook to page 35. I ran my hands firmly down the center to flatten the pages, pressing hard until I heard the soft crack of its cardboard spine.

“L
ima, oh my God, I miss you,” Hailey said, throwing her arms around me. We were halfway through the second week of school and this was the first day Hailey had showed up at our meeting spot.

“I’ve been here at break every day,” I said. “Where have you been?”

The year was off to a bad start. Hailey was impossible to pin down at school, and my time at home was being devoured by hours of nightly homework. I’d been so busy I had neglected to take care of my garden, and last night I discovered that my strawberry plants had wilted and died. I’d tended to those plants all summer, watering them and pruning them and watching them transform from a packet of seeds to perfect living organisms. There is an indescribable joy that comes from seeing a plant you have grown yourself produce actual edible fruit. Each strawberry, even if it was small and lopsided and soft, had felt like a miracle.

“I know it’s totally my fault that we haven’t seen each other lately,” Hailey confessed. “It’s just that now that we have off-campus privileges, I leave at, like, every single break.”

“Just ’cause we’re allowed to go off campus doesn’t mean you have to go,” I said softly. As the words came out, I could hear how lame I sounded.

“You’re right. I’ll probably get sick of it soon. But it just feels exciting. And Nate is usually there. And you know me: when it comes to Nate, I have no self-control. Actually, when it comes to anything, I have no self-control.”

We both laughed, and I felt comforted by Hailey’s honesty. She wasn’t avoiding me. She was just chasing something else.

“Come out to lunch with me and Skyler today,” she said. “You might like her more than you think.”

• • •

It turned out “going out to lunch” with Skyler and Hailey meant getting iced coffees and driving in circles around the neighborhood. I was starving. I couldn’t believe we weren’t actually going to get food.

“Slow down,” Hailey yelled as Skyler swung a sharp turn and the car fishtailed. “I’m gonna mess up my makeup!”

Hailey was sitting shotgun and using the flip-down mirror to smudge cover-up onto the circles under her eyes.

“Don’t put so much on. It looks fake,” Skyler ordered.

“Yeah, but I look worse without it,” Hailey replied. “And Nate is in my fifth period.”

“Nate’s not that cool,” Skyler said. “Don’t be so into him. He thinks he’s the shit.”

“There’s more to him than you think.”

Skyler moaned. “There is so not
more to him than I think.”

Hailey laughed.

“Whatever, I’m sure if you actually hooked up with him, you’d stop liking him,” Skyler continued. “That’s how I am. I just like guys until I get them. What do you think about Hailey and Nate, Lima?”

“I don’t know,” I said lamely. “I don’t really know Nate. But she likes him.” I wished I hadn’t agreed to come. I was so hungry I could hardly think.

Skyler laughed. Her nails were painted a midnight blue. “So,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at me, “who do you like?”

“I don’t like anyone,” I said.

“You must like someone,” she tried. I couldn’t read her expression behind the hard black shells of her sunglasses. “Not even Ryan? He’s so cute. I mean, I could never be attracted to him because we’re basically like brother and sister. But he’s definitely, like, boy-band cute.”

Ryan Masterson had always been the best-looking guy in our grade, with movie-star dimples and silvery eyes that reflected light like mirrors. I’d gone to school with him since pre-K and he’d always been nice, but I’d never had anything even close to a crush on him. I tried to imagine being alone with Ryan, maybe even kissing him, but those thoughts didn’t make me feel anything. It was like pinching myself somewhere that had been numbed.

When I realized Skyler was waiting for me to respond, I said, “Oh, no, I seriously don’t like anyone.”

“Really?” Skyler asked, glancing at Hailey for confirmation.

“No, she genuinely doesn’t,” Hailey said, patting lip gloss onto her lower lip. “Lima never likes anyone.”

“Lemme use that when you’re done,” Skyler commanded Hailey. “Want some, Lima?”

I shook my head no.

“Lima doesn’t need to wear any makeup,” Hailey said. “It’s insane. She just looks like that all the time. It’s weird. If we were living in medieval times, like pre-makeup and blow-dryers, Lima would be, like, the only person who would still be pretty. She’s the only person who would look the same!”

“Thanks a lot, biatch!” Skyler snapped. “Are you calling me ugly?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know how hot you are,” Hailey retorted drily.

Hailey always had a way of giving me compliments that made me feel small and almost ashamed. I had looked exactly the same since I was five years old. My hair had turned gradually from platinum to a darker blond, the color of sand or dust. I had blue eyes and skin that freckled or burned but never tanned. For the last few years, I had been waiting for my soft features to give way to harder, more grown-up ones, but they never had. Even my smile hadn’t changed because Mom didn’t let the orthodontist give me braces. She said my slightly crooked teeth gave me character.

“Well, whatever,” Skyler said. “I don’t wear makeup ’cause I have to. It’s just fun.” She twisted the volume knob on her stereo so the music thumped violently through the car.

When we were in elementary school, Hailey invented the every-other rule. Every other day is good. Every other birthday is perfect. Every other test is easy. Even though we stopped talking about it in middle school, and even though I knew it was just a silly superstition, part of me still believed in it. Eighth grade had been miserable, but ninth grade had been okay, which meant that, according to the every-other rule, tenth was destined to be terrible.