I Guess They Never Disappear

IX

Alana POV

Zoe leans on my shoulder and pokes at my phone. I turn it away from her. 

"Cybersecurity, Zoe," I say, laughter evident in my voice. 

She pouts. 

"I'm your girlfriend, and besides, you rarely go on Facebook, 'Lana."

"Excuse me? I go on it every week!"

"What's the point?"

"I need to know what's going on."

"With whom?"

I pause. 

"You're not wrong."

"I knew it! Please hurry up, love, this is so boring."

"I never said you had to watch me do anything, Zoe, I'm just sending a simple hello."

"You sent one last week and that did nothing."

"I know. He probably isn't on Facebook that much, because apparently according to you 'nobody uses Facebook anymore'."

"Remind me why we're doing this again?" She sits up and rotates until her back's propped up against my side. 

"Forgiveness? Answers?"

She sighs. "I know. I just think it's a waste of our time at this point."

"Yeah." I let out a breath. "It seems that way, doesn't it?"

I finish writing out the message. 

Hello Evan! I was just wondering if you would like to catch up sometime over messages. It's been a while, and Zoe and I wanted to check in with some of our old classmates. 

Zoe reads it over my shoulder. 

"That's good," she says after a moment, biting at her nails. I guide her hand away from her mouth and wrap her fingers in mine. 

I send the message, and the two of us go about a surprisingly lazy Saturday together. You'd think with graduation coming up in a matter of weeks now, I'd be really busy, but there isn't much to do. 

There isn't much to do because I don't need to write a valedictorian speech. 

I would say I'm taking it well but I feel so immature. Everybody's assured me that there's no need to feel bad about it, that law school is hard, that I'm graduating really high up in my class and I should already be proud of that, et cetera, et cetera. 

That doesn't make me feel better about it, really. How am I supposed to feel better, when I feel like I've failed everybody I know? I don't feel jealous of the woman who got it, per se, because she very much deserved it. I've seen how hard she worked on the essays, on the mock exams, even on the internships. She's done well, and it's paid off. 

So I'm not mad at her. 

Just disappointed in myself. 

Zoe's been trying to come up with fun things to do together to take my mind off things. Teaching me how to play the guitar, baking Pride cakes together, going out to dinner. I pretend it's working. She seems so happy. 

Anyway, it's been about an hour since I've sent the message when I get a notification on my phone. I go to check it, expecting it to be the New York Times app or a text from my parents. 

Instead, it's a messenger notification from Evan Hansen reading 'hello', and then another one right beneath that reading 'this isn't Evan he just shoved his phone in my face and told me to respond so I did'.