Favorite Friend

Bonus Chapter: Solar Power

The number of miles between me and Aaron: around five hundred, give or take a few depending on which route you pick.

The number of days it's been since we've last seen each other in person: 179.

The number of times one of us has come close to crying about the last number on a FaceTime call (breakdowns after the call ended not counted): at least twenty.

The number of days until I'm finally seeing him again: one.

One. One. One. The number flashes on my phone screen as I glance at it to check the time. Aaron set the countdown up himself the day after New Year's, a few hours before he had to catch his flight back to Los Angeles. I've been staring at it every day since, willing the numbers to go down quicker as the semester crawled by at a snail's pace. My heart started doing a weird stumbling thing by the time it hit the single digits; now, blinking down at One Day Until The Great Jacobs-Rivera Reunion, I feel a little bit like I'm going to vibrate out of my skin.

One day. Tomorrow around this time, I'll be on the way back to San Aburrido. Tomorrow evening, I'll be having dinner with my family. Tomorrow night, I'll be sleeping next to Aaron.

The weight of that knowledge is enough to make my steps a little bit bouncier as I wind my way across the U of A campus. All red brick buildings and expansive meadows, it was an honest to God maze for the first few weeks. Now, I find my way around easily, making my way from the outskirts of campus into the heart of it. It's a huge, sprawling thing that requires some serious speed-walking if you want to make it to class on time, but I don't mind.

I like that the long walks allow me to clear my head, especially when I'm coming back after therapy like I am right now. I like how I've come to learn its streets and corners, its hideaways and shortcuts, the place where the coffee is the cheapest and the spot where it's actually drinkable. I like that people will wave at me in passing, grinning and shouting at me to enjoy my break. I like the way I can shout back at them without feeling self-conscious, the way I laugh with my teeth and carry myself a little bit different. Looser, more relaxed. Taller, maybe.

Most of all I like that, moving around here, I'm not a ghost. I've been here and here and here, I've sat next to that girl in a lecture before, I've dropped my phone on these stairs, I've lost a shoe in this park after a party.

Somehow, I've wrangled this maze of a campus into something I know like the palm of my hand. Somehow, I've carved out a place for myself here; maybe not quite a home, but a place where I belong, where I've learned new routines and found a favorite study spot and where people know my name.

I'm not Aaron Jacobs's quiet best friend. I'm not Elena's weird twin brother. I'm Felipe Rivera, freshman at the U of A, journalism major, resident of room 214 at Coronado...

And part of the Elevator Club.

They're already there when I round the corner, sitting in the same place where we always meet: on the meadow in front of the Arizona State Museum, sprawled on a large picnic blanket that gets moved around every half hour or so to stay in the sparse shade the treeline provides. (Wyatt insists on it; we're like ninety percent convinced they're a vampire and will burst into flames if they're exposed to too much direct sunlight. Why a vampire would choose to study in Tucson, of all places, is still to be determined.)

Nearing them, I can pick up bits of their bickering over the heavy bass of a Bad Bunny song playing from Paola's Bluetooth speaker. She's the first one to notice me, flashing me a grin from behind her sunglasses. "Ah, there he is! Please tell me you saw my text?"

I drop myself and my backpack onto the blanket next to her and dig out the energy drink she asked me to bring from the food court on my way.

"That shit's gonna slowly kill you," Wyatt comments, wrinkling their nose as Paola takes the first sip. She answers by giving them the finger as she chugs half of it in one go.