I woke up to my dad stomping up and down the hallway, telling mom or maybe himself the mantra that this would be a great school year. I grabbed my cellphone and groaned into my pillow. I could've slept for ten more minutes if he weren't freaking out. With the little strength characteristic of a non-morning person, I hauled myself onto my elbows so that I could read the text messages I'd got. Freaking Ellen was up already and saying she'd pick me up for school today. Awesome. Then I realized she sent me this at 5.36am. What the hell? How could my best friend be such a morning person?
I texted her back, Don't tell me you're already outside or something.
Only a second went by before she replied, No, but do you want me to be?
I collapsed face first onto my pillow but told her to give me 15. Then I texted Santiago.
Ellie's picking me up, wanna ride?
No answer came in the next five seconds and I decided to just roll out of bed and get this day over with.
The shower was so scalding hot that when I came downstairs my mom made sure to tell me that I looked extra carrot-y this morning. "You know, I've read cold showers are the best for waking up in the morning."
They're also great for other kinds of ailments but instead I said, "That'd just make me hate mornings even more."
Dad showed up then, complete baseball coach costume on, whistle and all. "It's going to be a great school year, you'll see. We have great prospects for the team and I have great plans."
Mom smiled and nodded. "Of course, honey. And Santiago is back. That's going to be huge for morale."
I chewed some toast as I said, "Speaking about great plans, dad. What have you thought about my proposal?"
He looked at me with the same look someone gives you when their train of thought has derailed and they don't quite know how to put ideas back on track. His uniform was crisp and ironed, ball cap new but the tufts of red hair coming out from underneath were disheveled, giving him a look as if his head were on fire. He looked panicked, to be honest, unlike a man who knows what he's doing.
There was honking outside and it snapped him out of it with a deep breath. He walked over to give mom a kiss on the lips and one on my forehead. He smiled down at me. "I'll think about it, honey bunny, okay?"
"Awesome, but please don't call me that anymore. I'm seventeen."
"You're forever our honey bunny." I rolled my eyes at my mom. "And you," she said, turning to him. "Off you go. It's going to be a great school year."
"Yes, it's going to be the best." He grabbed his duffel bag and when he opened the door he found Ellen standing outside, about to knock. "Good morning, Ellen."
"Mr. O'Hare." She saluted him and let him out. I gave a glance at my mom and I saw the same amusement on her face that I felt at seeing tiny little Ellie have to look up and up at my dad. "Are you ready or not?" she asked me from the door. "Good morning, Mrs. O'Hare."
My mom beamed at her. "It's going to be a great school year. You guys are seniors."
I groaned, but my best friend's body seemed so full of adrenaline that the only way she could expel it was by jumping on her feet. She's the one who looks like a bunny, not me. "Yes, isn't that amazing?"
My mom sighed and looked up. "And in one more year Peyton will be out of the house and we'll be free to do whatever we want."
I scoffed and bent down to pick up the backpack I'd dumped at my feet. "As if you guys don't do that already."
"There's a lot more we want to do." She winked at me and I pretended to gag before giving her a kiss.
"Kick ass at work," I told her. My mom was a hot shot manager at a multinational company, she kicked ass already just by breathing. She grabbed her purse and suitcase and we all walked together outside. It was a hot and humid day, typical of central Florida, and I felt like I was swimming more than walking down the front lawn towards Ellen's car. We let mom leave in her Lexus SUV first and as we buckled our seatbelt we saw something weird just ahead of us.
Santiago walking out of his backyard with a bicycle. He got on it and rode away.
Ellen turned to me, wide eyed. "Was that...?"
"Yep."
She looked back to the front. We both tracked his figure as it disappeared down the corner. She turned on the car and drove as I checked my phone. He still hadn't responded to my text. I narrowed my eyes at the screen as though I could send that message to him.
"This is huge news," she said over the low hum of music from her radio. "Everybody's going to freak out. I'm freaking out."
I put my elbow on the door and laid my head against the window, watching the palm trees pass us by intermittently between cars and school buses. No bikes. Almost no one rides bikes here. "Trust me, I freaked out a little when I saw him yesterday."
"You did?" She attempted a subtle probe there, but we all knew that she was dying for details. It was just who she was, president of the school student paper and all. I grinned but didn't hide it on time enough for her to not see it. "Oh, spill."
"I don't know much yet," I told her. "I got home after practice with the pee wees and there he was. Barbara made dinner for all of us and he told us a little bit about his summer, that was it."
"No way. There has to be more."
I shrugged. "You know him, you can probably get more information out of a cardboard box."
She gave me a side glance at a red stop. "You didn't get him alone or something?"
"No, so it was the same as usual. With everybody speaking over themselves he didn't find the need to stand out and fill us in on his on-goings."
I looked back down at my phone, pressing the home button so the screen would come on. No messages. God damn it. The guy disappeared for three months, only emailed short sentences of I'm fine or I'm getting a tan and now ignored my text messages. I would have to feed him my delicious knuckle sandwich later.
Ellen said, "Well, let me just tell you this. He'll have to deal with it, because he's going to be standing out a lot."
We arrived at school not long after. The red brick and mortar building looked as prison-like as ever, because some things just don't change. Other things that stayed the same were the cliques' hangout spots. The theater kids still loved the stairs leading to the side entrance. The jocks still hogged the god damn main entrance, making it a wrestling sport out of anyone trying to come in. They didn't give me shit for the most part, after that one time one of them thought it'd be funny to grope me and found his crotch meeting my knee. The baseball kids were never in this crowd; my dad had a way with instilling discipline in them. Ellen veered towards her newspaper friends once we made it inside the halls. We had homeroom together, so we wouldn't miss each other for long.
Chris Cabrera was the first of the baseball guys to see me. He came over and gave me a bear hug so big that it lifted me off the floor. I laughed and smacked him so he'd put me down.
"Holy shit, you haven't grown an inch." He smiled down at me and flicked my forehead.
"Shut up, you're the one who's short." It was true. I was tall for a girl my age, and he was a couple of inches shorter. "Where are the other guys?"
He shrugged one shoulder. "Hanging out around, pretending that tryouts are not around the corner and that there's no pressure at all to make it to the team. You know how it is."
I gave him an up and down glance of narrowed eyes. "You don't seem too concerned."
"That's because I'm a shoe in. It's pretty clear I'm an asset if I could catch Seb's pitches."
We both smiled. This one time Seb's pitch broke Chris' wrist tendons. He had pretended nothing was wrong and finished the game like that. By the end of the night the whole team had been packed in the E.R. to find out whether the main catcher would be out for the season. He had been and he'd never gone back to 100%. Probably never would. If he had any aspirations of college baseball or the pros, they were over.
Seb had felt horrible and his pitching followed suit. We lost one game after the next and were on the verge of being disqualified from the tournament. Until they both showed up at practice one day, laughing and joking around as though neither had bruised knuckles or split lips. Dad told me he'd been reluctant to make them form a battery again, but it had worked. Seb's pitches slowed down but we started winning games after that.
Whoever replaced him this year wouldn't have that emotional bond with Chris. I didn't want to tell him this, but I had my doubts whether he was a shoe in after all.
We walked towards our lockers together, interrupted by the occasional fist bump or pat in the back. I made mercifully short eye contact with Jessica Ashford and kept walking ahead.
"So, what have you heard about the younger Miranda?" he asked me as we emptied our backpacks in close by lockers.
"He's back," I said, slamming mine shut. Something sounded suspiciously like a scream of surprise, and it started to travel down the hall. Chris and I turned to look at the origin and found Santiago standing in the middle of a crowd, swallowed by their euphoria.
Chris' eyebrows went up. "That, he is."
"He's freaking out," I told him.
"How can you tell?"
My index finger, directed at Santi's location, did some eights in the air, trying to focus on everything at once. "First of all, it's Santiago. Attention and him don't ever get along."
"Good point."
"Second, he's huge and he's trying to make himself small. He's screaming for rescue without uttering a single word."
We both leaned against the wall of lockers. Chris whistled as some girl broke into tears. "I can't quite put my finger on the reason, but I don't really feel like being his knight in shining armor."
I flashed him a grin. "You're just jealous. C'mon, you'd want someone to have your back if you were being accosted by a mob."
We elbowed our way through until we reached him. Santiago spotted Chris first, his face morphing into relief for a very brief second. Then he saw me and I suddenly regretted thinking he needed my help. He didn't have to look so annoyed, geez.
"Dude," Chris shouted above the noise. "Has no one ever told you to stop growing?"
"Did no one remind you to even start growing?" Santiago shot back.
Chris laughed and shoved him in the shoulder like boys do for a greeting.
"Are you coming or not?" I asked him, folding my arms.
He turned to me. "Where?"
"Away from your adoring fans."
He rolled his eyes but let himself be dragged away. We passed Jared McCann, who had probably seen the whole thing and done nothing about it. He turned his back to us to keep talking with whomever was his fling of the month and we kept walking ahead.
"It's good to have you back, man. It wasn't the same without your snarky ass around." Chris clapped his shoulder.
"This joint hasn't changed, they're just as hypocritical as ever." Santiago sighed. "Just one more year, I guess."
"The last year," I said, as we walked toward first period homeroom together. We exchanged our time tables and found that Chris was in a different class. Ellen, Santiago and I were together, then. Before Chris left, I said, "You know, my dad keeps repeating that this will be a great year."
"And what do you think?" Chris asked us. Santiago and I shared a glance. He shruged.
This year could have started out completely different. We wouldn't have had Sebastian no matter what, because he'd have left for college. He was set to get a full ride to an amazing one, and our team would still be grappling with his empty spot. But it wouldn't be... like this. It would have been a different sense of loss.
I smiled. "I hope he's right."
Chris took a right while Santiago and I took a left in silence. I opened my mouth but for some reason no words would roll off my tongue. I looked down at his feet as we walked, somehow not running into anybody. Ellen was already waiting inside the classroom and we all sat together. They said hi to each other and then she turned to me, mouthing-whispering, he got buff.
I noticed, and with a glance around I realized that the more estrogen-driven part of the class had noticed too. Jessica Ashford's baby blue eyes were specially interested.
I sank in my seat, beginning to find value in my dad's mantra. If I thought really hard that this would be the best school year ever, it would have to become.