I set up my laptop on a table in Atlantic Coastal Academy's student center. Everyone had to present their projects, and the easiest way was to sign up for a mass presentation.
Plus, this way, I could just talk to Logan the entire time. He set up his table right next to mine, and he had posters with the completed charts he showed me when they were just a work in progress.
"Why are they making us do this on a Saturday morning? Don't they know that college kids like to get wild on Fridays?" Logan asked from beside me.
"Oh yeah, watching Mythbusters reruns at my place until three in the morning is pretty crazy," I said.
Logan looked up from his table and at me. "Fuck you, Rea."
I smiled. He wasn't the most eloquent person on the planet, but anyone with a heart could see that what he said and what he meant were sometimes quite different.
"I'm just so tired, and I don't think anyone really gives a shit about seals and tides and whatnot. Your project is about ten thousand times cooler than mine, and you have a fancy table with a tablecloth, plus you look friendlier than me. I should just take a nap," Logan continued.
"But you have to present, or else you're going to end up like Darrell." I shook my head. "Well, when no one's watching, you can sleep under my table if you want."
"Is anyone watching now?"
I looked across the room. Jia, Brett, and Carter were also to set up their tables by us, and although none of them were there yet, it would be a nice Paradise City reunion.
"I don't see anyone. Get under the table. Now," I said and nudged him toward the table.
"I love you so much, and if anyone asks where I am, I'm in the bathroom."
I straightened the tablecloth after Logan crawled under for his naptime (and he needed it; he got grumpy when he wasn't in perfect condition), and just as I looked up, a familiar face strolled up.
"Well, look at who it is. Reagan Winebrenner and her beautiful whale project," Brett said.
I smiled and rolled my eyes. "Hey Brett."
"So where's Logan?"
Even though Brett was a ray of sunshine and Logan constantly emitted rainclouds and fog, the two of them had an odd friendship that would definitely last even beyond graduation.
"He's taking a nap underneath my table. He spent the night over at my place, and he didn't get much sleep."
He smiled and nodded. "I get it. Nice."
The truth was that all we did was watch TV and enjoy each other's company, but Brett didn't need to know that.
"So how are you going to present your project? Free samples?" I asked to change the subject.
Brett laughed. "Dammit, that's what I should have done. My plan was to just show a PowerPoint of all the good times and food we had, but that actually makes more sense."
"It's okay. I'll tell everyone how good the food was, and they'll just have to take my word for it."
"Thanks," Brett said, then he began to set up his station on his table.
I was pretty sure that there weren't going to be a lot of people who wanted to see what kind of projects everyone did, so I would probably have plenty of time to chat with everyone from Paradise City. Of course, we all talked when we could, but with classes and other engagements, we were busy people.
I went back to setting up my laptop, and even though my target was a bunch of broke college students, hopefully a few of them liked whales more than food and books. All of the whales I had identified were officially up for adoption, and for fifty dollars, the generous people would get an update every month with their newly adopted whale.
I already took two of the whales: Luna and Reagan Loves Logan Talbot. The former was my favorite, and I didn't need anyone else seeing the latter. That was a cringy lapse in judgement on my part.
Just as silently as always, Carter arrived and set up his presentation at the table next to mine. He had a glass of water, a microscope, and pages upon pages of notes. I wasn't sure where he got the water sample from, but he seemed excited as ever to share his knowledge with the world.
Jia, on the other hand, wasn't nearly as quiet as Carter with her entrance.
"Brett! Reagan! Carter! How are you guys?" She turned to me and raised her eyebrows. "Where's the fiancé?"
"He's under my table ignoring his responsibilities," I replied.
Jia lifted up the tablecloth and waved. "Hi Logan."
"Fuck off. I'm trying to sleep here," he replied, and I held in a laugh.
"You're lucky you're not engaged to me. I would smack the shit out of you for talking like that," Jia said.
"Yeah, good thing."
This time, I couldn't stifle the laugh.
"I missed your constant irritability." Jia dropped the cloth back down and looked up at me. "It's just so romantic meeting the love of your life on an island like that. I'm so jealous."
"What about your Minnesota boy? How's he?" Brett asked.
"He's good. He just got out of the ER," Jia replied.
"Wait, what happened?" I asked.
"He had another scooter accident. He's fine though."
I rose an eyebrow. "Another?"
Shouldn't have one scooter accident been enough?
"Anyway, we should totally make a study group or something, and then not study. It'll be so fun, just like all the time we wasted to piss off Darrell," Jia said.
Brett laughed. "At this point, I'm just like, C's get degrees."
"I'll study with you, but only if we actually study," Carter said.
"Carter, honey, I'm not sure you're grasping the concept of a study group. The whole point is that you just fuck around and get nothing done," Jia said.
I smiled. I loved Jia, but she and I were a little different on that issue.
The four of us (plus Logan, who was still supposedly napping) took our seats and waited for someone to visit our Paradise City corner of the student center.
After a few minutes, three familiar faces strolled through.
Three familiar faces that I didn't exactly care for, but I smiled anyway. Hailey had Darrell draped over her shoulders, and Logan Two led the two of them up to my table.
"Hi Reagan," Logan Two said. He picked up the photos I had laid out, laminated and everything. "Are these all the whales you identified over the summer?"
I nodded. "You don't have to pretend like you care about them. I know that you're a fraud."
Logan Two laughed. "And you're still just as funny as I remembered."
"Well, if you want to do your part to save the whales, since you don't want to continue this project next summer, you could always adopt one of the ones we saw."
"Is it free?"
"That wouldn't really accomplish anything. It's just a small donation of fifty dollars," I said,
Logan Two shook his head. "No thanks."
So it was all a lie then. He never cared about the whales, and he didn't really care about me either. It stung a little, but I couldn't really please everyone. As long as I had Logan One, Puke Boy, my Logan, stood with me, what else did I need?
I looked over at Darrell and Hailey. "And I see you two are going to have a good time this summer together, assuming you stop enforcing Rule Number One."
Hailey and Darrell together was one of the worst possible combinations I could imagine, but after not vouching for Darrell, I figured it was probably best to take the high road on this.
"Well, I never thought I'd be able to love again, but Hailey, the most beautiful woman in the world, proved me wrong." Darrell looked over at her and smiled.
I mentally threw up.
"Shut up," she spat.
Jia laughed. "So are you actually going to enjoy Paradise City, Round Three?"
Darrell nodded. "Yeah, I think I am."
Darrell? Having a good time? Not possible.
"Okay, well, as soon as somebody from the grading committee comes over here, I'll be sure to finally vouch for you. You deserve to have your work recognized," Jia said.
Darrell's eyes widened. "Don't you dare, because Hailey is the only thing on the planet that could possibly make me happy."
"Jia, we've already taken the low road once. Let him have this," Brett said.
I nodded. "He's probably right."
Jia put her head down on the table. "I hate all of you for making me be nice."
Logan Two, Hailey, and Darrell all continued past our corner, and the five of us were left alone again.
"I'm not really holding up much hope for the next Paradise City generation," Carter said.
Logan laughed from underneath the table, even though he was supposed to be asleep. I didn't say anything, though, since it was probably difficult to nap on the hard linoleum flooring.
"Yeah, they're going to be about ten thousand times worse than us. Good luck, Toby," Jia said.
Despite the fact that we had the coolest projects out of everyone, no one had visited our station besides people that we knew.
"I wish more people would come by us. I really wanted to get some donations for McCann's research next summer," I said. I didn't want to spend the first year after graduation with a terrible budget, so we needed all the adoptions we could get.
Brett's eyes lit up. "You know, I have something that might attract a few people." He reached into his backpack next to him and pulled out his ducky slippers.
Jia smiled. "You genius."
He put on the slippers and rested his feet up on his table. "With these bad boys, there isn't a woman in the entire building that can resist me. Or a guy, for that matter. I'm the coolest person here."
I laughed. "If I weren't engaged, I'd be all over you right now."
"See? It works on Jia, it works on Reagan. Carter, how do my ducky slippers make you feel?" Brett asked.
Even though the rest of us were talking to distract ourselves, Carter returned to his old ways and ignored us with his microscope. He looked up. "What?"
"Do you like my slippers?" Brett asked.
"They look really soft," Carter said, and that was probably the biggest compliment anyone could get from him.
I turned back to my laptop for a moment, and I scrolled through photos of some of the non-human friends I made during the summer. Fifty-three whales, plus two Venus fly traps, a dead seal, a dead drone, and one really sick gull.
There was no life more fulfilling than the one I chose.
"Please tell me you're not engaged to the guy wearing slippers," a voice said, and I looked up from my computer.
"Dad?" I stood up from my chair. "What are you doing here?"
It had been four years, and though my hands shook, I stopped thinking for just a moment and hugged him.
"Would everyone shut up? I'm trying to take a nap here. So incon—" Logan poked his head out from underneath the table and trailed off.
"Logan, honey, will you go get three coffees? Please?" I asked.
"Make it four," Jia said.
"So that's him?" Dad asked as Logan went to go get the coffee I asked for.
I nodded.
"We'll discuss that decision later. For now, I want to see all the whales you identified," he said, and I handed him the laminated photos. I picked out the best ones, crystal clear and centered, for my presentation, but I didn't think that anyone who mattered would look at them besides my future boss, Dr. McCann.
"These are really nice, Reagan. How do you figure out which whale is which?" Dad asked.
I smiled. I would never get tired of explaining.
"Well, each fluke is different, and when you compare them in the database, you can find out a lot about their history, their health, and who they are. It's just like a fingerprint," I said.
He didn't know a thing about the ocean or whales, but he made the trip from West Virginia to Maine just to support me. What was I even afraid of all those years?
I turned the laptop to face him. "See? This is my favorite. Her name is Luna, and even though she has a few parasites, she's still amazing. I hope she's doing okay right now."
It had been months since I last saw Luna, and it looked like someone else put in an entry for her location and status.
"Hold on a second," I said and clicked on her picture. It was a worldwide project, since nothing ever got done alone, and hopefully there was some good news in the update.
Health: presence of P. balaenoptera detected, but a decrease in previous documentation.
It was pretty incredible that even when times were tough, life could find a way.
I looked over at Logan, who finally brought the four coffees in a tray back to our tables.
Even if we were going to be separated for a while, life could always find a way.