“Rutgers, right?” I asked, hoping this sounded casual and not like I’d committed this fact to memory since the day Mike had told me where Jesse was going, not like I occasionally visited the school’s website, looking at the “candid” pictures of the students wearing a suspicious amount of branded school gear, laughing together in the library or the quad, searching for Jesse in the happy multicultural groups, imagining him walking past that building, those stacks of books.
“Yeah,” he said, giving me a quick smile, like I’d surprised him. “Good memory.” He dropped onto his back and then pulled me closer to him, so that I was lying next to him with my head on his chest. My left arm was getting totally squished against him, but I didn’t know where I could put it if I moved it, and besides, it wasn’t like I needed it for all that much anyway. “What about you?” he asked after a moment. “Do you know where you’re going yet?”
I shook my head slightly, not wanting to move it too much from where it was resting. I hadn’t applied anywhere early decision, so some of my applications weren’t even in yet. “Not yet.”
He laughed—and I felt it more than heard it, like a rumble in his chest. “Well, where do you want to go?”
I looked up at him as the names of the schools I was thinking about flashed through my head. But the true answer to Jesse’s question was that I wanted to stay right here, right where we were. And that if I had my choice, I wouldn’t be going anywhere. “I’m still figuring it out,” I said, moving closer to him still.
“Nothing wrong with that,” Jesse said, running his hand over the top of my head and playing with my hair.
I closed my eyes for a second, just trying to commit it all to memory, since I had a feeling, when I was back in my room, in my house, this would all seem like a faraway dream—that I’d been lying naked in bed with Jesse Foster, his arm around my shoulders, my head on his bare chest, hearing his heartbeat. I didn’t want to think about when I might or might not see him again, or what would be happening next year, where I would be. I just wanted this moment, right now, to last forever.
I opened my eyes and stretched up to kiss him again, and as he kissed me back, he pulled me close and the rain started up again, harder than before.
FRIDAY
* * *
CHAPTER 1
Or, Never Trust Anyone Named After a Fruit
* * *
THE DAY BEFORE MY SISTER’S wedding, I woke up with a start, like an alarm had just gone off. I looked around my room, heart hammering, trying to figure out what had woken me. I was still half in the dream I’d just had—Jesse Foster was there, my brother Danny, and there was something about Schoolhouse Rock!, that old cartoon my sister had shown me when I was in elementary school . . .
But the harder I tried to hold on to it, the faster the dream seemed to slip away, and I shrugged and lay back down in bed, yawning and pulling my covers over my shoulders, closing my eyes and halfway to falling asleep again before I realized that an alarm was going off.
There was a persistent beeping coming from downstairs, and it sounded like the alarm that monitored the front and kitchen doors of the house, the one we only ever turned on when we were going on vacation and sometimes not even then. It was loud up on the third floor, so I had a feeling it was probably deafening down on the first.
I reached for my glasses from my bedside table and then stretched over to get my phone from the floor, where I’d plugged it in to charge last night. I pulled up my group texts, all of which were for different combinations of my family members. There was even one that had all of us and my brother Mike, though I could see that hadn’t been used in a year and a half now. I pulled up the one I’d been using the last few days, which was all the people that were currently in the house—my mom, dad, my sister, Linnie, and her fiancé, Rodney.
Me
Why is there an alarm going off?
I waited a moment, then got a series of responses, one right after the other.
Mom
There’s something wrong with the panel, we think—should be off in a minute.
Dad
Why did you text? Why not come down and investigate? What if there had been a burglar?
Linnie
IS there a burglar?
Dad
No
Dad
But there COULD have been
Dad
And if the house were being ransacked, I’m not sure the best course of action would be to text about it.
Rodney
Morning, Charlie!
I was about to text back when the alarm stopped suddenly, and my room seemed extra quiet now.
Mom
It’s off.
Me
I hear. I mean, I don’t hear.
Mom
Coming down? Your dad made coffee and Rodney’s picking up donuts
Linnie
Wait, Charlie why are you even still here? Did Stanwich High change their start time?
Mom
I called her out
Me
Mom called me out
Linnie
Why?
Me
So I can help with wedding stuff
Linnie
If that’s the case, why didn’t you get the donuts?
Rodney
I don’t mind!
Me
I’ll be right down.
I dropped my phone onto my comforter and stretched my arms overhead as I did the time math. My sister was right—on a normal Friday, I would be between classes right now, heading to AP History, but not in any real hurry. Once our college acceptances had started to roll in, all the second-semester seniors—myself included—were a lot less concerned about getting to class on time.
I’d given my mom the hard sell last night, telling her that I could be useful, helping with any last-minute things that might crop up before the rehearsal dinner tonight and assuring her that I didn’t have anything big going on at school today. This wasn’t entirely true—I was the editor of the student newspaper, the Pilgrim, and we had our weekly editorial meeting this afternoon. We were also supposed to discuss the final issue of the year. But I knew that my news editor, Ali Rosen, could handle things for me. Normally, I never would have missed a staff meeting—but all my siblings were going to be here this afternoon, and I didn’t want to waste time that I could be spending with them arguing with Zach Ellison about how long his movie reviews were.
I pushed myself off the bed and made it quickly, smoothing back the covers and fluffing up the pillows, then looked around my room, trying to see if it would be considered neat enough in case relatives or bridesmaids wandered by later.
We’d moved to this house before I was born, so though my two oldest siblings could remember living somewhere else (or so they claimed), this house, for me, had always been home, and this had always been my room. It was the smallest of the bedrooms up on the third floor, where all four of the kids’ rooms were. It was probably just what happens when you’re the youngest, but I’d never minded. There was a slope to the ceiling that perfectly formed a nook for my bed, and it wasn’t drafty like Danny and J.J.’s room always was. And best of all, my room was connected to Linnie’s room via a long shared closet, which had been perfect both for stealing my sister’s clothes and for hanging out with her, the two of us getting ready at the same time or sitting on the floor of the closet, our legs stretched out, talking and laughing, the clothes hanging above us.