“But how will I get it back from you?”
Her best friend, who is in my math class, says, “Should Emi just give it to me when she’s done?”
“Perfect!” Laura says, as though it’s a new idea and not a plan they made before coming up to me.
I take the yearbook from her and walk into class, even though I’m not going to sign it. I’ve never been that into high school, so I don’t care much about these books made to commemorate it, and if Laura wants some kind of closure we can meet up and laugh about things one day. There was a time I wouldn’t have found anything to laugh about, but it’s been a long time since everything ended between us.
Laura is who made me swear off high school girls. The short version is that I’ve always loved kissing. I kissed more boys in elementary school and junior high than I can count. (Purely innocent, by the way. It never went past that.) And then I kissed Tara Ryland behind the science building our freshman year. When our mouths parted she stood there, blinking at me, like, What the? And I blinked back at her, like, Oh my God. But we were reacting to different things. Tara was shocked because one moment we were collecting dirt samples to measure minerality and the next she was kissing a girl. But for me it was different. I skimmed over the girl part and just thought, Is this what it’s supposed to feel like? Because it wasn’t only that she was a good kisser (which she was), it was that the kiss left me shaky, and by this time I had become almost immune to kissing. And then girls sort of started lining up to kiss me. It drove Charlotte crazy. She rolled her eyes for a year straight. In the midst of all of this, just for a couple months, I threw everyone off by dating Evan Haas. What can I say? There was just something about him.
And then Laura descended from the heights of the popular crowd. She wanted to kiss and hold hands in the hallways. She wanted to leave her group to sit with Charlotte and me at lunch, but preferably just me. She wanted to make out with me at parties in hot tubs while other kids watched. And okay, yeah, that was fun for a little while, but I was starting to fall for her and I didn’t want it to be a show.
So now, in between math problems, I give my hand a break from scribbling numbers and think of those nights and days with Laura. For the last few months, everyone has been getting all sentimental about leaving high school, and I guess this is my version of that. By the end of my exam, I’m replaying the afternoon when we were supposed to drive down to the beach and just hang out, and she said, “Or, we could go to Alex’s party. It’s going to be crazy.” She said it while grabbing my hip and pulling me close to her, right in view of Alex and all his friends. I pried her hand off me and stepped back.
I told her, “Let’s just forget it.”
Meaning our plans for that day. Meaning the rare moments when we actually seemed to be in a relationship. Meaning the utter hopelessness of high school girls who didn’t know what they wanted.
This was junior year, and a few months later, when senior year started and Laura still smiled at me in this sad way every time we passed each other in the hallway, I told Charlotte, “I actually think she might have liked me.”
“Of course she liked you,” Charlotte said. “She just didn’t know what to do with that.”
By this time I had already met Morgan and was spending every waking moment trying to get her to notice me, so registering this about Laura felt like just a small thing, but something nonetheless.
Two hours and sixty-five problems later, I walk up to the front and hand my teacher my exam. He’s hunched over his desk, watching silent videos on his laptop. Then, back at my desk, I surprise myself by finding a bright red pen in my backpack and opening Laura’s yearbook to a front page. I’m not going to write anything sentimental, but I can give her something for nostalgia’s sake. So I write in big, bright letters, Kissing you was really fun. I draw a heart by my name.
Then I leave school to find Ava.
~
“What are we supposed to say when we get there?” I ask Charlotte.
We’re just a couple miles away now, inching through traffic, hoping not to get caught in an intersection when the light turns red.
“We’ll just ask if Ava’s home.”
“And if she is?”
She bites her lip, a familiar sign that she’s pondering. Usually something brilliant follows, so I just drive and let her think.
“We know that she was a baby in ’95, so she should be around our age. If she’s older, we’ll just say we got the wrong Ava and head out. But if she is our age . . .”
“What if she doesn’t know she’s adopted?”
“I think she’ll know. Her last name is the same as her mom’s. And I don’t think people keep things like this a secret anymore.”
“I hope not,” I say, “because that would be awkward. Here’s Waring; turn left.”
We find the house, small and blue, with succulents growing in the front yard. We park and unbuckle our seat belts but neither of us makes any move to get out of the car. I lean back. The windshield reflects the tree above us: branches and leaves and the road through the glass.
“If she’s our age,” Char says, “let’s just ask if her mother’s name was Caroline. If she says yes, then she knows more of the story than we do, and we can just tell her we have something that belongs to her, give her the envelope, and let her know that she can call us if she has any questions.”
“Then just leave?” I ask.
She nods. “And if she says no, that Caroline was not her mother’s name, then we should just thank her and go.”
“But what if she says no because she doesn’t know about Caroline, or because she doesn’t know who we are or why we’re asking? What if we think we have the wrong Ava when really she’s the right one?”
Charlotte bites her lip again.
Finally, she says, “I don’t know. We’ll just have to see what happens today and go from there.”
She opens her car door and then I open mine, and I follow her up the walk to the door. Charlotte knocks and we both wait until we hear a kid’s voice from the other side, asking who is it.
“Charlotte and Emi,” Charlotte says. She looks at me for help, but what else are we supposed to say?
“We’re looking for Ava?” I try, but it comes out a question.
The door cracks open and a little girl peers through before pushing it open wider. She has long dark hair in pigtails and a quizzical expression.
“Here I am,” she says.
“You’re Ava?” Charlotte asks.
“Yeah.”
“How old are you?”
“Eight.”