Homeroom buzzed with anticipation as Stu Mason and his girlfriend, Christine, settled into their usual chairs. Sunlight poured in through the windows, casting warm rays on the desks and walls. This was the last day of high school. It should have been a joyous occasion, the beginning of their summer before college started, but the weight of Stu’s secret pressed down on him like a suffocating hand.
“Can you believe it? We’re finally done with high school,” Christine exclaimed, her brown hair bouncing as she turned to look at him.
Stu tried to smile, but his stomach churned. He knew he couldn’t keep postponing the inevitable. “Yeah, it’s crazy,” he replied, his voice betraying his unease.
Christine’s brow furrowed as she leaned over and squeezed his hand. “Is everything okay? You seem kinda weird.”
“Uh, yeah. Just, thinking about something,” Stu stuttered, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. His heart raced as he mustered the courage to tell Christine the truth that would change everything.
His dad had told him and his family about the move only a month earlier. They’d just finished one of mom’s impossibly dry meatloaves when his father dropped the bombshell on Stu and his sister Lottie: he’d been offered a big promotion, with better pay, but it meant packing their things up and moving across the country to New York. There were more details after that, but Stu couldn’t hear them over the roaring in his ears.
He had a life in San Palmo, something his parents either didn’t understand or didn’t want to. Just because he was sixteen didn’t mean he was some child wandering around without purpose. Most of it admittedly centered on his girlfriend, Christine, who to his shame he hadn’t told about the move just yet. He’d tried to, but each time the words formed he’d lost the nerve to break her heart.
“Thinking about what?” Christine asked, her eyes searching his face.
“It’s just …” Stu hesitated, his mouth suddenly like sandpaper.
“C’mon, you can tell me anything,” Christine reassured him, her soft smile coaxing him to open up.
“Christine, I …” Stu swallowed hard, the words caught in his throat like barbed wire. He couldn’t bring himself to say it, not with her eyes filled with so much trust. “I … I love you,” Stu finally choked out.
“I know that, stupid,” she said with a smile. “You really had me scared there for a second.”
“Yeah,” he laughed uncomfortably. “Sorry.”
Across the school, Roxy sat on the dirty sink of the girls bathroom, her wild hair with pink and purple streaks covering her face. She flicked her lighter and brought the flame to the fresh cigarette hanging from her cherry-red lips.
The bathroom door flung open, crashing into the tile wall. Where most teens would jump off the sink and hide the contraband cigarette, Roxy continued to light it without so much as flinching. She didn’t care if she was caught smoking any day of the year, least of all the last day of school.
Besides, it was only Betsy.
“You’ll never guess what Keith is telling people,” Betsy said breathlessly, quickly closing the door behind her. Betsy had a flair for the dramatic, even for a drama kid. She was always rushing from one emergency to another. Roxy wasn’t sure why she kept Betsy around, but she had a feeling it had something to do with the entertainment value. She took a moment to inhale deeply, watching the burning glow at the end of her cigarette.
“He finally admitted to sucking off the entire team.”
“Ew, no.” Betsy rushed to push open the window before a teacher smelled smoke. She turned to Roxy and took a long, dramatic pause. “He said you guys did it under the bleachers.” Roxy took another long drag as she contemplated this information. “You didn’t, though, right?” Betsy asked.
“No. Not with Keith.”
Betsy almost laughed with relief, then caught herself. “Wait, with someone else?”
Roxy blew out an annoyed lungful of smoke. “Aren’t you supposed to be in class or something?”
“Sorry, I just thought you’d want to know.”
“Well, you thought wrong.” Roxy jumped down from the sink, taking one final drag before flicking her cigarette out the open window. “Keith can say whatever the fuck he wants. It’s not like anyone will believe me over him anyway.”
“But why would he say that?”
“Because he’s an asshole, Betsy, just like the rest of them,” she replied, elbowing the door open. “At least after today, our prison sentence is finally done.”
By noon, Stu was a wreck. As he walked with Nancy to fourth period social studies, he decided he couldn’t wait any longer. He summoned his strength and turned to her, ready to tell her the news.
“I have to go say goodbye to Nancy,” Christine suddenly announced, running off and nearly knocking someone over. Stu’s heart grew heavier with each step she took down the hall. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever get the chance to tell her the bad news.
“Yo,” Brandon called out as he jogged up to him, his muscular frame and confident stride a stark contrast to Stu’s hunched shoulders. “You look like shit, man.”
“I’m fine,” he lied. He couldn’t tell Brandon the truth either, not right now. “End of year jitters, I guess.”
“Right,” Brandon nodded, not convinced. “Well, don’t let it get to you. We’ve got a whole summer ahead of us before college starts. I plan to get up to some wild shit.”
Stu forced a chuckle, but it sounded hollow.
“Hey, Brandon!” Roxy’s voice echoed through the hallway, catching the attention of all the students. She strolled up to them, her combat boots thudding against the linoleum floor, a cigarette tucked behind her ear. “Your friend Keith is a dickhead,” she announced.
Brandon scratched the back of his head awkwardly. He and Roxy had been childhood friends, best friends, really, but their paths had split as they got older. He had football and she had her weird music and even weirder clothes. Still, he couldn’t say all the changes she’d gone through were bad. “What did that jackass do now?”
“Spread lies, as usual.”
Brandon winced. Keith was his closest friend on the football team, and always had Brandon’s back in a fight, but the guy had a habit of stirring up shit and dragging Brandon into it. “Yeah, that sounds like him. Hey, are we all on for the lake tonight?” He changed the subject, looking between Stu and Roxy.
As far back as everyone in San Palmo could remember, it was customary to go out drinking on Lake Conklin the first day of summer vacation. Most of the kids didn’t do it anymore, but a few of them still held onto tradition.
“Sure, sounds like fun,” Stu said, feigning enthusiasm.
“Eric isn’t going, is he?” Brandon asked, catching Stu off-guard.
“I doubt it. He’s not exactly big on parties,” Stu replied. In his head adding, Or you. Eric may have played it off, but he’d never forgiven Brandon for picking on him relentlessly back in freshman year.
“Are you having a party?” Betsy said, appearing from the crowd clutching her books.
“Why, you gonna narc on us?” Brandon shot back. Betsy looked hurt by the insinuation, and yet they all knew she was the first to roll over at the sign of trouble. She pulled her books in tighter to shield herself.
“Maybe I just want to go, too. I’ve never tried a beer, you know.”
Brandon laughed. “Oh my God, I’d actually pay to see that,” he said, and Betsy smiled. She’d always felt like an outsider, the butt of a thousand jokes. She liked the idea of ending her high school career on a positive note. Not as a joke, but as an equal.
“We’re going out to the lake,” Roxy said bluntly. “All night, with no adult supervision. Can you handle that?”
Betsy took a moment to think of all the snakes and animals and bugs that inhabited the woods around Lake Conklin. How if someone were injured they’d be so far away from medical attention. How it was so easy to drown in a dark lake with no lifeguards on duty, no one who knew CPR. And yet all that paled in the face of ending high school as the ultimate square. This was it, she knew, her last chance to rewrite history.
“Hell yes,” she said defiantly, and Roxy smirked at her.
Jennifer, her cheerleader uniform hugging her body, strolled over to the group on her long legs. “I sure hope I’m invited,” she purred.
“Wouldn’t dream of leaving you out,” Roxy replied, giving Jennifer a fake, saccharine smile.
“Good.” Jennifer flipped her perfectly styled hair over her shoulder. “See you all tonight then.” With that she walked off, with all the boys staring at her legs as she went.
Stu sighed. The thought of spending one last night with his friends before he left San Palmo only sharpened the pain in his stomach. But he knew he had to go, if not for himself then for Christine. He knew she wouldn’t miss a party at the lake for anything. With no distractions, nowhere to run, it would be his chance to finally tell her the truth.
The final bell rang, its jarring sound echoing throughout the halls. Their life at San Palmo High School was officially over.
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