Page 18 of Catching Feelings

“I wanted senior year to be about everything I love about this school. All the things I want to do, the projects I care about. I was at my dad’s vacation place in Charleston over the summer, which is nice and all, but it was also kind of a way not to deal with everything that’s changed here.” She blinks, as if surprised at herself. “I haven’t said that out loud to anyone. I mean, Kara probably guessed, because she’s Kara, but otherwise, the whole thing has been so messy and uncomfortable that I barely want to think about it, let alone talk about it…” She takes a deep breath. “Yikes. Sorry to massively overshare. I guess you’re just a good listener.”

“Not oversharing,” I say immediately, tucking her compliment close to my chest. “Thanks for trusting me.”

Guys on my old team used to say I was a good listener too. Santi would always call me whenever he had a problem with his parents to talk through, and both Jared and Avery confessed their crushes on each other while swearing me to secrecy. But I haven’t gotten close enough to anyone here in Hamilton Lakes to re-create the same connection… and it feels kinda nice.

“And all those feelings make sense,” I add. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last few months, it’s that sometimes we just need to know our feelings aren’t so foreign to other people. It makes me continue, even though my pulse is racing beneath every word. “My last spring had its own messy and uncomfortable stuff, to be honest. It’s why I ended up here in Hamilton Lakes. And I get not wanting to think or talk about it. That’s the last thing I want, most days.”

Sabrina turns to study me, and I get a flash of panic. Like maybe I shouldn’t have been so honest. Sabrina’s at the very hub of the Hamilton Lakes rumor mill, and if she says something—or asks too many follow-up questions—

But she just nods and gives me a soft smile. A little sad, but real. Like she gets it. And maybe like I get her. “Yeah. Well, if you want to talk about it sometime… from one compartmentalized mess to another, I’m all ears.” She laughs, and the energy of the moment shifts. “Anyway, thanks for being my homecoming date. It gives me one less thing to worry about this fall.”

I have the feeling of being blocked just as I was going in for a great pass. Like a door was opened just to be closed again.

All I want is to keep talking, to hear more about what makes her tick. It feels like I’m peeling away layer after layer, getting a little closer to her hesitancy around having a real date. But I’ve very clearly gotten the message that this conversation won’t continue. At least not tonight.

“Turn here,” I say, leaning over farther than strictly necessary to point out her left-hand turn. She makes the turn easily, holding herself very still instead of leaning out of the space I’ve invaded, but the tips of her ears turn slightly pink. “Last house on the right.”

“You—you live here?” Sabrina’s eyes widen, glancing between me and the Thompsons’ in a way that suddenly makes me concerned she’s about to plow down a mailbox or two.

I turn to look at the front lawn myself. There’s a Hamilton Lakes hockey sign out front for Ryan and a football one for me. Aunt June planted some new flowers to line the boulevard, and they’re thriving, thanks to the last summer shower (as long as you don’t look at the patch that Ryan accidentally trampled when he was trying to park one-handed while sucking down an iced latte the other day). There’s a light on in Ryan’s room that tells me he made it home, while my guest room window is dark beside his.

Nothing looks out of the ordinary. I frown.

“I know, right?” I shake my head. “Way bigger than my place back home. I heard Ryan throws some sick parties.”

Sabrina pulls the car abruptly to the curb. I cling to my seat belt, inertia jolting me firmly back into my own personal space. “Ryan Thompson?” Her voice has gone a little high-pitched.

I peer at her curiously. “Yeah. He’s my cousin.”

Her mouth makes a perfect O, and I get distracted by the Cupid’s bow of her lips. Then I realize they’re forming the words “I have to go.”

I barely have time to climb out of the car before she’s putting that old clunker’s pedal to the metal like she’s in Fast & Furious: 2 Fast 2 Spirited.

I raise a bemused hand in farewell. Was it something I said? “Bye, homecoming date,” I say to empty air.

9. SABRINA

My planner is absolutely ruined from my overthinking. Page after page of scribbles, trying to untangle the mess in my brain, spilling onto my week one homework list, and then onto the page I set up for tracking homecoming fundraising.

Tyler Holloway is Ryan’s cousin??? weaves, in various permutations, across it all.

I sigh, turning to a new page. I don’t have time for this! After the news about the gym renovations, I really need to get working on alternate venues. We already had plans for a balloon arch that fit perfectly in the space, and that was a huge investment of funds—I wonder if the balloon place gives refunds? Who knows which of the downtown businesses actually has space; and depending on the price of their rental fees and deposits, we’re going to need to raise somewhere between a truckload and a shit-ton of extra money. How much can the annual car wash put away?

I slam the notebook closed and toss it in my backpack. None of my plans for the start of school are working out. I should renounce my title as president of the Spirit Committee. More like queen of overthinking.

His cousin?!

But the final alarm on my phone is going off, reminding me it’s my last last chance to get to school on time, and that’s enough self-pity and worry. I have a school day to dominate.

I turn off my sunrise lamp, adjust the throw pillows on my bed one last time, and breeze out the door and downstairs. Mom’s already gone, of course, but there’s a note propped against the matcha she made me before she left. (She’s all about the matcha vs. coffee debate right now, and she’s done the medical research to back it up.) I stir up the drink to dislodge the sediment from the bottom while I read her neat cursive:

Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.

I snort and fold it into the back pocket of my jeans. I don’t resent how busy she is—she went back to get her nursing degree when I was in middle school and rose up to head RN by the time I was a junior, and she’s honestly an icon for it. I know she hates that Dad’s gone and she’s not around as much as she’d like to be, but I’m going to be gone next year, anyway. It’s a good time to figure out how to be a bit more independent.

I don’t mind doing my own grocery shopping and cooking and laundry. It’s the other stuff that wears on me—the mediating, the pretending I don’t notice all the Nicholas Sparks books she’s reading, the smiling conversations that don’t reach anywhere near the dark underbelly of everything we’re really feeling this year.

I reread the quote as I head to the car. Do not take life too seriously.