For the next hour, we fill out worksheets, I share my leftovers with Tucker, and he makes us awful break room coffee. And slowly my brain forgets about the extreme discomfort I felt at the sound of someone calling me hot. Everything that’s been a source of pain or worry for me over the last few weeks falls away until it doesn’t matter, because Tucker Watson and I are sitting across from each other with only a narrow table between us. If this table wasn’t here, all I would see is his thigh laced between mine and the inside of his foot resting against mine. It’s a silent, unacknowledged touch that makes everything inside of me roar to life.

Twenty-One

Ms. Jennings holds her hands up, fingers stretched out, triumph written all over her face as we hold the final note of our graduation medley. She snaps her hands shut, and we stop in unison. With a teary-eyed grin, she nods. “Perfect. Just perfect.”

“Ms. Jennings,” Kyle says, “can you please go to college with us?”

“You pretty much look young enough to be a senior in college, anyway,” Alex chimes in.

“Suck-ups,” I mutter.

“But it’s true,” Clem whispers as she peels a piece of purple nail polish from her thumbnail. “She looks young enough to be in our class.”

The bell rings and the thrum of noise in the hallway is immediate. “Okay,” says Ms. Jennings over the commotion, “I’ll see you all next week. And Waylon, if you could stay behind for a moment, that’d be great.”

“Ooooh!” Clem pokes at my side. “Someone’s in trouble.”

I roll my eyes and toss the keys her way as she joins Hannah in the hallway. “This teacher’s pet would never. I’ll meet y’all at the truck.”

I hover at Ms. Jennings’s desk as the last student scoots off to lunch. Being asked to stay behind after class by a teacher will forever make me anxious.

She closes the door behind her and turns to me. “It’s been a big couple weeks for you, huh?”

She’s talking about prom, but the video too, which I’m sure she saw. “That’s an understatement.”

She nods, her lips twitching into a sad smile. “That thing people say about high school being the best years of your life? It’s a lie.”

“I’d hoped that was the case.”

She crosses her arms and leans against her desk. “I hear Clem is off to Georgia with Hannah. Have you given any thought to what’s next for you?”

I shrug. “Community college maybe. I don’t know. We were supposed to go to Austin, but that’s not . . . well, she’s going to Georgia.”