Page 13 of Better Than the Movies
I tightened the string on my hood, put my head down, and hitthe sidewalk, my worn-out Brooks splashing water up onto my leggings with every step. It was cold and miserable, and I picked up my pace when I turned the corner at the end of the street and could see the cemetery through the downpour.
I didn’t slow until I went through the gates, up the familiar one-lane blacktop road, and just past the crooked elm; then I ran fifteen steps farther to the left.
“This weather sucks, Ma,” I said as I stopped next to my mother’s headstone, putting my hands on my hips and sucking air while trying to slow my pant. “Seriously.”
I dropped to a squat beside her, running my hand over the slick marble. I usually sat down on the grass, but it was way too wet for that. The driving rain made it seem even darker than normal in the shaded cemetery, but I knew the place by heart, so it didn’t bother me.
In a weird way, this was my happy place.
“So Michael is back—I’m sure you saw—and he seems just as perfect as ever. I’m going to see him again tomorrow.” I pictured her face, like I always did when I was here, and said, “You’d be excited about this one.” Even if I had to go to Wes for help. My mom had always thought Wes was sweet but that he played too rough.
“It just feels like it’s a fate thing, the way he was kind of dropped into my lap right after I was listening to ‘Someone Like You.’ I mean, what’s more fate-y than that?Yourfavorite song, fromourfavorite movie, andourfavorite cute-ex-neighbor just happened to drop in? I feel like you’re writing this Happily Ever After from your spot…”
I trailed off and gestured at the sky. “Up there somewhere.”
Even the cold rain couldn’t keep me from being excited as I described his Southern “y’all” accent for my mom. I squatted beside her chiseled name and rambled, like I did every day, until the alarm on my phone buzzed. This ritual had kind of become like an oral diary over the years, except I wasn’t recording, and no one was listening. Well, except—I hoped my mom was.
It was time to head back.
I stood and patted her headstone. “See you tomorrow. Love you.”
I took a deep breath before turning and jogging down the hill. The rain was still coming down hard, but muscle memory made it easy to stay on the path.
And as I ran past Wes’s house and turned into my driveway, I realized I was more excited than I’d been in a really long time.
“Liz.”
I glanced up from my Lit homework to see Joss climbing in my window, with Kate and Cassidy following behind her. We’d discovered years ago that if you climbed onto the roof of my old playhouse in the backyard, you were just high enough to slide open the bedroom window and step right in.
“Hey, guys.” I cracked my back and turned around in my desk chair, surprised to see them. “What’s up?”
“We just got done with a planning meeting for the senior prank, but we don’t want to go home yet because my dad saidI could stay out until nine, and it’s only eight forty.” Cassidy—whose parents were wicked strict—plopped down on my bed, and Kate followed, while Joss sat her backside on my window seat and said, “So we’re hiding here for twenty more minutes.”
I readied myself for pressure from them about the senior prank.
“It was basically, like, thirty people jammed into Burger King, loudly shouting out ideas of things they think are funny.” Joss giggled and said, “Tyler Beck thinks we should just let loose with, like, twenty thousand Super Balls in the hallways—and he knows a guy who can hook us up.”
Kate laughed and said, “Swear to God he had the whole group convinced it was the money idea. Until he said he would need actual money.”
“We seniors are funny, but cheap as hell.” Cassidy lay back on my bed and said, “I personally liked Joey Lee’s idea to just say screw it and do something horrible, like flipping over all the shelves in the library or flooding the school. He said it was ‘ironically funny because it’s so terriblynotfunny’ and that it ‘would never be forgotten.’?”
“That’s definitely true,” I said, taking out my ponytail and digging my hands into my hair. I didn’t want to look at Joss because I felt like she’d take one glance and know I’d been scheming with Wes, so I kept my eyes on Cass.
“You should’ve been there, Liz,” Joss said, and I prepared myself for what came next. A lecture about how we were onlyseniors once, perhaps? She was really good at those.Just do it, Liz. We’re only high school seniors for a few more months.
But when I looked at her, she grinned instead and said, “Everyone was talking about ideas, and then Conner Abel said, ‘My house got forked once.’?”
My mouth fell open. “Shutup!”
“Right?” Kate squealed.
Last year, when I was crushing hard on Conner, we thought it’d be funny to fork his front yard one Saturday night when there was nothing going on and we were all sleeping over at my house. Yes, it was silly, but we were juniors—we didn’t know any better. But in the middle of the midnight forking, his dad came outside to let the dog do its business. We took off running into the neighbor’s yard, but not before the dog managed to catch his teeth on Joss’s pajama pants, exposing her underwear for all to see.
Joss cackled and said, “It was hilarious because, you know, he uttered the bizarro words ‘My house got forked.’?”
“I cannot believe he said that,” I laughed.
She shook her head and added, “But it was also funny because someone asked him what the hell he was talking about, and listen to this. He said, and I quote, ‘A bunch of girls stuck forks all over my front yard last year, and then one mooned us while running away. I shit you not, dudes.’?”
