Page 2 of The Getaway List
It feels like someone pressed fast-forward on the whole morning after that, because before I know it the principal is congratulating the graduating class and rickety chairs are squeaking as we all clamber to our feet. Graduation caps and gummy worms are flying through the air, kids are yelling like they’ve suddenly grown a third lung, and I feel the electricity of the room like it’s buzzing in my bones.
No, wait. My phone is literally buzzing against my hip. I pull it out and see the belated response from Tom.
I miss the shit out of you you know. Every day. I’m sorry if I’ve been bad at keeping in touch so I just wanted to say that.
I blink at the text, my throat tight. Caps are still flying and students are jostling each other and hollering and setting off confetti poppers and I’m standing in the middle of it all, staring at my phone screen and typing out the words I miss the shit out of you too.
“Riley!”
I snap my head up to see Jesse half jogging over to me. His robe is already wide open, his ripped black jeans and faded band T-shirt a sharp contrast to everyone else’s spiffy graduation best, including the upsettingly traffic-cone-orange sweater set of my mom’s I’m wearing now.
I’m half considering demanding he trade outfits with me—those few months we dated sophomore year we swapped enough clothes that there’s actually no guarantee that isn’t my shirt he’s wearing—but he’s already spilling over with excitement, his mop of dirty blond curls lifting as he runs over.
“Dude, high five.”
I oblige Jesse, who doesn’t just high-five me but grabs my hand and holds it up like I’m a champion prizefighter. His eyes look like someone backlit them with neon.
“Look at us, actually going out there and following our dreams,” he says, emphasizing the last word with another squeeze of my hand.
“Getting a McFlurry and napping until August?” I ask.
Jesse is even more absurdly enthusiastic to be alive than usual, because he spins and releases me like a clunky ballerina.
“Nah, I mean saying ‘screw the establishment!’ and going our own way. You know we’re among the select few cool kids without colleges next to our names in the graduation program?” he says, proudly holding one up.
I did not know there was a program in the first place, let alone one that tattled on us. Jesse tucks his carefully into his robe the same way he always does with flyers and knickknacks from events, collecting mementos like a tall magpie.
“Huh. Well, I’m not really yelling anything at the establishment,” I admit. “I’m probably just going to start taking community-college classes in the fall.”
Jesse’s grin wilts like he wasn’t expecting such a boring thing to come out of my mouth, and to be fair, I wouldn’t have either. He recovers quickly and says, “Well, maybe you’ll have to come up to New York. You can crash with the Walking JED anytime.”
“The band is moving to New York?”
I’m more surprised that I didn’t know than I am at the idea of them moving. The Walking JED (so named because their names are Jesse, Eddie, and Dai, and all three of them are painfully obsessed with zombie lore) are so ridiculously talented that it’s kind of a wonder they didn’t all get Walking GEDs and ditch this Popsicle stand years ago. Jesse’s the lead singer and writes most of their songs, and between his delightfully offbeat sense of style and distinctly sweet and smoky voice, it’s only a matter of time before someone is shoving a record deal in their faces.
Jesse nods, every inch of him thrumming with energy. “Bright and early tomorrow morning!”
There’s no ignoring the pang between my ribs this time—the one that’s been aching just under the surface for months. Truth be told I don’t really have any designs on college, so it’s not getting left behind in the literal sense. More like the figurative one. I look around and everyone has some kind of plan. College. Pursuing a passion. Seeing the world.
I’ve got the McDonald’s drive-through and then just a giant blank slate of “???” on the other side. I feel a surge of irrational fear, like I’ve just stepped too close to an edge I didn’t realize was a cliff.
But then I feel two firm arms wrap around the back of me and my mom’s familiar minty breath saying into my ear, “Well, if it isn’t my newly graduated hellion.”
I lean in as she kisses me on the temple and gives me an extra squeeze before letting me go.
“Look,” I say, handing her the diploma. “Free kindling.”
But then she gets all misty-eyed and says, “I bet we can find a decent frame for this. Put it up somewhere in your room?”
I’m about to object to the idea of disrupting the vibe of any place in the apartment with a reminder of the most monotonous years of my life when Jesse squints at us and says candidly, “Yeesh, I always forget how alike you look.”
He’s not wrong. This is partially due to the fact that I am a carbon copy of my mom, to the point where the dad I’ve never met might as well have just hit Control + C, Control + V on my mom’s internal keyboard and walked away. We have the precise same honey-brown curls, the same hazel eyes, the same tall, wiry frames and even, somehow, the precise same freckle under the right side of our lower lip.
But the alikeness is even more exaggerated by the fact that my mom is only nineteen years older than I am, and people assume she’s my sibling as often as my parent.
“Oh. Hello, Jesse.” My mom gives him an amused once-over and says, “I see you’ve added more tattoos to the collection.”
My mom likes Jesse just fine, but likes him a lot more now that we are very firmly exes. Jesse and I never got into the kind of shenanigans that drove my mom up the wall the way Tom and I did growing up, but dating him right on the heels of Tom leaving probably didn’t help matters. Jesse’s love of tattoos and guitars reminds her a bit too much of her alleged “wild youth” in New York she has been afraid I’ll make a sequel out of probably since the moment I was born. No offense to my mom, who was likely a badass in her day, but staying out all night clubbing to early 2000s hits in low-rise jeans while sneaking sips of Fireball from a glittery hip flask isn’t exactly her nerdy daughter’s scene.
