Page 4 of I'm Gonna Get You Back
“‘Guess who’s coming home for Legacy Weekend, B-words!’” Mitchell reads aloud. “A full two months at college and Kenji still doesn’t cuss.”
Mitchell types back right away, and I pick up my phone when it vibrates again.HELL YEAH CAN’T WAIT!!!! When will you all be here?
I’ve been willfully ignoring the fact that it’s Legacy Weekend next week. It’s not like I can avoid the buzz around town—the banners strung across the town square and the signs in every shop window.
But that doesn’t mean I’m ready for it.
Legacy Weekend is when all Woodhurst High alumni, most notably the five most recent Legacies, come back to Woodhurst for a three-day spectacle to celebrate them and the program. It’s bigger than homecoming, bigger than Thanksgiving break if you ask a local, and everyone who left for college comes back home for it.
I’ve been dreading it all summer.
But why is Kenji resuscitating the group chat? Is hetryingto be chaotic?
A selfie of him shirtless at the beach baring a wide, relaxed smile comes through then with no other context. Guess that answers that.
His black hair is longer, his olive skin sun-kissed. Formerly short and scrawny, he’s like the poster child for a post–high school glow-up.
I sneak a glance at Mitchell. “How mad are you that he got cuter?”
Though most people don’t know yet, I’m not the sole person Mitchell’s out to. But I amdefinitelythe only person who knows how he really feels about his best friend.
The flush that seems to appear only when he talks about Kenji dusts Mitchell’s cheeks. He makes a dramatic gagging sound before he says, “So embarrassing.”
Mitchell gives Kenji’s photo a thumbs-down on the group chat, which is basically admitting to his crush then and there. Not that Kenji would ever notice.
When no one else responds right away, Mitchell shrugs and puts down his phone before unceremoniously slapping the space bar to start the doc.
“Hey!” I exclaim.
“Shhhh—it’sart.”
The establishing shot is of the trail Reid and I first hiked together—where we shared so many firsts—and my chest hurts the way it always does when I walk that path now.
I try to tell myself that seeing him again couldn’t possibly make it hurtworse.
We watch the doc in silence. It’s not very long, since I started it only this summer. As the final scene ends, I blink back to the present, having bitten my pinkie nail down to a painful nub. I sit up a little straighter and wait for Mitchell to say something. Anything. Well, notanything. I’m definitely waiting for him to say something along the lines of “Perfect, no notes. You’re not a total fuckup.”
It’s the slight purse to his lips that tells me a second too late that I don’t want to hear what he thinks after all.
“Okay… I was willing to let the Great Depression sweatpants go, but this”—he waves his hand over the laptop—“is a problem.”
I search his face for the joke, only to realize he’s being serious. Looking down at my legs, I ask, “What’s wrong with my sweatpants?”
“They’re symptomatic.” Mitchell turns, jutting his knee into the back of the couch. Beside it, a small tear has formed in the green plaid cushion. “Your movies are obviously breathtaking, Clara. The look of them. But this is—a lot of thoughts at once. A lot of sad, miserable, depressing thoughts.”
“It’s notthatbad—”
“You basically said the earth is on fire and it’s all our fault and there’s nothing we can do so we might as well give up. This whole thing just doesn’t feel like… you.”
I close the laptop quickly. As if shutting it down will stop the river of embarrassment now flowing through me. I started this doc because I thought this was what the film festivals would want. What CAFA would want. Something that they would take seriously.
But this is exactly what I was afraid of—that I have no idea what I’m doing anymore. Both as a filmmaker and in my life. There’s no guarantee CAFA will accept me again, and if I don’t make something undeniable, I’m stuck here all over again. Failurecan’tbe my legacy.
“Seriously, are you okay?” he asks.
The earnestness of his question is unnerving. Is he actually worried about me? I know what that’s like. I hate that I could be acting just like my mom does when her depression takes over. Still, it’s impossible to lie to Mitchell. “Would you be?”
His face goes sympathetic, and he shakes his head.
