“So what happened?” I ask.

She sits higher, shoulders straight. Then she goes on to tell me about Cooper’s mom’s friend who’s the dean of admission at UNC and how they had a meeting over winter break and now she’s looking into a bunch of scholarships. “It probably won’t happen this year. I might have to take a year off or go to community college for the first year, but she thinks it’s very doable,” Lane says, her eyes bright.

“But if you skip a year, that means that you’re going to miss Cooper’s senior year.”

She looks at me like I’m stupid. “I’m no Felicity and Cooper is definitely no Ben Covington.”

I blink.

She giggles. “Never mind. The point is that Sue—”

“The dean of admissions?”

“Yeah. She says that to heighten my chances I need to add more school activities—show school spirit and all that, and I’ve literally done nothing so I’m trying to cram it all into one semester and so I signed up for the spring play.”

“You?” I ask, incredulous. “On stage?”

“God no.” She nudges my leg with her heel. “I’m designing and making the costumes.”

“That’s good,” I tell her.

“Good or great?”

“Great, Lane. It’s great.”

“And we have someone to design the sets but…”

Uh oh. “But what?”

Her words are rushed as if she already knows my answer. “We don’t have anyone to build them, and I know you can do it, Luke, it—”

“No!”

“But you’d be so great at it.”

I sigh, knowing I’m about to disappoint her. “Lane, we’re three days into the semester, and it’s senior year, and I have track meets and practice and—”

“And it’ll be the last thing we get to do together,” she says, and I’m listening again.

“How much time and how closely do we,”—I point between us—“work together?”

“Is that a yes?”

Those goddamn eyes.

She practically leaps into my arms and onto my lap and she doesn’t need a verbal response because she knows me. “This is going to be great, Luke. You’ll see!”

She has dinner with my family—old times—and Dad forces her to spend the night because Brian’s still in Savannah with Misty, and Dad doesn’t like the idea of her being in her house alone. I didn’t know she was alone, or I’d have offered her my bed. I would’ve even gone as far as not sleeping in it with her. She agrees, eagerly. At 7:00, I do my one minute with Lachlan and head back to the apartment where she’s waiting for me. I sit on the floor between the couch and the coffee table and do my homework while she sprawls out on the couch and watches a movie. At 10:30, she’s fast asleep. At 10:48, I stop watching her sleep and get a blanket to cover her. Then I go to my room and send my sister a text:

Lucas: Do you know what a Felicity and a Ben are?

Lucy: OMGOMGOMGOMG. YES!!!! Why?

Lucas: Who are they?

Lucy: Who are they to YOU?!

Lucas: Laney and I were talking about UNC, and she said she was no Felicity and Cooper was no Ben.

Lucy: Well, duh. Cooper is more like her Noel (but an asshole version of him) or maybe even that artsy guy she had that fling with. Dude! YOU are her Ben Covington. Seriously.

Lucas: I’m so fucking lost.

Lucy: There’s this amazing thing called Google. Use it.

Lucy: PS - If Cooper isn’t her Ben, it’s a good thing, bro.

At 2 am and after numerous Google searches that would make any hacker assume I’m a (female) mildly obsessed, romance-drama circa late ‘90s TV junkie, I find out that Ben Covington was kind of a dick (me), but he loved Felicity (Lane), he just didn’t know what to do with that love (Me! Me! Me!)

Chapter Twenty-Two

LUCAS

The day after Laney’s visit, I tell Dad about the spring play and about not really having time for it but agreeing only because it meant spending time with Laney. “It’s like I’m a dog, and she’s just thrown me a bone,” I tell him.

He says, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Which is completely irrelevant, as are his next eleventy-three life-lesson analogies all related to dogs. Then he goes on to tell me about Rusty, the German Shepard he had growing up. When he’s done, I just stare at him. “Sorry,” he says, “Kind of went off on a tangent there, huh?”

“Just a tad.”

“So what are you going to do?” he asks.

I rub the back of my neck, already feeling the stress from the added workload that hasn’t even started yet.

“I have an idea,” he tells me. “It’ll be good. Trust me.”

His idea isn’t just good. It’s great. Brilliant, even.

He makes my brothers do it, too. School spirit and all. (Rah rah rah!)

I do my part, get Dumb Name in on it, too. “Just think of the girls, Garray. They change into costumes right there in the open. Some even show their tits!” They don’t.

Leo’s up for it because Angela, a sophomore and his current conquest, got the lead.

And Logan… Well, he has no fucking choice. Dad still has him on probation for his joyous time with a joint.

It’s been three weeks now and Garray, Leo and I have found a rhythm and we work well together. Logan’s fucking useless until you get a paintbrush in his hand and give him direct instructions.

“Logan, do something, bruh!” Garray says. He spent the winter break visiting his grandparents in California, and now he calls everyone “bruh.” It’s so fucking cringeworthy, but you can’t tell him that.

I give Logan a brush, tell him to paint the particle board I just cut to size the reddest red he can find. He does it, no questions. But he chuckles, mumbles to himself the entire time. “Dude,” he tells me. “This is so fucking therapeutic and shit.” … Okay?

The next day, I have a conversation with Coach Anderman about Logan, and he gives me a cup. “Tell him to piss in it and bring it back to me. I’ll take care of it.”

I make Logan piss in the cup.

It comes back positive for marijuana.

“It’s so fucking therapeutic and shit, bruh,” Garray mocks when I tell Logan the results. Logan throws a swing at him. Garray ducks it. Leo laughs. I sigh.

The truth is, I don’t really care if Logan smokes weed. I personally don’t do it because being clean is a requirement to be on the track team, and track is my ticket to UNC. As long as he’s not breaking the rules at home and burning down the house, it doesn’t bother me. It bothers Dad, though, and his reasoning is justifiable. Dad had been on the wrong end of addiction with alcohol when Mom passed away, and so he thinks it might run in the family. Addiction is scary because it’s unsteady, uncontrollable, and has the potential to damage everything in its path. I tell Lane all this while she sketches out a costume for Juliet (our school is big on Shakespeare) as we sit outside for lunch. “You know what you should do?” she says, looking up at me, her eyes bright against the spring sun. “Come over for dinner tonight. Misty’s cooking. Talk to her about it. She might know a way to help.” She looks back down at her sketchpad and smiles at her work and I stare and I stare and I wonder if maybe Logan’s good, great even, and I’m the one who needs help because I’m addicted to you, Laney.