Senior Year Box Set

“El!” Julie and Aunt Tanya chastised her.

Uncle Jim looked askance at his wife. This wasn’t awkward at all.

“They were just teasing you,” I said to play it off.

Thankfully, Dave dropped some of his pancakes on the floor and let out a yowl. He’d been grumpy all morning, so I jumped up and got him out of his high chair. There’s a saying that ‘no good deed goes unpunished.’ He needed to be changed.

Peggy accompanied me because only the women’s restroom had one of those wall-mounted changing tables that you flipped down when you needed to use it. We discovered what Dave’s problem was. I couldn’t wait until all of them were potty trained.

Once he’d been changed, Peggy looked up at me and gave me a kiss.

“You’re a good dad. I’m glad that you decided to adopt Dave.”

“Is it official yet?” I asked.

“Last I heard, it should happen this coming week.”

“Are you all set with transferring to Pepperdine?” I asked.

“I’ll have to sit out a year. But I’ve been considering not running anymore. Since I’m on my own and a single mom, I qualify for financial aid. With what the charity is paying and what you pay me, I don’t need the athletic scholarship.”

“If you ever need anything, you can ask either my parents or me, and we’ll take care of it,” I assured her.

I wished her parents felt the same way.

“Are your mom and dad still giving you a hard time?” I asked.

“They’re not happy that I’m moving to California. It seems to be something new every time I see them. In your graduation speech, when you said to listen to yourself and not others because they have their own agenda, that really rang true for me,” Peggy shared.

“I’m glad you got something out of it. My uncle gave me the analogy of crabs in a bucket. You don’t have to put a lid on a bucket of crabs because when one tries to climb out, the others pull it down. He told me that you need to surround yourself with like-minded people, not crabs.”

“That makes me even more certain that I need to move. The change will be good for me. I also look forward to living in the pool house with Ashley and Scarlet. We single moms need to compare notes and stick together,” Peggy said.

“Maybe the three of you can help me practice for my upcoming movie.”

Peggy gave me another kiss.

“No. You’re good.”

That was what my ego needed. We took Dave back, a much happier boy now, and finished breakfast.

◊◊◊

After church, Tami swung by and picked me up to go to the cemetery. I suspected she was worried I would bail on her.

On the way, we chatted about everything but what this trip was about: visiting the gravesite of our departed best friend, Jeff Rigger. Even after all this time, I would have a thought jump into my head that Jeff would like something. We’d been best friends since kindergarten until we lost him right before the start of our junior year.

At first, it had been just Alan, Jeff, and me. Then, in first grade, Tami had moved here and joined our group. She’d soon become our fourth musketeer. The first crack in our friendships had been entirely my fault. In middle school, I’d been lured into drinking and drugs by a girl who only used me to make another guy jealous.

If I hadn’t been so immature, I would have seen it for what it was. Alan, Jeff, and Tami had all tried to warn me, but I was too hardheaded to listen. That all led to the night where Lily had been drugged and almost died.

By that point, my friends had become so frustrated with me that Tami actually said she didn’t ever want to see me again. Looking back, I couldn’t blame them.

The next crack came when I was sent away for the summer to get my head out of my butt. That coincided with Tami being offered a chance to go to Wesleyan. At first, I’d tried to make the best of it. Of the four friends, she and I had been the closest. Almost everyone, including us, assumed we would end up married.

Between that distance and my being a slut, she decided she needed to date, too. If I’d been rational, I would have seen that it only made sense. I’m sure from the outside, it looked like I wanted to have my cake and eat it too because I basically flipped out. The problem was, I considered Tami to be mine. If she’d ever given me any indication that we could date, I wouldn’t have looked back.

Instead, she kept saying that I needed to grow up first, sow my wild oats and get it out of my system. In the end, I discovered that Tami was scared. She wasn’t ready for the kind of relationship we would have had.

I couldn’t fault her because I thought I’d finally found that with Brook. I’d eventually discovered that Brook had her doubts as well. First, for some reason, she wasn’t sure I really loved her. Then she’d put up her guard because we would be going to different schools for college. I’d already experienced what that was like with Tami leaving, so I knew it wouldn’t be fair to either Brook or me to try to stay together.

As fate would have it, Brook’s parents hit a rough spot and moved, taking the choice out of both our hands.