The Friendship Experiment by Erin Teagan

Author:Erin Teagan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

twenty-one

ON THE DRIVE HOME, Mom swings into the university library parking lot to drop me off. “Be home before dusk, and please watch out for soccer balls and anything else.” She kisses me on the cheek and I get out of the car like the library is exactly what I have in mind. Like it’s just a normal day and my best friend is waiting inside to study with me. I walk into the library so my mom thinks everything’s the same, but my gut does not like this plan. Probably food poisoning, or something worse—​yellow fever mixed with the black plague.

I trudge up the main stairs, passing clusters of college kids with shoulder bags and smiles and enough friends for dozens of Snoozatarium tickets. I creep into the art history stacks because I just want to peek in, to see if Elizabeth still comes. To see if life is the same for her when I’m not in it.

My skin is getting hot again, my backpack heavy, and even though my nose is dry, I feel the blood gathering where it shouldn’t be, like I’m ready to make a scene. I write an SOP in my head on How to Stop Being a Stalker-Weirdo.

Step 1. Go home.

Step 2. Admit defeat.

Step 3. Tell Mom everything.

I don’t listen to myself, and when I stand on my tiptoes to look through the little window in the door, nobody is there. But the table is stacked with books, and two backpacks are flung over the chairs. One is Grace’s; I remember the pink and purple flowers globbed all over it. The other one is Elizabeth’s: practical, blue and silver, sparkly like the ceiling of the planetarium.

If Grandpa were in charge of writing my SOPs, he’d say, Step 1. Find her.

Step 2. Make amends.

Step 3. Get along.

But I’m not Grandpa. My whole body feels fiery, and I have to leave. Fast, so I don’t run into them.

It’s now the late-afternoon library rush and the stairway is clogged with college students. I flatten myself against the railing, but my backpack gets bumped, bumped, bumped. I remember that I stuffed my pencil box into the tiny pocket on the outside of my bag, and when I reach for it, it falls. And then the crowd parts and everything gets quiet except for the click, click, click of pencils bouncing and clattering down the stairs. People are catching them, dodging them, tripping and sliding on them. And I must look like such a middle-schooler, because when the students pick them up they automatically hand them to me, with all their rainbows, peace signs, and kittens.

I take a few and rush downstairs. When I turn around, pencils are still scattered, and Elizabeth and Grace are standing at the top of the stairs looking right at me.

I do exactly the opposite of what Grandpa would’ve done. I leave. One of the college kids grabs my shirt. “Here’s another,” she says. And she’s holding the nub of the smiley-face friendship pencil Elizabeth gave me last year.

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