I didn’t see Thad for a few weeks, but that didn’t mean he ignored me. He’d send me the occasional precious text, like I saw a cat in our neighbor’s window and I really want to know its name or Why do you think they named a trombone a trombone? It doesn’t have bones. Kinda freaky to think about. I looked forward to his texts almost as much as I looked forward to Duncan’s. They were funny and cute, and so representative of Thad’s personality. Sometimes he’d tell me bad jokes he just came up with. He gave me the name of his Instagram account, which was where he put his photography, but there wasn’t much. His SLR camera was from the 90’s, something he’d been given by his grandmother, so it used film. This meant that he had to scan in the printed photos in order to put them online, so there were only a few: an Alabama beach, his grandmother in the kitchen smiling, someone’s horse standing at the edge of a fence, looking at the camera. They were good photos, even if the subject matter wasn’t particularly groundbreaking.

I found myself visiting his Instagram account more than once, clicking through the fifteen pictures there. He had five followers, two of whom were skimpy women in bikinis—probably bots. I didn’t even have an Instagram account, but I made one just so that I could follow Thad’s account. I also went through and commented on three of the pictures, figuring that commenting on all of them would be too creepy. Who knew if Thad even read the comments, because he’d uploaded a the last photo a year ago.

One night I’d just gotten home from the liquor store when Thad texted me.

First day of school. It’s huge! I got really lost and was late to two of my classes, but I met a girl named Sam who was super nice and helped me find my classes. She said I could sit with her at lunch, and all her friends are cool, so I guess I made friends my first day.

Thad didn’t have a smartphone, so I had no clue how he texted so well without autocorrect and autofill. I furiously texted back. Wow, awesome! Congrats! Never doubted you. ;)

It took him a while to respond, so I made myself a drink by pouring some Pepsi and vodka into a glass. Then I crashed on the couch, turned on the TV, and watched the first five minutes of some stupid reality television show until Thad texted me back.

I’m used to being the smartest person in the school but now I’m probably the tenth smartest. JOKE! Classes went well and the teachers were nice. Only one person made fun of my accent, and it wasn’t mean.

I was halfway through typing my reply, and then Thad just called me, so I picked up.

“I hate typin’ on a phone,” was his greeting. “And I got more to say.”

I chuckled, taking a sip of my drink. “Clearly. Sounds like you had a good time.”

“People are so different here! Like, maybe it’s just the people in my AP classes, but people are so smart and motivated and… well, everyone’s from somewhere else. I mean, in Alabama, I was prolly related to half the people in my school, somehow.”

“Mhm.”

“I was scared I’d show up and no one would talk to me because it’s a big city school and there’s all these stereotypes about how city people are, but I dunno, Sam was real nice and all her friends were, too, and they even said that they’d bring me a birthday present on Wednesday.”

“Oh shit, right, you’re turning eighteen. You gonna have a party?”

“I dunno. I think I’d rather just do something fun.”

“Like go clubbing?”

Thad was silent a moment, as if what I’d said was absurd.

“I mean, that’s what I did on my eighteenth birthday,” I muttered. I didn’t mention all the molly I took, or the fact that half of that night had been utterly wiped from my memory.

“I was thinkin’, like… bowling.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, okay.”

“Or maybe an arcade. They got those for adults now.”

“Yeah, you could go to Dave & Busters or something.”

“Or I could go to the beach. Ya know, I haven’t been to the beach yet.”

“You should go to the beach. If you want a real tourist trap, you should go the Santa Monica Pier.”

“Would you go with me?”

I paused in taking another sip of my drink. “Maybe you should take your new friend Sam.”

“I guess…” He sounded a little disappointed, which made my chest clench. “I don’t really know her that well though.”

“You don’t know me that well.”

“We’ve hung out a few times. If you don’t wanna go, Justin, that’s fine. I don’t wanna be, like, annoying or clingy or anythin’.”

Christ. How many times had I apologized to men for being clingy? I hated how that humiliation of asking for too much too soon felt, how it festered in your mind for days on end and utterly destroyed your concept of what you really wanted. “No! It’s fine, I just thought… I don’t know. I’m a bit older than you. I didn’t want to be, like, a creep who hangs around teenagers.” I winced. I could have worded that better.

“You’re twenty-three, not thirty.”

“I think the cut-off is around twenty.”

“Like I said, if you don’t want to, that’s fine. But I don’t think you’re creepy.”

That made one of us, I guess. However, I knew I couldn’t say no. How many times did people practically beg me to hang out with them? I was so used to feeling like my presence annoyed people, and Thad was always so genuinely nice to me.

“Okay,” I said. “We can hang out on your birthday. I’ll bring you a present, and we’ll stop by the Pier.”