Lauren Miller - Free to Fall

“A small price to pay for a shot like that,” I allowed.

“I could make a whole series of photos just like it,” Beck said excitedly as we picked up our pace. We were already three minutes late for class. I pulled out my Gemini to check our ETA. Ninety-two seconds until we reached campus, another thirty-three for me to get to AP Psych. I was still consulting my screen when I heard Beck say, “I mean, it’s not like it’d be hard to find people who are being ignored by a bunch of idiots on their handhelds.” As if on cue, I tripped on an uneven patch of sidewalk. He just looked at me. “Really? You need to track our progress down to the millisecond? We’ll get there when we get there, Rory. Or we won’t.”

Beck had a very ambivalent relationship with his handheld. He used one, of course, but only for calls and texts. I, on the other hand, used my Gemini for everything. My calendar, my assignments, my Forum page, my playlists and books—I wanted all of it at my fingertips, always. And, of course, I wanted Lux, which kept my life running smoothly. I consulted the app at least a thousand times a day. What should I wear? Where should I sit? Who should I ask to Sadie Hawkins? Every decision that could possibly matter, and most that probably didn’t. Except Theden. I hadn’t asked Lux whether I should apply because I was too afraid the answer would be no.

We split from each other when we got back to school, and I headed to Psych. I was scrolling through my newsfeed as I walked, so I didn’t see Hershey Clements until I almost ran into her.

“You’re Rory, right?” She was standing outside my classroom door, her dark hair pulled back off her face and twisted into one of those artful knots you see in magazines but can never replicate yourself. She was wearing eye shadow but no mascara, and dark pink lip gloss. Enough makeup to be intimidating without hiding the fact that she didn’t need to be wearing any at all. She was gorgeous. And really tan. Hershey’s parents had taken her to Dubai for spring break (a fact I knew because she had, inexplicably, friended me on Forum, despite the fact that we’d never had an actual conversation, subjecting me to her incessant status updating while she was away) and she’d returned last Monday with a henna anklet and a caramel-colored glow, a reminder to the rest of us how pale and poor and uncultured we were.

“Um, hi,” I said. She seemed to be studying me, or sizing me up, maybe. What did she want? She had to want something . Hershey Clements would not be waiting for me in the hallway unless there was something in it for her. Girls like her did not talk to girls like me. I wasn’t an outcast or anything, but with an I’m-too-cool-to-be-cool boy for a BFF and no real girl friends (having a dead mom and no sisters really screwed me over in the female-bonding department), I wasn’t even on the periphery of Hershey’s crowd. Still, the whole I’m-not-sure-I-know-your-name routine was total BS. She knew who I was. We’d had at least two classes together every year since sixth grade.

“I have to admit, I was a little taken aback when I saw your name,” she said then. “I mean, I knew you were smart and all, but I assumed it was because you were, like, obsessed with studying and crap.” Huh? I was lost, and Hershey could tell. “I saw you got into Theden,” she said, rolling her eyes like I was an idiot for not keeping up.

“You did?” I’d just opened the letter twenty minutes ago and hadn’t posted it anywhere yet. Had Beck put it on Forum?

“Duh. The app updates every day. A week after they send the letter, they put your name on the admitted list.”

“What app?”

Hershey sighed heavily, as if it was stressful for her to be interacting with such an imbecile. She pulled her handheld from the back pocket of her denim mini. “The Theden app,” she explained, tapping a little tree icon that matched the design on the lapel pin in my pocket. She held her phone up for me to see.

“Wait, why do you have—?” Something gold glinted on the inside of her wrist. The Theden pin. She’d pinned it on the cuff of her cashmere blazer. Suddenly I understood. I met her gaze. “You got in too.”

“Don’t look so surprised,” she retorted.

“I’m not surprised,” I lied.

“Whatever. It’s fine. I’m pretty sure my grandmother bought my way in anyway. That’s how my dad got in. Hey, lemme see your phone.”

She reached around me, grabbing my Gemini from the back pocket of my jeans. She touched its share button to hers. “There,” she said, handing the phone back to me. “You have my number. We should be friends now.” As if it were a given that I wanted to be friends with her. Then she spun on her heels, pulled open our classroom door, and sauntered inside.

IT WAS AN ETERNITY TO AUGUST. There were days when it felt like it would never come, that time had actually slowed down and would eventually stop. It didn’t help that my ordinarily laid-back father had become cloyingly nostalgic and sentimental, gazing at me over the dinner table like the dad character in a sappy wedding movie. My stepmom wasn’t any better.

Thankfully, they both worked full-time, my dad at his latest construction site and my stepmom for a chocolate shop in Beacon Hill, so I was on my own during the day. I spent nearly every afternoon with Beck, accompanying him on whatever photo assignment his mentor-of-the-week had given him. Beck was in the national apprenticeship program, which meant he’d intern in his chosen field for the next two summers then go straight into the workforce after high school, trading college for a two-year federally subsidized internship. When he got his last assignment of the summer—to chronicle a day in the life of someone living in Nickelsville, Seattle’s last remaining tent city—Beck just about exploded with excitement.

It was the evening before my departure, and we’d been hanging out among the fuchsia tarps all day. It was after seven already, and Beck had thousands of pictures of his subject, a homeless man named Al whose left leg stopped just above his knee. The light was starting to fade now, and I was no longer as comfortable as I’d been midday. I’d turned Lux on silent, but the words PROCEED TO A SAFER NEIGHBORHOOD were blinking on my screen.

“Wasn’t your assignment a day in the life?” I asked Beck in a low voice. “Not a night in the life? We should head back downtown.”

“During the golden hour?” Beck had his camera to his eye and was rapidly shooting as Al built a small fire in a metal bucket by his tent. “Rory, look at the sky. This is a photographer’s wet dream.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Gross.”

“If you need to go, you can,” he said, his face still behind his lens. “I know you have that dinner with your dad.” I was leaving early the next morning, and my dad was taking me out for a going-away dinner at Serious Pie, just the two of us. I’d told him it was more than fine for my stepmom to come with us, but he insisted we go alone, assuring me her feelings wouldn’t be hurt. I doubted this but was happy to have him to myself on my last night at home. Kari was great for my dad, but I could relate to her even less than I could to him, which is to say, not at all.

“I don’t want to leave you down here alone,” I told Beck, my voice even quieter than before.

“I’ll be fine,” Beck said, finally lowering his camera and looking at me. “The light will be gone in another thirty minutes or so anyway. And he’s here.” He pointed at the uniformed cop sitting in his car across the street.

“Okay,” I said, still uncertain. There was a reason Lux kept people like us out of neighborhoods like this (if you even could call a homeless encampment a “neighborhood”). “But will you at least launch Lux? I’ll feel better if I know it’s running.”