Susane Colasanti - Now and Forever

Georgia flew into a panic. She was freaking out that all her plants were going down. She fretted over everyone, spraying them with plant bug killer. She waited. Then she sprayed some more. All of her spraying paid off. The ponytail palm was the only casualty of the infestation.

You have to be careful about who you bring home.

We look down at the trashed ponytail palm at the edge of the woods. He had such promise.

“Although he only cost three dollars, the joy this ponytail palm brought to my room was unquantifiable.” Georgia peers at me with faux somberness. “Care to add anything?”

“No, I’m good.”

“Then tell me what’s happening with Ethan’s website,” Georgia says, walking back toward her house. “I couldn’t get on last time I tried.”

“It crashed right after ‘Night on Fire’ was released. It was down for a few hours.”

“That’s awesome!”

“How is that awesome?” When “Night on Fire” aired two days ago, Ethan’s website was mobbed with a deluge of hits. Not being able to get on might have made a lot of people forget to try going back later.

“People are into the song.” Georgia holds her back door open for me. “It’s getting crazy. Did you see how many followers he has now?”

“Yeah.” Almost a million. Almost one million people know about Ethan. No. Way more people know about him than that. Almost one million people like him enough to follow him. Which means millions of people know who Ethan Cross is.

The first thing Georgia does when we get to her room is check her plants to confirm they’re aphid-free. I crash on the corduroy pouf. I love Georgia’s room. It has a rustic, arts and crafts feel. Big curtains with cross-stitched flowers. A tree trunk for a night table. An ancient credenza with a stubborn door that’s determined to remain crooked. My favorite thing in here is Georgia’s dark wooden desk. It’s super old and looks like it might collapse if you drop a book on it too hard. Her mom found it at a garage sale after they moved here. My room is more sparkly and polished. I like when everything is where it’s supposed to be. Georgia only cleans her room when her mom makes her.

“How do they look?” Georgia asks. She’ll never stop worrying about her plants.

“Free and clear. That was a close one.”

Georgia’s phone buzzes on her desk, rattling the compass sitting next to it. Georgia has been taking a compass with her on hikes ever since she saw 127 Hours .

She checks her phone. “Of course,” she grumbles.

“What?”

“A text from Kurt. He said he can’t go to the drive-in. He already has plans Saturday night.”

“Bummer.” A bunch of us are going to the drive-in. It’s this vintage outdoor movie theater that was renovated a few years ago. The plan is to do dinner first, then pile into a few cars for the drive-in. Georgia asked if Kurt wanted to go as a group thing. She’s been crushing on him since this summer when they both worked at Happy Mart. He usually had the shift after hers. She’d find excuses to stay late and talk to him. Georgia was getting the feeling that he liked her. I guess the group dynamic wasn’t casual enough for him. Or maybe he really does have plans.

Georgia flops on her bed, staring at her phone like she’s willing the letters of Kurt’s text to rearrange themselves into a happier message.

“We could go another night,” I suggest. “I’m sure everyone won’t mind rescheduling. What about Friday?”

“So I can ask Kurt to go out Friday and watch him reject me again? I’ll pass.”

“We don’t know if he rejected you. He probably has plans like he said.”

“Then why didn’t he offer another night to go out?”

“Because you asked him to come with us to the drive-in. If you asked him to hang out whenever, that would have been different.”

“I should have done that first. Then if he said he wanted to, I should have asked about the drive-in. I am such an idiot.”

“No, you’re not. It was better to ask him to do a group thing. That way you could feel him out.”

“I won’t be feeling any part of him now.” She glares at her phone. “Why did I break up with Andy again?”

“He’s too far away.”

“Yeah,” Georgia sighs wistfully. “Too far.”

Andy was Georgia’s boyfriend at her old school. She broke up with him before she moved. She said that a long-distance relationship between Connecticut and Oregon would never work. I have to agree with her. How can you have a relationship with someone you never see in person?

Not that I’m a relationship expert or anything. I used to only talk to boys online. I got a harsh wake-up call in tenth grade when I went to meet someone who said he was an older guy, but who turned out to be the freshman who played the triangle in band. Triangle Boy Incident was a reality check. Anonymous online connections can never lead to something real. Neither can being so distant from your boyfriend that he becomes just a voice on the phone.

I hate that Georgia is going through this. Except for Ethan, most people I know are having a bad week. There’s like this negative energy in the air. As if all the negative energy that was lurking around gathered together in a big bunch of badness. Only no one knows where it came from. Kind of like the aphids. All you can do is control what you can and hope the rest works itself out.

[1,154,081 FOLLOWERS]

Ethan runs up to me in the hall before lunch. He’s frantically waving his phone over his head. People stare and smile and part for him in the hall like he’s rock star royalty.

“You’re not going to believe this,” he says.

“What?”

“A major producer heard Forever . He wants to sign me for a second album. A big second album.”

“Oh my god! That’s amazing!”

“Zeke said he doesn’t even care who backs me. He’ll sign whoever I want to record with. He’s only interested in me.”

“Holy crap.”

“The producer just left a message. I’m freaking out.”

“Do not freak out. This is what you’ve been waiting for.”

“We knew this was going to happen.”

“Totally.”

We look at each other for a minute. Then we bust out screaming. We’re jumping up and down and laughing and hugging each other. Ethan lifts me up and spins me around right here in the middle of the hall.

Everyone is watching us.

“Keep it moving, people!” the security officer booms. “Let’s go! We’re on the move!”

No one moves. They want to see what Ethan will do next.

“I have to call him back,” he says.

“So call him.” We both have lunch next. We could sneak out to Ethan’s car if we hurry. The security officer won’t notice. He’s busy trying to wrangle everyone to class.

“Should I call him back right away?”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to seem too eager.”

“But you are eager. That’s a good thing.”

“Won’t I look desperate?”

It’s cute how Ethan is acting like a girl obsessing over whether to call the boy she likes. I’ve never seen him this insecure.

“No,” I assure him. “You’ll look professional. Business-people like it when their calls are returned quickly. If you wait, it might come off like you’re not serious.”

“Good point. But maybe I should talk to Zeke first. I don’t want to say the wrong thing.”

“So call Zeke.”

“Is this really happening?”

“Definitely.”

Ethan shakes his head in amazement. “We knew this day would come. You knew it right along with me.” There are tears in his eyes. “Thank you for believing in me as much as I believe in myself.”