Robin Wasserman: Envy

And there, only a few feet away, were Beth and-of all people-Kane. On another day Miranda might have been heartbroken-but today? Today she just accepted the new development and moved on. She was in the kind of mood where the worst case scenario seemed pretty much the only option-which meant she wasn’t much surprised when it happened.

Beth looked like she’d been hit by a train (small wonder, considering the way her boyfriend, or maybe ex-boyfriend, Miranda supposed, was all over Harper). But it looked like Kane was disgustingly determined to cheer her up.

No, Miranda wouldn’t waste her time worrying about Beth. Or any of them. Why should she? They all had someone-and then there was her. As always.

Alone.

Beth had pushed Kane away, and, thinking she wanted to be alone, needed to be alone, she’d driven over to the old elementary school playground, her place, the place that always felt like home.

But as soon as she stepped through the opening in the chain link fence, she knew she’d made a mistake.

Beth had thought she would want to be there. She thought it would remind her of life beyond Adam, of childhood, of happiness. But the past suddenly seemed bleak-because all that hope had led her here, to the empty present. The playground didn’t wrap her in the soft arms of memory. It didn’t fix anything. It was just a cold, strange place, made all the stranger by the fact that it was so familiar, that it was completely unchanged.

She was the one who’d changed.

She walked over to the swings, always her favorite spot, and sat down on one, pushing herself back and forth. Even the swings felt wrong, off. The seat was too tight, her legs were too long, scraping the ground. She was too old, and her body no longer remembered what to do, how to be that child who swung so high, pumping her legs, scraping the sky. That’s what happens when you get older , she realized. You feel a little sick as the swing sways back and forth, but not enough to stop, and only at one point, when you’ve gone as far back and as high up as you can, and you’re almost parallel with the ground, you stop in midair, then lurch back into motion a moment before your stomach does, swooping toward the ground. You wonder whether your swing could flip over the metal bar at the top, swing you all the way around, and throw you to the ground, bruised and broken. When you were a kid, you thought it could happen-but you weren’t afraid. All grown up, you know it can’t happen-but you’re filled with fear. You swing slower, instead of pumping for the sky. You don’t jump off-you slow yourself to a stop. You’d never fling yourself into the air in midswing, because you’re no longer dreaming of flying. You’re just worrying about how you’re going to land.

This is what it means to get old , Beth thought. To grow up. To be alone.

It sucked.

“I thought I’d find you here.”

It was Kane, appearing in front of her as if from nowhere. He always appeared just when she most needed someone, as if he somehow knew.

He sat down on the swing next to her.

“Should I ask how the test went?” he asked hesitantly.

She didn’t know if it was the reminder of the bombed SATs or just the warmth and concern in his voice, but she burst into tears.

“I’ll take that as a no,” he said, and scooped her into his arms. And this time she let him hold her, let him comfort her, melted into his warm, strong body, let herself be supported by someone else-because she could no longer do it herself.

He rubbed her back, gently kissed the top of her head, and then-and she knew it was coming, hadn’t she always known it was coming?-he tilted her face toward him and kissed her.

She was about to pull away. But then she thought of Adam and Harper, of facing another moment on her own all by herself, of drowning.

She was so tired, too tired to think, too tired to resist.

She pulled back for a moment and looked into his eyes. They were warm and caring. She took a deep breath, and kissed him-and let herself go.

What did she have left to lose?

Kaia stood by the fence at the end of the playground, watching and smiling.

Happily ever after, she thought-or, at least, happy for another couple weeks until the whole mess blows up in their faces.

She looked again at Kane and Beth, one of the more mismatched twosomes she’d ever seen. All four of them were flirting with disaster, and Kaia was more than happy to help things along. It passed the time, after all.

Besides, she was good at it-making trouble, causing chaos. She may not know how to make herself happy-but she was damn good at making other people miserable.

And she was just getting started.

Robin Wasserman enjoys writing about high school-but wakes up every day grateful that she doesn’t have to relive it. She recently abandoned the beaches and boulevards of Los Angeles for the chilly embrace of the East Coast, as all that sun and fun gave her too little to complain about. She now lives and writes in New York City, which she claims to love for its vibrant culture and intellectual life. In reality, she doesn’t make it to museums nearly enough, and actually just loves the city for its pizza, its shopping, and the fact that at 3 a.m. you can always get anything you need-and you can get it delivered.