Woke Up Like This(26)

“Mitch? Mitch who?” I cut in.

“Mitch Wong.”

“That little freshman?” I clarify. Mitch is so tiny, he was duct-taped to the cafeteria wall for freshman initiation day.

Nori narrows her gaze, confused. “Uh, well, he’s twenty-six, but yes, I suppose he was small as a freshman.”

I shift to the edge of the couch and look her dead in the eye. “Okay, Nori, we’re about to get weird.”

She leans into the couch and gives Renner a brief glance. “What do you mean by weird? Should I be frightened? Because you’re doing that wonky eye thing.”

I hold my stare as she frantically chews the last chunk of licorice. “We’re going to tell you something. Something huge. And you need to promise you won’t tell anyone.”

Her jaw hinges open. “Oh my god. You guys are pregnant! No wonder you moved up your wedding date.”

I wretch at the thought of procreating with Renner. “God no. Eww.”

A flash of confusion falls over her face.

“This is going to sound bizarre,” Renner interrupts. “But we woke up not remembering how we got here.”

Strangely, Nori takes this in stride. “That’s because Ollie drove you guys home. He fireman carried you to your bed, J. T. He even sent me a video.”

I shake my head. “No, you don’t understand. We had an accident. In the school gym. I fell off a ladder—”

“She fell on my face,” Renner clarifies.

“We were seventeen,” I continue. “Decorating for prom. Everything went black when I fell off the ladder. And then we woke up . . . here. This morning.”

Nori closes her eyes and shakes her head like a wet dog. “Okay, wait, what?”



I lean closer. “We don’t remember anything from the past thirteen years.”

Nori searches my face, trying to gauge whether I’m screwing with her. When I don’t crack, she starts laughing nervously. “You two drank way too much. Honestly. Maybe you just need a hot shower, or a personal day. You should totally skip work.”

“Nori, I’m serious. The last thing I remember is being upset over the Under the Sea theme,” I say.

“The prom theme?” she asks, eyes widening in realization. “Oh my god. Do you remember my dress? That weird one that accentuated all my worst angles? I untagged myself in all of those photos. As if you could forget that. Oh, and that’s the night you two first hooked up. Remember?”

Renner and I simultaneously bust a gut. “Hooked up? We hooked up? As in me and Renner?” I’m not certain I want to know the answer.

She snorts like the answer is obvious. “At least, I think it was prom night.”

“We don’t remember that. Or anything else,” Renner says, a little more forcefully.

She blinks. “You’re being serious? You’re not playing some ridiculous prank?”

“Cross my heart.” I make an X over my chest. “We need to know what’s happened in the past thirteen years.”

Still a little unsure, she gives us the basics. It’s all out of order, as per usual when Nori tells a story. But I manage to get the gist.

Renner and I first hooked up on prom night and dated for the first year of college. I can’t help but laugh because it sounds so outlandish. Renner just rests his head in his hands like his life is over. We broke up in our second year, dated other people, and got back together when we both moved back to Maplewood to work at MHS. We got engaged this winter on a Hawaiian vacation.

Engagement aside, I think about the unlikely reality that both of us would become educators. At the same high school. How could that even happen? Of everyone in our friend group, Renner was the person I was most looking forward to never seeing again after high school.

“Everyone knew you two were meant to be,” Nori tells us, all starry eyed. She explains that Renner moved back to be a PE teacher. He coaches both the rugby and track teams.

“I’m a gym teacher,” Renner notes under his breath.

I can’t help but snort.

“What’s so funny?”

“I just can’t imagine you demonstrating how to put a condom over a banana with a straight face.”

“I dunno why you’re shaming me about teaching kids to stay physically active while educating them about safe sex.” I dry cough when he says sex all deep and authoritative. I feel like I’m in middle school sex ed all over again, chuckling over the word vulva. He continues on when I don’t respond. “Puberty is no joke. Kids need someone to teach them about body odor.”

“You would know,” I sneer, desperately scraping my memory for a time Renner had BO, to no avail.

“You’re just pissed because I’m probably the cool teacher everyone loves, and you’re the terrifying one rumored to lock kids in an underground dungeon as punishment for being a half second late to class.” I wouldn’t be shocked. Renner would still manage to upstage me in a weird alternate universe.

“First, I’d have a candlelit lair. Not a dungeon. It would be sacred. And for the record, I’d rather be terrifying than ridiculous,” I shoot back.

Nori clears her throat. “J. T., you were assistant coaching a college rugby team in Boston for a while. But you wanted to come back home to be with Char.”