The End is Alright

Two days into the semester, and Jaden is already bored out of his mind.

-----

It was only the second day of the semester, and Jaden was already a ghost haunting his own life. Professor Wilkins's voice droned on about supply and demand, a distant waterfall of gibberish. Jaden's face was plastered to the armrest of his chair, his wavy hair defying the clay wax he'd angrily smeared into it that morning. A faint, sticky stain—a parting gift from a child's ice cream cone during his commute—marked the sleeve of his polo. A perfect start to a perfect year, he thought, with the full, practiced weight of teenage sarcasm. In his mind, he was already elsewhere: picturing a girlfriend who'd click her tongue at the stain, wrap her arms around him from behind, and make the crushing boredom feel like something that could be fixed.

"Psst. Zombie." The whisper sliced through the lecture. Kevin, his best friend and personal chaos agent, was folded into the neighboring seat like a grasshopper in a matchbox. They'd become friends by accident years ago—Jaden had hated him on sight when he first transferred, a fact they now laughed about without remembering why.

Jaden slid his eyes toward Kevin, a slow, silent acknowledgment.

"Lunch. Diana's buying," Kevin mouthed, his own expression a mirror of profound academic despair. It was a small comfort.

"Her treat?" Jaden whispered back, a spark of life returning.

"Obviously."

"Good. I'm financially deceased." It was true. His allowance had been vaporized by two breakfast burgers, consumed in lonely, greasy haste after he'd slept through his alarm and missed half of first period.

Kevin gave a solemn nod. "Our suffering is temporarily monetized."

When class finally ended, they loitered by the school gates. Diana, Kevin's older sister and the quiet, unattainable star of Jaden's more hopeful daydreams, was late. Jaden didn't mind the wait. Free food was a powerful anesthetic, and watching for Diana's arrival was its own form of entertainment. He'd nurtured a low-grade crush on her for ages, a fact made infinitely annoying by her being his best friend's sibling. Some days, he'd have traded a minor organ to rewrite that particular detail of his life.

"She's testing me," Kevin grumbled, checking his phone for the tenth time.

"Patience, brother. It's the tax we pay for her generosity."

A sudden presence materialized at Kevin's elbow. "Sorry! The traffic was apocalyptic." Diana's arrival was always like that—sudden, cheerful, and slightly disruptive. "Hi, Jaden."

She was exactly as he'd conjured in his mind: warm eyes, a smile that felt like a secret, and an easy grace that made Kevin's perpetual slouch look like a different species entirely. They were siblings in name only, Jaden decided. Yin and profoundly disheveled Yang.

"Yo. Sup," Jaden blurted. The words felt clumsy and juvenile in his mouth, and he died a little inside.

Kevin clapped his hands together, a sharp sound that shattered the moment. "Great, we're all socially awkward. Can we please go? My stomach is digesting itself."

As they turned to leave, Jaden caught Diana's faint, amused smile. It wasn't the connection he'd imagined, but it was something. A spark in the monotonous gray of the semester. He had no idea that in less than an hour, a different girl—one with familiar freckles and a smile that felt like a forgotten memory—would walk in and make all his careful daydreams suddenly seem like practice for the real thing.

-----

"Are you planning a trip, or just ordering fries?" Kev drummed his fingers on the sticky diner table, his face a masterpiece of impatience.

Diana didn't look up from her phone. "Chill. She's on her way." A beat later, she added, "My best friend's joining us, by the way."

Jaden just shrugged. He was too busy being broke and hungry to care about the delay. His mind, however, snagged on the words best friend. He'd known Diana for years, but only in the peripheral way you know your best friend's cooler older sister. Their interactions were mostly confined to the chaotic comfort of Kevin's house, where Jaden had long ago achieved honorary family status—walking in unannounced, raiding the fridge, leaving when he pleased. The thought, arriving unprompted, made him wince. I might actually be kind of an ass.

"She's here. Be right back." Diana slid out of the booth and vanished toward the entrance.

Jaden leaned in, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Yo, Kev. Who's 'she'?"

"Kim. You haven't met Kim?" Kev's voice was not a whisper. It was a public announcement. "The fuck? You haven't met Kim yet?"

Jaden's hand shot up in a frantic silencing motion. "Inside voice, you maniac."

Kev lowered his volume but not his intensity. "We've been friends for years. How have you not met Kim?"

"Why are you interrogating me like I stole something? Obviously I haven't, or I wouldn't be asking! You dumb fu—"

"Woah, chillax. You'll meet her now. No biggie." Kev's dismissive wave was somehow more irritating than his loudness. Jaden rolled his eyes so hard he saw his own brain, turning away in disgust.

"And fuck you too," Kev added cheerfully. Against his will, a smirk tugged at Jaden's mouth.

The booth shifted as Diana returned, guiding a girl into the seat beside her. "Alright, Kim, right here."

Kevin couldn't help himself. "Sis, you will not believe this. Jaden doesn't know who Kim is."

Heat flooded Jaden's face, a sudden, violent blush beneath his summer tan. He kept his gaze firmly on a fascinating crack in the table's laminate.

"Shut up. Really?" Diana's exclamation was only slightly quieter than her brother's. Definitely related by blood, Jaden thought, the similarity suddenly, painfully obvious. "God, sorry. Jaden, this is Kimberly, my best friend. Kim, this is Jaden, Kevin's... well, he's Jaden."

Summoning every ounce of cool he did not possess, Jaden turned to face Kim, his body automatically preparing for a firm, casual handshake.

The world narrowed to a single point.

He froze. His mind went blank, then screamed a single, silent question on a loop: Do I know you?

Her hair was pure, straight black. Her eyes were wide and bright, framed by a constellation of faint freckles. Her lips were a soft, unpainted pink. Every detail felt imprinted on a memory he couldn't access.

The confident handshake died in his nerves. All that emerged was a weak, fluttery wave and a voice that didn't sound like his own. "Hi."

"Hey. Nice to meet you." Her smile was effortless, a genuine curve that reached her eyes. It was a smile that felt both entirely new and deeply, mysteriously familiar.

Jaden's mouth was dry. His face burned. No clever words came. He just stared, utterly, completely disarmed.