One Question

Chapter One - An Early Engagement and A Surprising Rejection

Despite being the captain of the varsity softball team, Naomi rarely made it into the consciousness of her high school. That is, until she showed up with a silver band on her finger, and the entire senior class discovered she was engaged to her boyfriend of three years, who also happened to live in Colorado, and she was getting married the summer after graduation.

This was winter break, and though she stopped wearing her ring to school only a few days later, instead of stopping, people were now asking if the engagement was called off. It was more attention than she was ever used to, and though very few people actually came up and said anything to her, she got the sense that everyone knew—and they were looking at her a little differently for it. She didn't know what to say or think in return. It didn't seem like a big deal to her. But marriage seemed like either a really grown-up thing or something young people did to cover a pregnancy—so in that respect, she understood their curiosity.

Thankfully, with the approach of softball season also came the approach of another season: prom season. And with the approach of softball season also came the vamping up of practice, so that every day after school she would drive home, change clothes, and drive herself over to the park by her house to play catch with some of the other players of the team who wanted to get a head start. Technically, she'd been the captain of the team since last year, when she was voted on by her teammates, but since the season was in the spring, she'd never really felt the pressure of it until now.

She didn't know how to be a captain. She didn't really know why her teammates voted her on to begin with. But she wanted to be a good captain, and that meant leaning on her softball friends more, and maybe taking the team out for food a few times. So people stopped asking about Andrew and the engagement, and instead started talking about buying dresses and hairstyles and promposals, and she quickly fell out of the consciousness of the school, and fell more seriously into the consciousness of the team.

It was fine with her. Actually, it was better than fine. Except now her friends kept asking her to go dress shopping with them, and trying to get her to go to prom, and she really had no interest in it, and anyway, she had to save her money for the wedding. Her friendships were always more testy in February, March, and April because practicing every day meant she had no time to hang out. She only saw her two best friends during lunch, and recently she'd felt such a distance with them that she wasn't sure she could ever cross it.

They didn't understand why she was engaged. Neither of them had dated, well, anyone. They'd expressed excitement at first, but that excitement fell off quickly when they discovered they weren't even going to be at the wedding because it was going to be in Aspen, Colorado, and Naomi couldn't afford to fly people out, or buy dresses, or really much anything.

Her friends accused her of just not wanting them there. It may have been true. Naomi wasn't sure. She couldn't figure out when that distance had set in. In her long eighteen years of life, she'd never really figured out friendship. She thought it was one of those things she should be good at because she did it so often. She wasn't shy, really, or socially anxious or any of that, and she made friends well enough—but keeping them? That was different.

She'd been friends with Hana and Lorelai for years, longer than anyone else. She'd met Hana in second grade when she was still struggling with her English and her teacher asked Hana to help her with it. Lorelai joined a couple years later, and pretty soon they were a solid group. Laughing, playing tetherball, and going to Hana's house to play Super Mario Bros, which Naomi sucked at. Then Hana and Naomi joined the local softball team, and it was all going pretty well.

So how did she grow apart? She still wasn't quite sure. But it may have started with Andrew, which also timed itself with Hana dropping softball and all of them going to high school. But really, it was mostly Andrew, she thought. For that she could feel guilty, but she couldn't apologize, because Andrew was Andrew, and it was normal to make more time with one's boyfriend than friends, right?

But now it was prom season and softball season and her friends were quiet at lunch and Andrew was busy with his first year of pre-med in college, and a deep, slow feeling of loneliness settled over her. She was not so familiar with the feeling but identified it quickly. She started to pay more attention to the people around her. And that's how she met Phi.

Phi was in her Spanish 4 and AP Chem classes. Naomi never paid too much attention to her. She had short hair and freckles and green eyes, and that was about as far as Naomi had ever observed. That is, until the rejection.

It was a pep rally in February. Phi was on the tennis team, but the tennis season was last semester, so she sat in the crowd like everyone else. The basketball team, however, was down there, and about halfway through the rally, Caleb brought out a giant sign and some flowers and held it up in Phi's direction. It seems like it had been planned thoroughly, because others on the team had signs too, and the announcer handed him the microphone without a second thought.

Noami couldn't remember the details of his speech. She couldn't remember very much of anything else going on at all. But she remembers Phi standing up and saying, very loudly and clearly, "We broke up three months ago. Those aren't even my favorite flowers. You are the last person I want to go to prom with," and sitting back down.

There were laughs and hollers from the audience and it was then, right then, that Naomi discovered Phi was a completely different creature than herself, and she was determined to make friends with her.