• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

On speech day, Noah walked into AP Physics boomeranging between excitement and nervousness. As he navigated to his seat, his classmates called out to him from their perches on top of their desks. “Hey, man, are you ready?” one asked. Another playfully rubbed Noah’s shoulders and tried to get him to jump around like a boxer warming up in the ring.

As class time wore on, the seniors’ silliness grew infectious. “Hey, can we pregame the speech?” a boy asked the teacher. “Yeah, can we tailgate?” another asked, laughing.

“No,” replied the teacher, with no hint of emotion.

One senior suggested body paint. Another found a set of speakers, hooked them to his iPod, and blasted dance music. Finally, the teacher handed Noah his ballot. The seniors crowded around him, teasingly bad-mouthing some of the candidates and cheering for others. “You know, it’d be a shame if Kent met with an ‘accident,’ ” a student joked in a Mafia voice. “Is he going to be around any windows later today?”

The digital whiteboard blinked on. Kent’s speech aired first. Noah listened attentively as Kent coolly emphasized his experience, having been class president for two years. Then it was Noah’s turn. When Noah had taped the speech the prior week, he was confident; he enjoyed public speaking. Watching himself on-screen now, however, he was bothered by his crooked posture and his messy hair. He picked his speech apart as it aired.

He wondered what Leigh would have thought of his talk. Presently, Noah and Leigh were no more than cordial acquaintances. He found that the best way to get over Leigh was to be angry at her. Now that he believed reconciliation was impossible, at least the pain of losing her was buried deep.

On election announcement day, a number of students approached Noah in the halls and during classes. “I voted for you!” many of them said. “Good luck today!” One boy said he had persuaded his entire first-period class to vote for Noah. Their words of encouragement buoyed him. They made him believe he could win.

At the end of last period, a student appeared on the whiteboard to announce the results. Noah tensed. “Junior class president: Kent—” Noah’s heart slowed to a dull thud as his classmates continued their business, unaffected. Nobody so much as looked at Noah. He had lost again.

MOST BANDS IN THE Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade either marched or stood still. Redsen was going to do the equivalent of a choreographed halftime performance. The director had given Noah the most important job of the Honor Guards: He had to maneuver a modified golf cart decorated like a taxi through the two hundred marching students to transport a performer to the other side of the moving band.

Noah sat in the golf cart on the side of the parking lot, spacing out as the band rehearsed the song, measure by measure. Noah wouldn’t have to do anything until the band played through the entire song. At the appropriate cue, he was supposed to drive the taxi through a tight gap in the crowd with less than a foot of space on either side; if he was too early or too late, the choreography was such that he wouldn’t be able to make it. Sometimes, when he knew he wasn’t going to fit the car into the gap in time, he bailed, stopping or turning to avoid hitting someone. He wouldn’t be able to bail at Macy’s.

Rather than pay attention to the rehearsal, Noah thought about Leigh, who stood out of sight behind dozens of bandmates. He had recently had a revelation. One of the reasons he had been so devastated by the breakup was because Leigh once told him he was her best friend. Now that he was trying to move on, he couldn’t imagine life without her in any role. They had never been friends; they had gone straight from acquaintanceship to romance. What if the person I’m supposed to be is her best friend? he wondered, swallowing his anger.

Noah thought he could use another friend; classmates were picking on him again. In AP Calculus, Frederick had reminded him that varsity swimming season began in a week.