☽ Peter ☽

Facts I Learned at Midnight #2180:
Chewing gum helps your concentration. (Apparently) Reduces stress (apparently) and helps memory (apparently). This is due to multiple factors, e.g. increase in glucose to the brain.

itsnicoleduford: what are the other factors ??

su.peter.nova: Reduce of stress hormones and physiological arousal.

itsnicoleduford: PHYSIOLOGICAL WHAT NOW

su.peter.nova: It does not mean what you think it means.

itsnicoleduford: LET ME HAVE THIS ONE NICE THING

I scoff and slide against the wall, waiting for Nicole to join me at my spot in the basement. The light from the side window overlaps with my shadow, extending over the lockers. Off-centre posters hanging from the walls display this year's events in bright colours, distorted as if looking through a microscope. My hands rest against the flat metallic surface to ground me. I'm still cooling down from yesterday. Thus, I'm beside her locker, my foot tapping against the floor at the same time I take a breath.

Nicole arrives from the stairway, dashing down the stairs and landing on the floor with a loud guffaw and tossing her hands in the air. "Here you go!" She hands me a stick of bubblegum.

"How did you know?" I ask flatly, unwrapping it. On the inside, a typed text reads, Did You Know? On every continent, there is a city named Rome.

I did know that, actually. My research (if I can call it that) for facts at midnight had led me to seek out obscure things, but the fun of it comes from stumbling onto them by accident, and not from endlessly scouring the Internet's Top Ten Facts You've Never Heard before, (as I had tried more than once, and that never actually seemed to have anything I hadn't heard of before).

This is why fact number 2180 is a cop-out. I'm testing the waters, to see if the usual Sam-related replies are finished dredging up the same arguments, over and over, trapped inside a cyclone of safety in anonymity.

So far, it seems I'm alone, left in the calm after the storm.

"I'm a psychic," Nicole replies, equally toneless, "who picked up on your little mind trick. It cost me fifteen cents, by the way, which is basically highway robbery."

I scoff. "Thanks."

"You're welcome. What's up with you today? You're brooding in the only patch of darkness in this entire school. Talk about dramatic." She twirls a strand of her dirty blonde hair around her mechanical pencil with intense precision.

"Nothing," I reply.

"Liar," she hisses. "I swear, if this is about sporty-hottie boy again, I'm going to stop talking to you. We need to move on, as a society, and accept the fact that he's—"

I refuse to accept this nickname she's given Evan. I mean, Nicole nicknames everything. My car is Europa, I'm Peter-pretentious, and her computer is Nelson. If I use another name, she feigns ignorance. It's only fair that Evan McKenna gets an equally dumb name attached to him, but here's the thing: I don't see it. Maybe it's something about him that throws me off, that clashes with how I should perceive him. I keep cycling back and forth, between wanting him around (because we kind of need him) to wanting him gone, (for his connection for Sam).

"How was calculus?" I interrupt her.

Nicole sighs. "Don't do that. You know I passed."

"After how much studying?"

"None, obviously." She punctuates this remark with a roll of her eyes.

I watch her as she collapses onto the ground in a heap, dropping her backpack on the floor. I'd be surprised if she took out her homework, but by now, I know her better than that. Strings of text appear on her laptop as she opens it, coding into oblivion. The probability of her hacking into the government right now is highly likely. "I hate you. It took me an hour to figure out how to do synthetic division."

"Then how'd you do on the test?" she asks. "Wait, I can guess. It's between fifty and sixty percent."

I glare into the back of her head. "It's at least seventy. It would be higher if someone knew how to properly explain it when she understands it."

Her typing continues rhythmically, and she cranes her face to give me a tight-lipped smile. "But you're not naming names."

"I am not. What are you doing, anyway?"

She replies, "Fixing Kendall's switch statements. He wants to make a game for October, but I don't think we'll finish it on time, at this rate. Not when I have to go back and clean every single thing he touches, both literally and in his code. You know, you totally avoided my question about Evan-with-no-middle-name earlier."

I guess she's still deciding on his nickname. "I know."

She stops typing to look at me, then tugs at my sweater sleeve. "What happened?"

Turning her round eyes in my direction and lifting her eyebrows in pleading, she keeps pressing it until I give in.

"Fine! I have his phone number, that's all."

"That's all?" Nicole's voice raises enough decibels to shatter the sound barrier. Delivering a smack on my shoulder, she exclaims, if a bit over-enthusiastic, "When did that happen? Are you going to text him?"

"Who do you think I am, exactly?" I ask. The last time I checked, I'm not equipped for this. The thought of texting Evan elicits a thousand questions in my head. The most important issue being that I wouldn't know what to say to him, a hockey player with whom I have discussed nothing but Astronomy Club and a very brief moment where he promised not to murder me.

Nicole tries to reach for my pocket; I pull back, glaring at her. "No offence, but you text like an idiot. Your texts are so damned cordial. Let me do it."

Sighing, I hand it to her. "Don't hurt it."

"I'm not going to put a tracker on it, I'm just messing with your settings a little so that you learn how to abbreviate the shit out of your messages. It's a text, that's the point." Her fingernails clack against the keyboard as she types—it takes only a few seconds for her to finish, and she rolls her eyes at me as she hands me my phone.

"If you embarrass me, I will get my revenge," I mutter, reading what she's sent.

To the nebulous void, she's said: Hey! It's Peter, what's up?

☆ ☽ ☆

It takes Evan an unfathomably long time to text me back. In that time, I get myself worked up about the specifics; was the exclamation point too much? What if his number was wrong? What if?

Halfway between classes, and as the clock on the wall ticks away, my phone buzzes.

Evan:
hey! I was wondering when you'd text
how's the search for another club member going?

Peter:
Not great. I was trying to get Nicole to recruit someone, but that's a lost cause. We may have to stick with the five of us, and become chess club 2.0.
Why?

Evan:
You'll see on Thursday :)
What are we doing anyway?

Peter:
I don't know, probably something with the telescopes Ms. Crozier is getting today. I picked them out.

Evan:
right yeah
I didn't know you had telescopes. Maybe I need to start getting more sleep so I can pay attention, lol

Peter:
And here I thought you were the type to sleep during class.
In all seriousness, though, feel free to skip the meeting if you need it. The last thing I want is to have you pass out. I know CPR, so at least I come prepared.

Evan:
ahahah, I won't

I'm looking forward to it actually
And you know, I enjoy hanging out with everyone
I don't get a lot of time to do that lately

Peter:
Meaning?

Evan:
oh, idk, I'm just busy with soccer
on Tuesday and Thursday, and then I hang out with my sister over lunch every Wednesday, so that doesn't leave me with much

Peter:
You skip soccer to come to Astronomy Club?

Evan:
When you put it like that, it sounds so simple
But yes, I don't go. To be honest, I don't really want to. That's why I joined, I guess, so I could avoid Coach
And also hide from the police

Peter:
What crime have you committed? Failure to show up to practice?

Evan:
First degree
It's a felony I guess!
I think one of these days I'm going to find somewhere to be myself. I don't know if the club is that place yet, but we'll see

Peter:

You'll find it, eventually.

Three dots appear on the screen, then disappear.

Evan:
I know. My sister—you met her yesterday—she's counting down until I graduate like that will magically make everything better, and maybe it will, but it doesn't seem like it
Anyway, what classes are you in?

Peter:
Chemistry, History, Calculus, French, Physics, and my free period

Evan:
way to make me feel not smart
All I'm taking is English, social studies, gym, basic Math, and History. I have my free period but I'm always having to use it to work

Peter:
You know, you could just say math and I wouldn't know any better.

Evan:
You're right! You like taking French?

Peter:
Yes, French is easy. Both of my parents speak it natively. It's my first language, technically.

Evan:
oh cool! I took French 10 but the basics are all I know

Peter:
I've been in IB since tenth grade. Most of the subjects I take are in French, Histoire and Chimie, for example.

Evan:
I've always wanted to learn more languages. Like Latin! It's a shame the language died. I'll have to revive it on my own.

Peter:
You're kidding. I've always wanted to learn Latin. And you should try and pick up French again. It's worth the suffering.

Evan:
Maybe next year

Oh wait lol there is no next year
Isn't that weird?
We're like practically adults

Peter:
It is weird being 18.

Evan:
18!? When was your birthday?

Peter:
September eleventh. A couple of days after school started.

Evan:
Oh well happy late birthday then
Mine's not until June 24th
My sister's counting down to that too, there are 267 days left until my birthday

Peter:
It seems like a lot when you put it like that

Evan:
ikr but it goes so fast
or at least it has been

Peter:
Yeah.

Evan:
So I'll see you at the club?

Peter:
a+

Evan:
a+?

Peter:
À plus tard. It means 'see you later.'

Evan:
Oh! a+

☆ ☽ ☆

I turn into the driveway of my house, my signal flashing to nobody in particular. The hotel looms in the rear-view mirror, situated a fair distance away from home, but close enough that its distant building can be seen on the bay.

Parked in the driveway is my father's truck, its dull shade of red glinting in the low light. The sky is decidedly muddled with pinpricks of clouds, clustered together in an angry shade of black. It's bound to rain later—the air is misty with anticipation.

Once I enter the house, I take off my shoes and place them in the entryway. My father sits in the sunroom, separated by a glass partition. I don't bother him, sliding past the kitchen island to read the note my mother has left for me, headed off to the hospital for her shift and destined to remain there until long past midnight. She's given me a list of instructions to follow to make dinner, not that I need them anymore.

I set the oven to the correct temperature and cast a glance at the wall. There, against the collection of family photos and a side table filled with spare keys, a half-full box of bright green gloves, and hand sanitizer, are two picture frames. The first is my grandfather, in black and white, standing in front of the first Croix Hotel—his house at the time, for which the upper level became a bed-and-breakfast. The second photo is of my father, in an identical position, a pair of scissors in his hands, as he cuts the tape on the building across the street.

And then there's the empty space beside it. There's no picture frame—it's a gap perfectly sized for another photo, a space to be filled. A space that is mine.

While I wait for the oven to finish preheating, the glass door swishes open, a noise that seems almost inaudible, if not for the thunderous silence that extends between my father and me. I guess in certain aspects, I inherited that from him, too. In every regard, I look exactly like him. We're both tall, though I'm a bit lankier—with the same shaved hair, dark skin, and a face that never quite smiles. He's only slightly taller than me—and sometimes my mother teases that we were carbon copies, born from a cloning machine.

I guess maybe some things have changed. "Salut, Pierre. How was your day?"

He switches between languages in the span of a second, effortlessly. The dominant one that we speak in public is English—my parents' thick accents and all—but everywhere else, he can never decide. "Normal." I dislike that question.

The oven beeps. I move towards it.

"We need to talk, Pierre. About graduation."

"Vas-y." (Go ahead.) He's not pleased. I didn't expect him to be. I slide the pan into the oven and set the timer.

My father places his elbows on the kitchen island, his eyes clouded with an emotion that I can't place. "I am sorry. I didn't mean to... to force you into working. Really. I should listen to your mother more often."

I don't move. I just stand there, my hand still clutching the timer as it ticks. The sound is so loud that it overtakes everything else, a cacophony in my ears. "She talked to you?"

I should have seen that coming.

"She didn't have to. I saw your brochures on the table after you closed. And I don't take it personally. I had to branch out, tu te souviens?" (Do you remember?)

"That's—"

"Different, sure," he interrupts, and I turn to face him. A genuine smile crosses his face. "T'vas étudier quoi?" (What will you study?)

"I've been thinking about chemistry. You know, like in a laboratory. Mount Allison offers it, and they're not far."

He studies my expression for a moment. "You've put thought into it. That's more than I can say for myself. I trust that you know what you're doing, Pierre. And you know... the hotel is always there for you. Think of it like a backup plan. That's something not a lot of people have."

"A backup plan."

My father nods. "I would like to see you inherit the hotel. That would be a blessing. But I don't control you. I only control myself. How long were you planning on keeping this from me?"

I shrug. "Aucune idée. (No idea) I was waiting until I knew for sure."

"Well, don't. I don't want you to feel like you have to keep it a secret. Remember that we're here for you."

I know that. It's just that sometimes it doesn't seem so simple. I breathe a sigh of relief under my breath when the silence returns again. The usual, habitual quiet.

That, I can handle.