The audience rises to a standing ovation, and Kat screws the rules and runs into my arms for another hug. One which I have to politely push away when it becomes too long for comfort—or at least too long for us to keep up appearances.
The reception is held outdoors on the lawn, under rented white shade tents and a zillion fairy lights set up against the beach plum and primrose bushes, a bounty for curated social media shots as the sun sets poetically over the ocean.
This is the kind of day and setting and event where you want your parents present, and Kat and I are a little glum as we take seats at a white-painted picnic table, our plates overloaded with charcuterie and smoked barbeque from the catering spread. Students are posing with parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings, cousins—the whole shebang—and Kat rubs my leg with hers under the table.
“Goddamn, sure rubs it in, doesn’t it?” she says. Kat takes a bite of barbeque ribs, and I follow her lead.
“Could be worse. We could be here alone,” I offer as consolation.
“Or worse, Henry could have shown up—drunk.” Kat uninhibitedly licks oxblood-colored barbeque sauce off of her thumb.
“True,” I say. I let my knee fall between hers under the table. I can’t wait to taste her, inch by inch, tonight after all of this is over and the coast is clear.
“Heath, remember the first time we hung out together, alone, down by the dunes?” she asks me.
Her eyes are bright, and she’s pulled her wild hair back into a makeshift bun. The sky blesses us with the golden hour and lights Kat up in colors I want to make permanent, capture in painting or with a photograph.
“I remember a million times at the beach, but I don’t know if I remember the first,” I tell her.
“I told you we were going to be together a lot. Like siblings. Remember what you said back?”
“No clue,” I reply.
“You said, 'Do you know why hermit crabs change shells?’ I told you I didn’t. And you said it’s because they outgrow the old ones. Sometimes in size, but sometimes they just get tired of them and move on to something new.” Kat takes a sip of a ginger beer, and I swallow.
Is she trying to tell me something? Is she breaking up with me, suggesting we go our separate ways?
“I told you I’d always stay. That houses didn’t matter, and people mattered more. What’s on the outside doesn’t define what’s on the inside. Because I already knew I wanted you to stay.”
“Are you speaking metaphorically?” I ask her. “Ouch, fuck!” I swat a damn mosquito on my leg. Despite the beautiful setting, you can get eaten alive out here after the sun sets.
Kat cocks a brow and tilts her head. “Those torches are citronella smokers, and Professor Noor told me they were using sonic repellent. Are you sure it was a mosquito?”
Before I can answer, her head is under the table, investigating my leg, the bite, and whatever insect might be the culprit. Kat Shaw is a constant and ever-curious naturalist.
“Oh, Christ!” Kat shrieks.
I jump up as Kat, the consummate adventurer, scientist, entomologist, reacts in alarm at whatever she’s seen.
“Don’t freak out!” she tells me.
“I’m not.” I’m captivated by the deep orange and rose gold burning up the sky as the sun takes its nightly dive into the sea. Today is a perfect day, despite the absence of our parents—it’s me and Kat against the world.
Kat gives me a consternated expression, dumps a cup of sparkling water, and ducks back under the table again in an attempt to catch a bug.
“Is it a tick? How do you know it’s the one that bit me?” I ask her. After lifting my pant leg, I see a sizable welt swelling on my calf.
“I’m gonna need to get into the lab tonight. Is Professor Noor still here?”
“Kat, we’re graduating. This is supposed to be a party, not an extra senior thesis project.”
“Okay, hand me that centerpiece. Rip the cardboard off the bottom,” she instructs me.
I do as she tells me and uses the decoration to slide under the cup and trap her bug. She pulls it out carefully and sets it on the top of the table underneath its glass dome.
“It’s a tiny little wood spider. I think I’ll live,” I wave her discovery away and take in the glowing sky, pulling her into my side.
“I think it’s a brown recluse,” she says.
“I grew up in the Bronx. I know cockroaches and water bugs. Can you elaborate?”
“They’re poisonous,” she says.
“So, what do I do? Suck out the venom? Find an EpiPen?” I pull out my phone and start to google the little devil. “Ninety percent of bites aren’t medically significant,” I read off of the website.