Orange Hoodie Sundays

The vitamin gummies sat on my nightstand, a promise I made to myself every morning that today would be different. Take them, and maybe I'd magically transform into someone who could actually talk to Sarah without my voice doing that embarrassing crack thing. Instead, I spent seventh period staring at the back of her head while pretending to understand chemistry.

"You're being weird again," Jamie said, slamming her locker shut. "Just go talk to her."

"Easy for you to say. You didn't accidentally compare her eyes to a vitamin bottle last week."

Jamie groaned. "You didn't actually say that."

"I panicked! It was the orange ones, okay? They were the same shade as her hoodie!"

The problem wasn't Sarah. It was everything. Junior year felt like this endless obstacle course of expectations, and I was tripping over every single one. College apps. AP classes. The constant pressure to have everything figured out when I could barely decide what to eat for lunch.

My dog, Buster, was the only one who didn't ask questions. He was this ancient golden retriever mix my mom found behind a dumpster five years ago. His face was half orange (sun bleached, the vet said), his hips were starting to go, and he had this habit of sighing dramatically whenever I talked about school.

"You don't understand," I told him, lying on my bedroom floor while he nosed at my homework. "It's different now. Everything feels like it matters."

Buster licked my face. I wiped drool onto my sleeve and sighed.

The breakthrough happened on a Sunday. Sarah was at the park, throwing a tennis ball for her new puppy. I was walking Buster, who moved at approximately the speed of a sloth on sedatives.

"Hey," she called. "Is that Buster? He looks like he's seen some things."

"He's retired from being a good boy," I said. "Now he's just a boy."

She laughed. It sounded real, not polite.

We ended up sitting on a bench while her puppy zoomed in circles and Buster snored on my feet. Sarah talked about how she failed her driving test three times. I told her about the vitamin incident. She admitted she'd thrown up in a trash can after tryouts for volleyball.

"We're all just pretending to know what we're doing," she said, scratching Buster behind his ears.

"Yeah," I said. "But at least Buster's not pretending."

She smiled. It wasn't fake or forced. "True. That dog's got it figured out."

Buster sighed in his sleep. The orange patch on his face caught the sunlight.

I didn't take the vitamins that night. Or the next morning. And when I talked to Sarah at school on Monday, my voice didn't crack. Not even once.