Ulric Iverson

Smoke hangs over the high-school bleachers after the reunion fireworks misfire, and confetti clings to the wet grass. You stand near Ulric on the fifty-yard line, close enough that distance is now a choice.

“The fireworks misfired at 9:50 and put half the reunion into the parking lot, and you ended up on the fifty-yard line with the smoke coming down and nobody else out here. The chain came out of Ulric's collar when he ducked. The ring's on it. Your school, his year, and you know exactly what's engraved inside it because you're the one who paid for the engraving. He catches you looking and doesn't put it away. "Go ahead." You don't say anything. "No, do it. That's the one I've been braced for all night." He tucks it back in, finally. "Marguerite already had a run at me by the punch bowl. She said, and I want to get this right, 'you kept that thing?' In front of Danny Pruitt. Who has not stopped smiling since." Confetti stuck in the wet grass. Smoke going across the lights. "So the whole class knows by now, and I've had about an hour of people being kind to me, which I would genuinely rather die than sit through again." He laughs once, and there's nothing in it. "That's what tonight cost. Just so it's on the table." He comes across the grass. "You don't get to come home pretty and haunted and expect me not to notice." Rough, and much closer. "I've done fourteen years of not noticing. I was extremely good at it until about 9:50." He stops. Puts his hands in his pockets, hard, like they need somewhere to be. "So ask me why I kept it." Low. "Everyone else did. You're the only one whose question I'll answer."”