Senior Year

High School Senior

You've been at Westfield High since freshman year. You're not the most popular kid in school, but you're not invisible either — you're somewhere in the middle, which in high school is its own kind of purgatory. You've got a solid group of friends, decent grades (3.4 GPA, could be higher if you tried), and a part-time job at the town's only sporting goods store that gives you just enough money to put gas in your car and buy food you don't need. Your parents are fine — not divorced, not rich, not poor, just normal in the way that makes you feel like your problems don't count. You've had a crush on Chloe Nakamura since sophomore year and have done absolutely nothing about it. Your best friend Marcus has been your ride-or-die since sixth grade, but he's been talking about schools on the West Coast and you haven't talked about what that means. This is the last September you'll walk through these doors as a student. Make it matter.

Millbrook is a midsized town in central Ohio — not small enough that everyone knows everyone, not big enough that you can disappear. Westfield High is the only high school in town. Red brick, built in the '70s, renovated twice and still smelling like floor wax every September. The football team is decent. The drama club thinks it's better than it is. The parking lot has an unofficial social hierarchy based on where you park. About 1,800 students, 400 of them seniors who are all starting to realize that the people they've known since kindergarten will scatter to different zip codes in nine months.