title ‣ Everything Is Ending

original work ‣ A Note A Day by Sophie Clarkin (Siriusly_fandoms)

notes ‣ does anyone remember that one shot about the biannual community service field trip I wrote? hopefully not, but I decided I really liked Florida and Ryder from it, so I decided to rewrite it and have them be the narrators. (one day I will write actual ANAD fanfic with actual characters as narrators... one day...) however, there are still A Note A Day characters in this, and after reading the Swoon Reads version, I decided to include major undertones of one of the ships from that while making this take place one year before my A Note A Day AU (this may seem like irrelevant information rn, but it's not). enjoy!

* * *

Florida and Ryder, who have been best friends since fourth grade, cannot imagine a life without each other. But now it's senior year, and everything is ending.

* * *

"It felt like a nightmare."

"Are you still talking about that?" Florida asks, shaking her mechanical pencil for lead. None comes out, so she reaches for her pencil case in her pastel blue backpack on her bed. "It's already senior year."

"I still remember it like it was yesterday. The recycled air, the dull hum of the air conditioning, the sounds of a hundred or so students' pencils scratching on paper." Ryder leans back in the swivel chair, staring at the white ceiling as he recalls the memory. "I hate AP Physics. I don't know how you got an A."

Florida scrolls down on the PDF loaded on her laptop for the next practice prompt. She's taking AP English Literature and Composition, for no other reason than she needed the stimulation, but now she has preparing for the in-class English essay on Friday by reviewing past prompts, which is mindless, tedious work. She would pay not to ever take another English class. "It's easy when you like physics."

"You're just a freak of nature! I can't believe you took AP Calc BC last year."

"Math is easy. I can't believe you don't like math."

"Math is hard! I don't understand sine or cosine or whatever we're doing right now."

"Shock." Sarcasm drips out of her voice like molasses, and Ryder, sitting at her desk, watches as his textbook practically mocks him for being so dumb. "You realize that this is the last math class you'll probably ever take."

"Bless."

A small smile plays on her lips. "You know, I want to go back to California."

Over the summer, Florida had invited him to go on an impromptu road trip with her to California. It was less of inviting him and more of knocking on his door at five in the morning and asking him to go with her, but he had packed a duffel bag of clothes and whatever else he could think of and then got into Florida's dad's car. They were in Maryland when their parents called them, asking where they were. They took the news surprising well, just reminding them to not get in trouble with the police.

"Yeah," Ryder says. "Cali had nice beaches."

"That's all you care about? We visited Berkeley!"

"I can't believe you want to go to Berkeley for physics."

"I want to go. I have no idea if I'll be able to." Florida sighs when the lead in her pencil snaps. She shakes her pencil once more and then continues scribbling in her college-ruled notebook. Ryder feels wildly unproductive compared to her, but it's not his fault he has no idea why triangles are so difficult to understand.

"I'm sure you will." Ryder is not going to university, and he may not even go to junior college. He can barely complete the square, and he hates reading textbooks, which is the majority of college and is proven by his hatred by the precalculus textbook staring back at him, so he is not going to further his education. "I hate precalculus. I hate AP Physics. I hate-"

"If you say one more thing, I swear I will punch you."

Ryder is silent, weighing his options in his head. He glances back at her, hair tied back, pendant around her neck, and asks, "Want to make out?"

In the middle of a bullet point about the American Dream and The Great Gatsby, Florida shuts her notebook, using her pencil as a placeholder, and looks him dead in the eye. "Will you shut up about physics?"

"Sure."

"Fine." Florida pats the spot on the ground next to her, and Ryder gets out of the chair and slides over next to her. They leave everything else - her Lenovo laptop, her notebook, her pencil case - on the floor, and lean forward for a kiss. It soon turns into more, and then it's a mess of tongue and saliva, the taste of Ryder's lunch of burgers on his teeth, the smell of coffee in her breath. It's almost routine for them.

Ryder can still remember doing this during the pep rally last week, much to the horror of Florida's friends. They don't like Ryder much, probably because they think Florida could do much better.

It doesn't matter. It's not like they're dating.

A few minutes in, her phone vibrates in her pocket, so she pulls away. Ryder, who had pulled her into his lap, lets her stand up to get the phone out of her back pocket. It's a message from the AP Environmental Science group chat she's in, so she silences her phone and throws it onto her bed. Ryder is lying down on the ground, staring at the fluorescent light, and Florida thinks about how this all started.

They've been friends since fourth grade (he had moved in next door, and he had asked him, "Do you wanna see if I can fit this apple in my mouth?" and he had been too nervous to say no), but this friendship with benefits is fairly new. It started last year, junior year. Library, after school, Florida had texted Ryder out of nowhere that autumn day, or maybe it was a winter day, or a spring day, but it didn't matter to either of them, because Ryder went to meet up with Florida, and they had made out for five minutes until Ryder had to go catch the bus, and that was the start of the "with benefits" part.

It's a pretty simple story, now that she thinks about it. Not that she minded. Not everything had to be overly complicated.

"Hey," Ryder says, breaking the silence, listening to the faint hum of the air conditioning, and she picks up her phone, opening Instagram to scroll through her feed. "Do you ever think about having sex?"

"With you?" She locks her phone and throws it back on the bed.

"Yeah."

"No."

Ryder feels the weight fall from his shoulders. This kind of relationship, making out whenever they felt like it without attachments, usually leads to sex, or at least that's what everyone says, but he never wanted anything to go in that direction. Not that it matters too much, Ryder thinks. When spring comes, this won't last. "I don't really want to have sex with you either."

"Then it's mutual." Florida doesn't feel that offended, even though society is telling her she should. "Sex isn't everything."

"Yeah, totally."

Florida doesn't say anything else. She never intended to have sex with Ryder, because that isn't something they do, and just because their high school careers are ending, doesn't mean they only have a set amount of time left to lose their virginities.

Not that virginity is a real concept to become with.

"Do you ever want to date me?"

"What's with the questions?" Florida asks, sitting back down on the ground and opening her notebook. She doesn't remember what she was trying to write anymore. "No, I don't want to date you." Even if they don't have sex, even if they don't date, they will still sometimes, almost always, make out in the library, or in the empty music room, or in the privates of their own homes, away from judgement of their fellow peers. That's all their relationship has to be: private, fun, regular. That's how it'll be until it ends in June.

"Okay." Ryder gets up, stuffs his textbook and blank lined sheet of paper into his backpack. "Are you going to the game tomorrow?"

"I already bought my ticket." Florida looks up at him. "You going?"

"Yeah. Going with a few people from soccer."

"Cool." Florida waves as he leaves, backpack on his shoulders, and she pushes him out of mind to focus on her assignment. Then, before she knows it, she's at the football game, and their school is winning, and nothing seems to be happening.

hey u bored too? she texts Ryder. The cold seizes her entire body, and she rubs her hands together and brings her jacket closer to her body. A few seconds later, her phone vibrates the special vibration pattern she sets for Ryder in her hand.

yea is the only word he texts back. It's barely a word.

underneath the bleachers in five?

Ryder sends a thumbs up emoji, and she pockets her phone. She tells her friend she's going to the bathroom and leaves the bleachers, finding her way down where Ryder and she always meet up during games.

"How are you not cold?" she asks, gesturing to his legs sticking out underneath his basketball shorts. "It's November."

"Who says I'm not cold?" He sits down on the dirt, and Florida sits in his lap, and she wraps her arms around his neck, has her leg draped over his old ones, and she's suddenly aware that this is the last football game of the season, that they will never get to do this ever again. They will never ditch a football game to make out under the bleachers.

It doesn't hit her until now, but they're graduating this year. Everything is ending.

"Are you just going to sit there and think?" Ryder asks, and Florida rolls her eyes and crashes their lips together, her icy cold lips barely warmer than his. He puts an arm around her waist, and she grabs the base of his neck to guide him, and they're like this for the longest time, breathing only through their noses. They don't care if their lungs ache or if they should logically be coming up for air, because this is the last time this will ever happen. They're seniors.

"What are you two doing?"

Florida nearly jumps back, and Ryder accidentally bites her lip as she pulls away, and she brings a hand to her mouth to check for any bleeding. The teenager who interrupted them turns out to be Shane Marshall, a sophomore in Ryder's precalculus class. Shane and Ryder have only had two conversations with each other before this day, and one of those conversations was Shane swooning over his best friend, Malcolm, so Ryder doesn't know if that counted as a conversation. (In all honesty, Ryder still isn't even sure if Shane was swooning about his friend or just talking very energetically about how Malcolm got the lead in the school play.)

"Actually, that's a dumb question."

"It is." Florida is not amused. She exhales onto her hand, watching the warm vapor spread onto her hand. "We were making out."

"Right." Shane glances at Ryder, whom he obviously recognizes. "Do you have anything else to add, or do you want your girlfriend to speak for you?"

"We're not dating," Florida clarifies. Her hands are icicles, about to fall off. "I'm not his girlfriend."

"Yeah," Ryder adds dumbly. "We're not dating, but sometimes we make out. You know. Just like. A platonic thing. It means nothing. The football game's boring."

"It's the last game of the season."

"Yeah, but I don't particularly like football, unless it's association football."

Shane nods slowly, as if not really sure what association football is. "Okay."

"We only make out," Florida says, all the while wondering why she's so desperate to prove herself to this kid, "because it's just something to do when we're bored. It's nothing more than that. It means absolutely nothing on both ends."

"Oh," says Shane, looking between the two of them once more, and then at his two friends near the concession stand. One of them is Malcolm, based on the description Shane gave Ryder, holding a bucket of popcorn. "By the way, Ryder, how'd you think of the precalc test?"

"It was hard. I hate precalc. I'd rather die."

"Did you get number three?"

"Do you really think I'm the best person to ask?"

"Right." Shane sneaks a glance at his friends again and then waves Ryder and Florida goodbye. "Have fun, you two." Shane jogs away, exiting the bottom of the bleachers, and Florida and Ryder stare at each other, aware that one of them should make the first move, but neither of them do. The wind blows her hair in his face, but Ryder doesn't even care.

"I'll go first." Florida gets off his lap and pulls her jacket closer to her body. It doesn't help fight the cold. "Text me when you get to your seat."

"Okay." Ryder watches as she leaves, and although his fingers are frozen and could barely move, he plays a game on his phone. When he decides it's not worth it, he goes back to his seat. He's sitting next to Nick, who is sipping coffee from a thermos, and Nick is a quiet person, who doesn't like to get in the way, who doesn't reply to texts very quickly for some reason.

As Ryder walks past a couple of people to get to his seat, Nick points to his bottom lip and then at Ryder. Ryder reaches up to touch his lips. Are they swollen and red? Is that what Nick is talking about? "I..." Ryder thinks of a good answer. "It's cold."

"Was it Florida?" Everyone knows that Florida and Ryder are friends. They sit next to each other in all the classes they have in common, which is none this year and very few in the past three, and she borrows his clothes, even if he hates it when she does, and he asks her for help in nearly all his classes, even though she always calls him a hopeless case. Some people wonder how they're friends; after all, Ryder spends too much acting like a horny teenager who talks about sex all the time, and Florida has too bright of a future to be tied down by someone like Ryder. However, those people don't know is that they have some intuitive way of understanding each other in ways that they sometimes feel like no one else ever will.

There was nothing to question about their friendship.

"Does it matter?"

Nick shrugs and turns back to the game. Ryder takes out his phone and texts Florida that got to his seat, and then they text for a while.

(shane took that too well) (how do you know his name) (math class) (oh) (yea)

Ryder pockets his phone and tries his best not to think about how Nick just instantly knew his red lips were from Florida. He does his best not to think about it, but it soons become natural to not think about it, and then that memory fades into nothingness.

Then it's Wednesday, and his precalculus textbook is staring back at him. Polar form isn't that hard, it's saying. "Polar form isn't that weird," Florida is saying in real life, chewing obnoxiously on salt and vinegar chips.

"For me it is."

"I want to go to university right now just so I can take a math class again."

"You're the only person I know who genuinely likes math." Ryder pushes himself away from the desk, the swivel chair bringing him closer to Florida's bed. She's lying down, her knees bent to hold her laptop, and through one earphone, she's watching a video while using her left hand to eat her chips. "Do my math homework for me."

"I would, but we already got in trouble for that last week."

"Did we?"

"Don't you remember? Mrs. Kim recognized my handwriting and told us off for cheating."

"Right, I remember now."

"I can't believe you forgot."

"Whatever, Flor." Ryder swivels back to her desk, where his textbook is laughing at him. "You're, like, the single greatest person at math at our school. One year off isn't that bad."

"It's bad when you like math."

"Right. Sorry." The two of them are silent for a few minutes, and then Ryder breaks her concentration on her video again by asking, "Do you ever think people know we're kissing?'

"Is this about Shane?"

"No."

"I don't think we're obvious about it."

"Okay." Ryder taps his pencil against the edge of his textbook. "Flor, can you help me with polar form?"

She puts her laptop down and gets up to help him. Wiping her hands on her jeans first, she grabs a mechanical pencil from her container and shows him how to do the first problem, a simple conversion problem, and then helps him through all the textbook problems.

"Any more questions?" she asks by the end, watching the sun touch the horizon outside her window. Her window doesn't face his house, but his window does. However, their rooms are both on the south side of the house, so there's no way they could've been able to communicate to each other through their windows.

"No." He puts his pencil away and then closes his math textbook. "Can I tell you something?"

"Sure," she says, setting her laptop on her lap again as she sits on her bed.

"I'm asexual." Florida is silent, so Ryder continues, "I know I talk about sex at school all the time, but it's because I just feel like I should be interested in sex, but I don't actually feel sexually attracted to anyone, at least not really."

Florida sighs. "You've thought about this a lot, huh?"

"People..." Ryder frowns, decides to restart. "The other day, some guys on the soccer team were talking bad about bisexual people, and I remembered what you said, so I told them that those myths aren't true and recited the facts you always talk about. Afterwards, in the locker room, Nick came up to me and told me he isn't out but he's bisexual and he really appreciated what I said." He hadn't meant to reveal the person as Nick, but Florida seems like she doesn't care.

"How did you find out you're asexual through that?"

"I searched up biphobia and found out acephobia was a thing, so then I learned more about asexuality, and it was something I related to."

Florida hums and smiles, as if knowing something he doesn't. She knows a lot of things he doesn't. "Okay."

"That's all you have to say?"

"You being asexual doesn't make you a new person." Florida checks the time on her laptop. "You should go home for dinner."

"Okay." He stuffs everything into his backpack, says goodbye to her, takes the stairs downstairs, and then says goodbye to Florida's father. He goes home with his completed math homework and waits for his mother to get home and then helps her with dinner.

When dinner is done, they sit next to each other on the couch, watching reruns of old game shows, and Ryder thinks back to that day last year where Florida and Ryder first started this thing. He remembers going to the library and kissing Florida because he had thought this thing was just going to turn into nothing anyway.

They are friends, close friends, best friends, so this kissing, this making out, would end. They wouldn't fall in love with each other. They are better friends than partners, better platonic than romantic.

And now it's all ending. In the spring, Florida will leave for Berkeley, if she gets accepted, and she will be thousands of miles away from this town they became friends in. In the spring, he will go to junior college and try to get a job that pays well.

His phone rings, interrupting the woman on screen talking to the celebrity guests, and his mother sends him a curious look. "Who is it?"

Ryder checks the name flashing on screen. "Jack."

"Pick up."

"Okay." He picks up and heads into the kitchen. "Hello?"

"Hey. Are you available right now?"

Ryder glances behind him to the living room, his mother eating alone on the couch. "Yeah. What do you want?" Jack goes to Emerson College, which had been his dream college for three years. Before Emerson, Jack had been on the soccer team at Jefferson High and was the captain when he was a senior.

"Have you spoken to Nick lately?"

"Nick Fornier? From soccer?"

"Yeah." Jack is silent for a moment. "If you haven't, that's fine, but I'm just worried about him."

"Why?"

"I texted him the other day, but he never responded, and he's usually quick to respond, so I was wondering if anything was wrong."

Nick isn't quick to respond, not in Ryder's experience. Maybe he doesn't know Nick as well as he thought he did.

Then again, now that he thinks about it, Ryder doesn't really know anyone on the soccer team as well as he thought he did. He hadn't learned that Jack was interested in theatre design and management until he had chosen his major for college.

"I talked to him on Friday. He should be fine."

"Okay." Jack sounds relieved, but then a shout is heard on Jack's side, and Jack sighs. "Hey, Ryder, I've actually got to go, but I'll talk to you later."

"Okay." Ryder swallows a lump in his throat. "Goodbye."

"Talk to you later." Jack hangs up, and Ryder stares at his lock screen. It's already November, and there's only one month until winter break, and then there's only one semester left of school. The year is ending.

Everything is ending.

He heads back to the couch, eating dinner with his right hand, and texts Florida with his left. you there?

Florida hears her phone, face down, vibrate on the dining table. Her dad raises an eyebrow. "It's Ryder," she says, and picks up her phone. what do you want? i'm eating dinner, she sends back.

can we talk?

I'll call you after dinner, she replies, setting down her phone and eating her meatloaf with her fork. Ryder sighs and pockets his phone. This is his last year on the soccer team. This is his last year sitting within the walls of Jefferson High. This is his last year living next door to Florida.

"Is Jack doing well in college?"

"I think so."

"Hm," she says, and he finishes his dinner soon after that. He goes takes a shower, letting the warm water run over him and the shampoo sit between his fingers, and then sits on his bed to read a bit for English, waiting patiently for Florida's call. It's a quarter to nine when she finally calls, and he picks up almost immediately.

"What do you want to talk about?"

"What's going to happen when you go to Berkeley?"

"Why are you asking?"

"I was just curious. I can't imagine life without you as my neighbor."

"We'll still talk, and we'll still be friends. We won't see each other every day, and we obviously won't be kissing or making out, but we'll be friends. After all, I love you." Florida clarifies, "Platonically. I love you platonically."

Ryder laughs. Of course she had to clarify that. "I love you platonically too."

"Good." Florida grins to herself, crossing her legs as she sits down on her bed, wearing only sweats and a t-shirt. "We're platonic life partners." Then, she audibly shivers. "Never call me your platonic life partner. That is so not the right word."

Ryder doesn't want the spring to come. Soon winter break will roll around, and then the spring semester will start, and then everything will end. "I guess I have to find someone else to be my platonic life partner."

"Who? Literally everyone you ask out rejects you."

"Jerk! It was only one person!"

"One person is still one person."

"You're making it sound a lot worse than it is!"

"One person is still one person. One murder is still one murder."

"I will kill you."

Florida laughs and repeats, "One murder is still one murder."

"You're literally the worst. I take back everything. I want the last eight years of friendship back." Ryder laughs when Florida laughs like she will never laugh again, and they talk into the night, only hanging up when Ryder can't stop yawning and Florida's laughter sounds drunkenly delirious, just like old times. Just like before.

The next day at school, Ryder is sitting in math class, staring at the problems which keep telling him that Florida knows how to solve them better than he ever will, when the bell ring for lunch shuts the textbook up. Glad, Ryder is about to pack when he notices Shane standing there, a yellow Post-It in his hand.

"Hey," Ryder says. "What's up?"

"I, um, wanted to apologize for assuming you and Florida were dating last week."

"It's fine," Ryder says. He stuffs everything in his backpack, standing up next to Shane, who is slightly taller than he is. Ryder totally won't hold a grudge about that.

"Someone told me that Florida's bisexual."

"Yeah? What about it?"

Shane hands Ryder a yellow Post-It with his name and number scribbled on it. "Can you give this to her?"

"Why? Do you want to ask her out?"

"I wanted to ask her a few questions."

"About being bisexual?" Shane hesitates to answer, so Ryder says, "About being attracted to your best friend-"

"SHH!" The classroom is almost empty, but a group of girls near the door and the teacher turns to Shane after that loud shush. "Don't just say that aloud!"

"Sorry," Ryder says, taking the Post-It and holding it in his hand. It looks so small and vulnerable. If he balled his fist, that would be the end of that Post-It, and that would be the end of everything. Shane and Ryder won't talk after this year. "I'll give it to her."

"Thanks. I really appreciate it." Shane gives him one last smile and leaves, and Ryder rolls his eyes. Hopefully Florida will give Shane and Malcolm the push they need to begin their relationship. It is so obvious.

Leaving the classroom, Ryder makes his way to the cafeteria, where Florida usually sits. He finds her and relays pieces of information to her, who stares at the Post-It in disbelief.

"This is the guy who caught us at the football game, right?"

"Yeah."

"Who's his friend he's attracted to?'

"Malcolm Dawes."

"He was Benjamin in The Yellow Boat last year, right?"

"Do I look like I know?" Ryder asks, but when Florida raises an eyebrow, he rephrases it as, "I don't actually know Shane or Malcolm that well." If Shane and Malcolm don't get together after all this trouble, Ryder is going to sue them "Just text Shane."

"I'm rooting for them." Florida takes out her phone from her backpack and starts typing. Ryder reads over her shoulder and sees she's written, hey Shane! it's Florida here. Ryder said you had questions for me.

"Do you realize that even if they get together, they'll probably break up before high school ends?" Ryder blurts out as she presses send. Florida raises an eyebrow at him.

"That's probably not..." Florida realizes that Ryder isn't just talking about Malcolm and Shane. "I'm sure they'll still be good friends. Just because a relationship ends, doesn't mean everything in the world ends."

Ryder rolls his eyes. "You're such a sap."

"At least I don't get rejected by everyone I ask out."

"Stop mentioning that!"

"Whatever. At least the people I ask out actually say 'yes'." Florida continues to tease him, and they argue for the majority of lunch, like they did when they were in fourth grade, climbing trees and stuffing apples in their mouths, and Florida's friends tell them to stop acting like idiots in love, and then they all laugh, because even if everything is ending, nothing is changing.

* * *

endnotes ‣ happy birthday, Sophie! I must sound like a broken record by now, but being your friend for years has been one of the most wonderful experiences of my life, and you're one of the most kind and amazing people I know. I hope you have a wonderful year and enjoy being seventeen!