The ice in the bucket holding plastic water bottles—undoubtedly from Costco, though their labels had been replaced with cutesy ones wishing the passengers "have a great summer!"—had turned to slush by the time Marco boarded the bus. He passed them by and took his assigned seat. Who knew what was inside. At any other school, he could trust they held water, bearer of life and cleanser of sins. But then his English class was once served cups of vinegar, diluted just enough to be tolerable, as punishment for one person plagiarizing their essay. Water and vinegar looked the same—maybe one of his neighbors had invited punishment upon them all—so he chose not to take the risk. He was thirsty, but could wait until home.

Sweat began to pool at the back of Marco's neck, and he reached behind his neighbor to open the window, which lowered a few degrees but did little to improve ventilation. His buzz cut, a recent hasty overreaction to a senior telling him his hair was "unruly," helped a bit. He loosened his tie and unbuttoned his cuffs.

"It's like an oven in here," Marco quipped to his neighbor, who gave a stiff nod. The school certainly had the money to upgrade the buses, which were technically the city's, but nobody who had the power to authorize magnanimous spending initiatives like that took the buses. President Jamal had taken them last year, and he certainly had the power, but it wouldn't have been politically advantageous to admit it. Besides, if anyone complained, they would just say "well, President Jamal never complained, so follow his example," they being everyone who had the barest ounce of self-preservation.

Suddenly those bottles of mystery liquid looked a lot more appealing. It was that or heatstroke. Marco walked to the front of the bus and took one, then returned to his seat. The label had begun to peel. He opened it and took a bold sip. Water, as he rationally knew it had to be. The bus made a turn, and at once a faintly jasmine-scented breeze blew through into the bus.

Many students disembarked the bus downtown, but Marco wasn't in the mood for celebrating like them. It only made sense to celebrate the last day of school when it was truly the last, he reasoned: nobody celebrated reaching the halfway point of a marathon or finishing three-quarters of a jigsaw puzzle. For him, the last day of school was his first day of filling out the FAFSA and navigating through a confusing folder of college application advice a counselor had given him the preceding week. He had to go to the office to receive his; the Alphas and Betas had theirs delivered in class. The counselor had looked at him up and down, as if impressed that a mere Gamma wanted to go to a four-year university. Occidental was his goal: his mother had gone there, and would point its campus out in every LA-based movie they watched. The fact had not escaped Marco that it shared Heller's mascot and school colors, but a part of him thought it would count as partial credit toward legacy admissions.

Eventually Marco's neighbor had to disembark, and Marco stepped aside. That meant his stop was next, and Marco thanked the bus driver and left. He walked quickly on the pavement, fearing the soles of his shoes would melt. It had been an unusually hot June that followed an unusually cold and rainy May. Weather those days was defined by extremes, something his AP Environmental Science teacher taught was the result of climate change and President Haneul had used as imagery in a speech, the thesis of which was that everything would eventually return to the mean. Change was inevitable, and there was something enlightened in taking change as it happened. It was a beautiful speech, but one Marco knew meant that they certainly knew that the bus was too hot, and that one student had dropped of heat exhaustion while completing their PE final and had to be carried off in a stretcher, but did not care.

No cars were parked in front of his house; his mother must have decided not to work from home today. His father always worked at the office, "too early and too late" to use his words, but his mother only went in on days when her boss asked. Those had been happening with increasing frequency, and his mother lamented the loss of family time. Marco wasn't terribly bothered. He let himself in, immediately changed into a T-shirt and shorts, and returned to the front porch, a glass of trusty lemonade in hand. It was hot, certainly, but not overwhelmingly so when faced with the proper preparation—change was inevitable, and part of taking change as it happened was dressing for the occasion. Long ago, another adage from up above was to dress "conservatively but nicely," and somehow that had morphed into a school-wide dress code. What was lost in transmission was the more sensible wisdom his father had once told him: dress for success.

A call interrupted Marco's sun-kissed reverie:

"Hey Priya, what's up?" Marco asked.

"Are you still on campus?"

"No, are you?"

"Yeah, I was assigned to help set up chairs for graduation today. I'm surprised you weren't, typically they have Gammas doing that sort of thing."

Marco put down his glass, which had been diluted to vaguely lemon-flavored water by the melting ice.

"They don't trust us. Lucky you're an Alpha, you get the important tasks."

"Lucky me? It's sweltering out here. So anyway, Jessica and I were thinking of grabbing boba downtown after this, if you're down. Isaac's playing in the orchestra, else he'd come too."

"Is Kenny coming too?"

Priya snickered on the other end of the line. "Of course not, why would he?"

"Because he's your boyfriend."

"Not a chance I'm letting him ruin a pleasant evening with my friends. Anyway, see you at five?"

Marco checked his watch. He'd make the bus if he left immediately; he wasn't going to spend ten bucks on an Uber when he had cheaper options.

"See you. Novel-Tea, like always?"

"Like always. Bye-bye."

Priya hung up, and Marco returned his glass inside, then locked up and started walking back to the bus stop. Certainly the FAFSA was important, and kudos was warranted for thinking to start it his first moment of summer vacation, but practically speaking it could wait. It wasn't worth mentioning to Priya that he had his afternoon envisioned: paperwork, then surprising his mom by letting her come back to watered plants—a household chore she had less and less time for the more she had to go into the office, then a gourmet dinner of leftover pad thai he'd likely eat from the to-go container at his desk. It wasn't out of laziness: it was gourmet presentation, an ironic statement on consumerism. He'd never get away with it at school, but it was his house and his rules. They couldn't control him there.

The sun had lowered slightly, and with that came some slight respite from the heat. There was nobody else at the bus stop, but that was typical for the late afternoon: this also wasn't one of the bus lines exclusively serving the school, meaning that there were no assigned seats. Nevertheless, when the bus arrived, Marco took his usual seat, even though the bus was empty except for one old man in a scruffy coat who sat in the front and occasionally scratched his chin. If Marco waited a few more hours, there would be some people returning from evening shifts, but the time in between the after-school rush and the evening commute was reserved for wayward souls.

Novel-Tea was one of the many boba shops in downtown San Sebastian, alongside the similarly punny Snacks and the Ci-Tea, Tea for Two (which exclusively played Sinatra as background music), and a whole host of them that kept opening, closing, and swapping storefronts to where it was entirely pointless to keep track. Bubble tea was prohibited on Heller's grounds (God forbid anyone call it boba) unless unsweetened, a byzantine rule attributed to the How To Be A Good Person Club founder's by-then ancient decree that being a good person could, in essence, be distilled to one's drink choices, among a long list of similarly arbitrary rules. This ideology had not yet caught the world by storm—though Heller had had its fair time in the local news limelight. It had been spread by Heller alumni to college campuses at large, however, with no seeming local economic impact.

"Why do you think boba is still banned on campus?" Priya asked Marco at the boba shop's entrance, stretching her toes in her ballet flats. "They know perfectly well we all go downtown to drink it anyway. A bit anti-Asian, especially in this political climate, don't you think?"

"Why do we have a caste system shamelessly stolen from Brave New World? Why are there portraits of the club founders in the leadership room? Why does anything happen?"

"My brother came here all the time when he was a senior," Jessica cut in. "He knew the owner."

"Your brother, Jason Wu, inventor of TigerTalk, Frank's lieutenant, world-renowned creep, Stalin fanboy, used to come here? I can't believe it," Marco said.

"He said the bobarista was one of his former classmates. Would make him all these fancy drinks modeled after cocktails, like they were at a real bar."

"I think he's been feeding you propaganda again."

"Can we go inside? My feet are killing me."

"I keep telling you, stop wearing high heels," Priya teased. "You'll get blisters."

"Research has shown that taller people are more confident and assertive, and—"

"Life's too short to be tall," she shot back, and they went inside.

Jessica's recollections were correct: some years past, there had been a bobarista named Ted whose name had predestined him to be an excellent barkeep and confidant, who had decided that if all the customers were going to show up in suits they were entitled to proportionately formal service. Ted had left to pursue greater things, but his legacy remained, and Novel-Tea was where everybody knew your name. The shop was packed, and the three of them sat at the only table open, tucked away in the corner next to the board game shelf.

A waiter came by with a notepad at the ready. "Nice to see you three again. What do you want to drink?"

"The usual," Marco said with a nod. The others nodded in turn. The waiter smiled and left.

"I don't know why they bother asking us. We always ask for 'the usual,' and they give us whatever they feel like," Jessica said, kicking off her shoes and letting her feet sway.

"It's because they know their customers think they're more important than they actually are, and demand to be waited on like they have their own Epsilon butlers," Priya laughed.

"I have friends who are Epsilons, that's not nice. Check your privilege," Marco said.

"And I have Epsilon friends too, but it's just a fact, there's nothing at all offensive about that. Like how they make us say 'we can learn a lot from Betas' in that matter-of-fact tone and expect us to marvel at how these people we've known since elementary school have more than cotton for brains."

"I can't believe you two are done with school for the semester, and all you want to do is talk about it. I hate high school," Marco declared. "I'm going to live this summer to the fullest, push through my final year, and escape."

"We hate it too," Priya asserted, looking at Jessica for confirmation, who gave a meek nod.

"I'm sure you hate it less. You're both Alphas. You aren't treated as second-class citizens."

"Come on, you're a Gamma, it's not that bad. It's that quote they always cite, something something not everyone's had the advantages you've had, who was it again..."

"Nick from The Great Gatsby," Jessica chimed in. "It's kind of cool, when you think about it, how literary our lives are. We're discussing a quote from a novel we studied in AP Lang in the context of something derived from a book we read sophomore year, all in a boba shop called Novel-Tea."

"They've really brought the English curriculum to life here," Priya said sarcastically.

"And it's a waking nightmare," Marco said. The drinks arrived and they paused their argument.

Jessica and Priya began chatting about some TikTok trend, leaving Marco to stir his boba idly. Today he'd been served chocolate-flavored boba, with hints of orange and sea salt; he could barely taste the tea, and for all he knew he could've just been served chewy chocolate milk. But it tasted good: it reminded him of a chocolate orange he had received as a gift one Christmas, with a joking remark from his uncle that once fruit was a luxury, and that kids would be lucky to get fruit for Christmas. Christmas was supposed to be a celebration of abundance, not a reminder of what he didn't have. That was what his Instagram was for, where he would always see families in identical Santa hats in front of identical roaring fireplaces tossing shreds of wrapping paper like confetti.

It wasn't the season for those thoughts, so Marco continued taking small sips of his drink. Its sweetness was a sin, and Marco had observed once (but kept it to himself) after a sip of Priya's drink one time that the Alphas were served less sugar. Today wasn't the first time he had heard those rumors about Novel-Tea, that its original success was due to the success of one commissar Jason Wu, the Big Brother to all of Heller and most of all to his friend Jessica Wu. There were certainly spies all around them, seeing who ordered what, whose lips ran too loose. But to what end, to keep him a Gamma forever? To ensure that people like Priya, and Jessica most of all, were kept innocent? One thing was certain: they had succeeded in making him lose his appetite.

"What's wrong with your drink?" Jessica asked. She took a sip and passed it back. "I like it. Good balance of flavors—bittersweet, almost."

"There's nothing wrong with it. I've just had a lot to drink today."

"Don't waste it," she admonished.

"I won't, Jessica."

By the time they'd settled their tab and left, the light had dimmed more, and the graduates had descended from the hill above to go to their celebration dinners downtown. Their orange garlands were like bursts of fireworks on their black robes; they carried their caps over their breasts as if saluting a nonexistent flag.

"I can't wait for that to be me," Marco said wistfully. "Just one year more."

"You get so sentimental sometimes, it's sickeningly sweet," Priya laughed. "Need a ride?"

"Oh yeah, that would be lovely. I've spent enough time on the bus today. Thanks."

"I parked by the rose garden, so I'm going to head that way," Jessica said, and walked off as quickly as her footwear allowed.

"I feel bad for her sometimes," Priya said when Jessica left earshot. "She's one of the sweetest, purest people I know, but it's all ruined because of what her brother's done. And honestly, what he's still doing: she says he still trains and consults the security team, meaning he's spent, what, the last three years staring at us through the security cameras like some perverted TJ Eckleburg?"

"And through our teddy bears," Marco added.

"Did that really happen?"

"Yeah, freshman year, remember the rumors that after 'bring your stuffed animal to school day' people saw their heads swivel at night? Gina was telling me about it during one of the internship fairs."

"Who's Gina again?"

"Gina Ping, just graduated, going to Yale—you must remember her, she and Greg performed the paso doble at homecoming freshman year."

"Oh yeah, her. I never really talked with her. She seemed smart."

"She always told things like they were, not like what we were supposed to believe. She was one of the good ones."

Marco rolled down the window a crack as they drove, and let the breeze run through what remained of his hair. The air had a faint tinge of motor oil as they passed through the dilapidated residential area that lay between downtown and the freeway, but it was still refreshing in its own way.

"So how are things with you and Kenny right now?" Marco asked.

"They're great, which is to say I hate him."

"A love-hate relationship?"

"You could say that. He can be so brutish sometimes. He'll walk around an In-N-Out like he owns the place, but he knows nothing. He thinks he's so special because he goes to St. Sebastian, a private school—" Priya punctuated this by making air-quotes with her right hand while turning with her left—"but he doesn't know anything. Just because he gets to take Latin doesn't make him cool. I could take after-school Latin if I wanted to."

"And why don't you?"

"Because if I take after-school Latin, then I can't take all the actually fun activities I could be doing, and then I'd have to stay late, so if I did anything else I'd stay even later... did you realize they have activities running until nine these days? Even today they have people on janitorial duty after graduation, and then there's the postmodern literature book club that's still meeting, and then one of the alumni mentoring orientation sessions is tonight, so imagine going with your family to celebrate freedom and then heading right back to learn how best to drag your peers into the depths of hell with you."

"Maybe they just have school pride."

Priya chuckled. "They're brainwashed. It doesn't count if you're brainwashed."

"I think I'm still proud of my school. We've done some good things, for what it's worth. I don't know what it was like before all of this, but I doubt we were winning the district canned food drive."

"A canned food drive isn't a competition. It isn't something you win."

"If making it a competition is what fills the food pantries, I can't complain. It's a left turn here."

There were two cars where before there had been none, so Marco's parents had returned. They'd get their family time after all. He waved bye to Priya and walked past the garden, where his mother had already watered the plants. Some still looked a bit singed on the edges, but it felt artistic, like a sage leaf fried in butter where the point of it all was that there was "complexity" in flavor and it wasn't just burnt. He knocked twice as a courtesy before unlocking the front door.

"You must've been celebrating your last day of school," Marco's father said from the couch, beer in hand.

"I guess, yeah."

"Don't forget to fill out your FAFSA tomorrow."

"I won't," Marco said, and sat down next to him. Perfect timing to catch the end of Jeopardy!.