Hot Dog Girl

by Jennifer Dugan

“Wait.” I hold up my hands. “What if we still do the bake sale, and give him all the money? Not to keep the park open, but—”

  “But to give to his granddaughter,” Nick says.

  I smile, a tiny flicker of hope unfurling in my chest. “I think we should do it.”

  “Yeah?”

  I nod my head, grinning when he jumps up and gives me a high five.

  * * *

  • • •

  It is 11:54 p.m., and my dad is being unusually cool about the fact that I am still up banging pots and pans all over our kitchen with Nick at my side. He’s come down twice to check on us, but abandoned ship quickly both times after being forced to act as our unofficial taste tester. Nick started combining the store-bought stuff with ingredients we had in our own kitchen a few hours back, and it got a little wild. I think we lost Dad for good sometime after the maple bacon flavor, but I can’t be sure. It could have also been the lemon churro twist.

  At any rate, it’s late and we’re covered in dry mix and batter and powdered sugar, and I know that tomorrow the world will go back to falling apart—that tomorrow everything will be wrong again and Seeley will still hate me—but, right now, we’ve managed to carve out a tiny little spot where we’re both somehow okay.

  There’s a dab of frosting stuck to the left of Nick’s lip, and without thinking, I reach out and I wipe it with my thumb. He leans into the touch, just enough to let me know that I could kiss him if I wanted, two lonely desperate people wishing they were other places with other people. It would be so easy to scoot up on my tiptoes and press my lips to his, to let my whole life melt away in this haze of confectioner’s sugar and flour and cute boy, to finally know what his skin would taste like under the tip of my tongue.

  Salty, I bet—salty with a hint of chlorine.

  It sounds fascinating in a super detached sort of way, and that reaffirms everything I already know. This isn’t my person. I look at the floor and take a step back. Nick lets out a shaky sigh, and I wonder if it’s from relief or disappointment, or maybe even somewhere in the middle. We’re the walking wounded all right, from start to finish.

  “Yeah.” He drops his chin to his chest and runs his hands through his hair a couple times. “I should—”

  “Yeah.” I nod, puffing out my cheeks as I exhale. “I should too.” And I don’t know exactly what I should be doing—cleaning the kitchen, maybe, going to bed, calling Seeley over and over again until she picks up and then declaring my love for her—but I know that whatever it is, it doesn’t involve Nick.

  “Do you need help cleaning up?”

  I scan the kitchen. There are dishes piled up in the sink, and every available surface is dotted with flour and frosting. It will take hours to clean, but I have plenty of time. “I got this. It’ll give me something to do.”

  Nick raises his eyebrows. “It’s already midnight.”

  “Exactly,” I say, and he nods again, like he gets it, like he knows that the nights are the worst parts.

  Nick asks me again if I’m sure, and I am. God knows I won’t be sleeping tonight anyway. I follow him to the door, fully intending to lock it behind him. It fact, he makes it all the way to the end of the sidewalk, all the way to his car before I grab my bag and go flying out after him, flagging him down and shouting his name.

  He looks at me, tilting his head. He’s still got his hand on the car door, ready to make a quick exit. “What’s up?”

  “Can you drop me at Seeley’s?” I don’t know if it’s the running or the adrenaline, but I’m out of breath, and I feel like I’m never going to catch it again if I don’t see her tonight.

  “It’s the middle of the night,” he says, like that matters.

  “I don’t care.”

  “Are you sure you won’t regret this in the morning?”

  “Please,” I beg, because yes, I will walk there if I have to, but this would be so, so much faster.

  “Get in,” he says, and a grin breaks out wide across his cheeks.

  CHAPTER 39

  I am standing underneath our tree.

  Half sitting, really, leaning against the trunk, and counting and recounting the steps in an effort to calm down. It’s one thing to show up and try to win back your girl shoeless and in pajamas, but it’s another to try to win back your girl shoeless and in pajamas and in the middle of a self-induced panic attack.

  Nick left a while ago, and I’m sure it’s well past one a.m. now, but I don’t care, I don’t. I crawl up the steps, the rough wood and nails biting into the underside of my naked feet as I scale the tree, and then step onto the roof and to her window.

  I reach my hands out, muscle memory expecting it to slide easily, but it doesn’t. I try again—it must be stuck, a simple trick of humidity and wood conspiring to give me a heart attack—but it doesn’t move an inch. I slide my gaze up to the latch. I have to be sure.

  Locked.

  This is all wrong. I had a plan, not a scheme this time, an actual plan. The window was supposed to slide up easily, her curtains whipping out in the gentle night breeze. I would creep inside, expecting her to call me out, or throw something, or scream at me, but she’d be curled up, asleep. I would say sorry and she would give me a sleepy smile, lifting her blanket so I could come in from the cold of her room.

  That’s what we do. That’s how we are. A million nights like this, nights where we crept into each other’s rooms and each other’s beds, mornings when we woke up tangled together, unable to tell where one ends and the other begins. Tonight should have been a million and one, but it’s locked.

  I hate this.

  I hate that I’ve ruined it all in so many ways.

  There’s a notebook in my bag, the same one she sketched cupcakes and smiley faces in while we planned the fund-raiser. I flip to a blank page and search for a pen way down in the bottom, beneath the pile of crumbs and stray tampons. My fingers finally find one, and it’s teal of course, like her hair when she’s happy. I want to cry, but I’ve done enough of that and know it’ll get me nowhere.

  I lean back against her window and bleed my words onto the page. I don’t know if it matters, I don’t know if there’s a way back from locked windows and broken hearts, but I have to try. I have to. I fold the note and set it on her sill beneath a pack of gum and some quarters. I hope it doesn’t blow away. I hope it helps somehow.

  I hope.

  CHAPTER 40

  Seeley,

  I’m in love with you.

  I wanted to say that first in case you stop reading because you probably should hate me now might not want to hear it. But if nothing else, I wanted you to know that. I love you, and I’m in love with you. Both things. Every second. And I’ve made so many mistakes. If you don’t want to ever see me again, I understand completely.

  I don’t know how we got here. No, that’s a lie. I do. We got here because I brought us here, dragged you, kicking and screaming the whole way. I have been selfish, I have been terrible, and you deserve better. I’m so, so, so friggin’ sorry for what I put you through.

  And I’m also sorry that I wasted so much time looking at him, when I should have been looking at you. Because you deserve to be looked at all the time. I want to look at you right now.

  Wait. That sounds creepy. Let try this again.

  I’m sitting on your roof right now while you sleep, thinking about how I wish I could look at you right now. Wait, that’s also creepy, actually that’s creepier than what I had before. Shit.

  I am so bad at this.

  I know you heard what I said about you in the breakroom, but just in case there was any doubt in your head, I wanted to say it again. To your face. Well, to your face in a letter, I guess.

  And I know you probably don’t feel the same way. That’s okay, you shouldn’t, because you are good and kind and EVERYTHING that is right in this stupid town, and mayb
e in this whole stupid world (but I’ll have to let you know, since I’ve never been farther than the Target two towns over BUT I HAVE SUSPICIONS, OKAY?).

  But Seeley, honestly, all the good things left in me are the things that you put there, you know? Because even when I was scheming and angry and wrong, you were there. I am a mess. I am a hurricane of frizzy hair and bad ideas, but for someone like you to love me my whole life, even if you weren’t/aren’t/will never be IN love with me, I don’t know. It’s kind of amazing. And I ruined that because I got too lost in my own life to remember yours.

  And you were right about Mr. P having a good reason to close the park down too. He does. You were right. And I want to scream that out forever because you always are, and I never say it enough.

  I could have kissed Nick tonight, that’s the other thing I wanted to tell you.

  It was late, and we were both so sad, and it was like all those movies of mine you roll your eyes at, where the music swells and the actors kiss, and then it fades to black and you know it was MEANT TO BE. And I felt like I could do it too. I could have closed my eyes and pushed all my rough edges into his wounds, and it would be just wrong enough to be right maybe. Except I didn’t do it.

  Because all I could think about was the way your lips felt that night under the fireworks, and the weight of your bones on mine. And it took me a long time, but I figured it out. The difference between liking and loving, the difference between make-believe and what’s real, the difference between right now and please, please, let this last forever.

  So this is me telling you that I would rather have my heart broken by you than anybody else. And if you don’t want me, that’s fine too. Well, it’s not, but I’ll deal. I hope we can find a way to still be friends, though, because I’m yours, and I always have been, even if I was too foolish to realize it.

  What I’m trying to say is that I love you. I love you, Seeley.

  And I’m sorry for taking so long to tell you. And also I’m sorry for telling you, depending on which way you feel. I’m a shitty person, but I’m working on it.

  Yours,

  Lou

  CHAPTER 41

  My phone is off, and it’s deliberate. It’s morning already and Seeley isn’t here climbing in my window or running up my stairs. And even though I know what that means, I know, as long as I don’t turn on my phone, I can still pretend I don’t.

  I can’t pretend forever, though.

  I flick on my phone and stare at the background, a selfie of Seeley and me at junior prom. She’s sticking her tongue out and I’m kissing her cheek like we have a thousand times before. Except now it’s different and I would give anything to go back to that moment. But I can’t, and the worst thing is, that’s it. That’s all there is to see. No texts, no missed calls, no desperate voicemails, no reprieve at all waiting for me on the other side of the off button.

  She doesn’t love me back. She doesn’t.

  I hurl my phone across the room. It doesn’t break, but I wish it did. I grab a pen off my desk and pull the notebook out from my bag, not for any real reason other than to take up space in a room I want to disappear in.

  I doodle a dot that turns into a sun, which turns into an explosion, which seems fitting somehow, par for the course. I’m still tiptoeing through the minefield in my head when my dad knocks on my door, popping it open without waiting for me to invite him in.

  “Elouise?” he says, and I look up. I can tell by the way he instantly furrows his brows that I must look like hell.

  I spin in my chair, slipping back and forth a little, waiting for him to say something. I wonder for half a second if he’s going to tell me that Seeley’s downstairs, my stupid hoping heart, but I can tell by the frown set on his lips that she isn’t.

  “The boy is back.” Dad pushes my door open wider. “Something about frosting and banners, I don’t know. You’re going to have to handle this. He’s talking incredibly fast, and I haven’t had any coffee yet.”

  “Same.” I yawn. “Did you put some on?”

  “You’re not drinking coffee. You’re sixteen years old.” He looks scandalized, like I just asked if he could hook me up with some meth on his way out or something.

  I laugh. “Seventeen next month!”

  “Don’t remind me. But right now: Boy. Downstairs. Take care of it.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Nick is standing in the foyer, rocking on his feet with his hands in his pockets.

  “How much coffee have you had?” I hop off the bottom step. “And why is there none for me?”

  “Coffee is for losers. Here.” He shoves an energy drink in my hand and darts into the kitchen, pausing when he sees the mess from the night before. “You didn’t clean up.” He turns around. He looks all happy and expectant, but it slips off his face when he takes a good look at me. “Oh.”

  Nick grabs his phone, crinkling his eyebrows and firing off a text. “Sorry, I’ll help you clean up.”

  “Why are you here again?”

  “We have two hours before we have to be there, right?”

  “And?”

  “And that’s just enough time to make some flyers and a banner and stuff, update the GoFundMe, and post that shit everywhere. And come on, Elouise! Think, think, think!”

  “Do we really need all that?”

  “Do you want to raise a lot of money for Mr. P, or do you want to make five bucks and call it a day?”

  “A lot of money.”

  He whirls around the kitchen, grabbing pans and bowls off the counters and tossing them in the sink. “Okay, you can draw, right? I mean I’ve seen all the drawings on your shoes and stuff.”

  “A little.” I shrug. “Seeley did my shoes. She’s the one that’s good at drawing.” And wow, just thinking about my shoes hurts.

  “Shit. I was hoping you would say ‘A lot,’” Nick says, yanking me out of my head. “Okay. New plan. No, wait! Maybe old plan still.” He laughs and pounds the rest of his energy drink. “If you really suck, maybe they’ll think his granddaughter drew it.” He looks down at his phone again, as his lips curl up. I wonder if it’s Jessa; I wonder if they’ll find their way back to each other. I watch him punch in a response with his twitchy, over-caffeinated fingers. I don’t know if that makes me happy or sad.

  “Okay.” I’m trying to snap out of it, trying to keep up with the words that pour out of his mouth even as he texts. “I’m definitely good at sucking at drawing. Seeley used to—” But I catch myself, because I can’t go there right now, not if I want to stay standing.

  “All right.” He flips on the water, squirting in a ton of soap and staring at it until the bubbles are up to his elbows. “Let’s see what you can do, okay? Grab the markers and stuff out of my backpack, will ya? I left it by the door.” He jerks his hand out of the water. “I would get them myself, but I’m totally, undeniably soaked.”

  I roll my eyes and hop off the stool next to the counter, walking back out into the foyer, where he left his bag. I crouch down next to it, messing with the zippers and the ten thousand compartments, trying to find the markers and other supplies he was babbling on about.

  A noise from outside makes me pause: a scuffling sound, a tentative footstep, a hand on a knob it doesn’t twist. I look up, hopeful and desperate. Seeley’s there, standing awkwardly on the other side of the storm door, one arm wrapped around herself as she looks down at me.

  “Seeley?” I blink hard, my voice soft like I’ll scare her away if I’m too loud, too fast, too me. Maybe I will, maybe I already have. I stand up slowly and go still, afraid to touch the handle in case she won’t come inside. I want to memorize every second of this, just in case. She raises her other hand slowly, biting on her nail as she looks at me, and I wonder if she’s thinking the same thing. I yank the door open, because if this is my last moment with her, I want to at least be
breathing the same air.

  “See—”

  Her lips are pressed against mine before I can finish and I freeze, my whole body rigid and my eyes squeezed tight. She steps back, takes a deep breath, and then lets out a sigh. “Open your eyes, Lou.”

  I blink hard against the sunlight. Did it get brighter out, or is it her? Nick bangs some pans around the kitchen, and I turn my head toward him, just for a second, but long enough for the smile to slip a bit on Seeley’s face. And now it’s my turn to take the lead, to bring a clumsy kiss back to her, because Seeley kissed me and that’s got to mean something, it’s got to, and I will spend the rest of my life doing whatever I can to bring her smile back, swear to god.

  I press my forehead to hers, smiling so hard it hurts. “Hi.” My cheeks heat furiously because that was dumb, but I didn’t know what else to say.

  “Hi,” she says back, and I wait to see if she’s going to say anything else, but she doesn’t.

  “I guess you got my note?”

  She nods, lacing her fingers into mine and leading me over to the chairs on the side of the porch. “Lou,” she says.

  My heart pounds so hard I can feel it in my ears because it feels so good to hear her say my name again. It feels like my whole brain is burning down and she’s the only one that can stop it.

  She sighs. “I’m not having this conversation with Nick and your dad watching us.”

  Okay. So, if I made a list of all the possible things that could’ve come out of her mouth next, that . . . would probably still not have been on it. I dart my eyes up to the two people standing sheepishly in the window. They wave, the curtains trailing after them as they beat a hasty retreat. I groan and drop back into my seat, staring at the ceiling and trying to swallow the tears and the laughter that are bubbling up inside me.

  Her chair creaks as she leans forward, scratching at my knee gently with her nails until I look up. My eyes are glassy and I feel like I’ve lived twenty lives in the span of the last thirty seconds. “You kissed me.”