I had to bite my lip to keep from wincing. “Right,” I said hollowly. “My friends.” I busied myself with carefully folding the Flask’s paper napkin into a perfect square.
“Well,” she said with a shrug, leaning back in her chair, “make sure you go have fun tonight. Dave and I are doing payroll, which is a blast. So have a good time before you have to worry about things like that.”
Maya and I headed our separate ways shortly after that, but what she’d said kept returning to me throughout the evening, while I ate my take-out dinner alone and then tried (without success) to get through a chapter in my O-chem study guide.
And it was Maya’s words, coupled with severe boredom and loneliness, that led me to reach for my phone and scroll through my contacts until I got to Topher.
ME
Hey. You around?
TOPHER
It’s about time.
• • •
I pushed open the door and stepped inside the party, smoothing my hair down and looking around. Topher had told me he would be here later—a friend of his from school was throwing this party. He’d neglected to inform me the friend’s name, just dropped a pin on the address, so I was hoping that nobody would ask me what I was doing there before I could find him. Topher’s “later” could mean many things, and he never seemed to get any more specific—in fact, usually the opposite—when you pressed him for clarification. So I’d gotten ready, then stalled for an hour before heading over, hoping I’d waited long enough, but not really caring all that much if I hadn’t. Even though this party looked just like dozens of parties I’d been to, I was out of the house, which was enough for me at the moment. I didn’t see Topher—or anyone I recognized—but I wasn’t worried about that, not yet. If Topher still hadn’t shown up in an hour, it would be a different story, but I could cross that bridge when I came to it.
I caught my reflection in a hall mirror as I headed back to the kitchen, and smoothed down my skirt. It had just felt wrong, getting ready to come here tonight in silence, with no video commentary, no Palmer sprawled across my bed vetoing outfits, no text chains about what I should wear. And it was equally strange to walk in with no group around me, trying to pretend I belonged there and knew where I was going. I found myself looking around for my friends automatically, even though I knew they probably wouldn’t be here and wouldn’t be talking to me if they were.
I made my way into the kitchen, where an array of bottles and red cups were scattered along the countertop, and pulled the Diet Coke bottle out of my bag. Now that I was pretty sure my dad was running again, I figured I couldn’t be too careful. It was also, I realized as I opened the bottle and took a long drink, not a bad idea for me to just stick to soda, since I was at a party, for maybe the first time ever, with no backup.
My eyes drifted out to the back patio, where there was a pool half-filled with people and what looked like a guy passed out on the diving board. And there, sitting in an Adirondack chair, was Topher. For a second I thought about trying to catch his eye, wait for him to notice me, do this same routine we always did. But only for a second before I left the kitchen and headed outside.
I walked up to his Adirondack chair, where he was leaning back, a bottle of Sprite in one hand, listening with a faint smile on his face as the guy in the chair next to him was leaning forward, saying something about galaxies.
“For years, man,” he was saying, gesturing vaguely up to the sky and spilling some beer on his own arm, “they’ve thought the galaxies were just fixed, done, boom, that’s it. These perfect orderly systems, right?”
“Who’s ‘they’?” Topher asked, in a way I knew from experience meant he didn’t really want to know but had just seen a flaw in an argument.
“Astronomers!” the guy said, gesturing again, sending more beer flying. At this rate, he’d be out before he was done talking. “NASA people. You know. They weren’t even studying some of them any longer because they thought all that was done eight billion light-years ago. But then they started noticing stuff.”
“Really.” Topher was looking away, not even listening to the guy anymore, but that didn’t seem to be stopping him.
“Yeah,” the guy said. “Galaxies don’t start perfect. They start crazy disorganized, and they change over time.” He looked at Topher, waiting a beat, clearly expecting more of a reaction. “Doesn’t that, like, blow your mind?”
“Sorry,” Topher said, finally noticing me, or at least acknowledging that he noticed me. “My friend just got here.”
“Hi,” I said, giving the guy a halfhearted wave.
“Want to hear this crazy thing about galaxies?” the guy asked, leaning forward again, clearly glad to have found a potential new audience.
“She’s good,” Topher said, giving him a nod. “Thanks, though.” The guy seemed to notice then that he’d lost most of his beer while gesticulating, pushed himself up, and headed off toward the keg, still murmuring under his breath about star formations.
“Hey,” I said, adjusting my purse on my shoulder, then folding and unfolding my arms.
“You made it,” Topher said, looking up at me. “I was getting worried.”
I nodded, starting to feel weird standing while he was sitting and making no move to get up, so I took the galaxy guy’s seat, settling back into it and looking over at Topher. “Really,” I said, not phrasing it as a question.
Topher gave me a sleepy smile. “Sure,” he said, in a way that was designed to let me know he was lying and that this was supposed to be funny, that he’d forgotten about me. I gave him a half smile as I crossed my legs. I could feel it happening, this pattern we always fell back into, but for some reason it didn’t feel like it normally did. It was feeling more like the time Bri accidentally took my shoes after a sleepover and I had to wear hers all day, aware with every step of how they didn’t fit me right. I took a drink of my Diet Coke, waiting for this feeling to pass. It had just been a while since I’d seen Topher, that was all. Things would go back to normal soon.
“So what’s been happening?” I asked, after we’d sat in silence for a few moments. I somehow knew that Topher wouldn’t be the first to break it, that he’d wait for me to get the conversation rolling. Once, these kinds of games had made every interaction with him feel somehow exciting, but tonight they were exhausting me, and I was struggling to remember what the point of them was.
“You know,” Topher said with a tiny shrug. “Doing the intern thing. Beyond thrilling.” He looked over at me and frowned. “Wait—what did you end up doing again?”
“Dog walking,” I said immediately. Topher just stared at me. “Some cats, too, but mostly dogs. Walks and hikes.”
“Are you serious?” he asked, a laugh somewhere behind this. “You’ve really been walking dogs all summer?”
“Yep,” I said, nodding. I knew that a month ago I would have lied, or at least spun it, told him that I was working in an assistant capacity in a small independently owned business, in the service sector. But the last thing I wanted to do was to diminish what I’d spent the summer doing. “It was actually really great,” I said, realizing it was true as I said it, seeing, all at once, Clark and Bertie, and Maya and Dave, and walking with two leashes in each hand and the sun on my shoulders, driving back with a dog on my lap and a head sticking out of every open window.
“Well,” Topher said, looking a little discomfited by this, like I’d just gone off script on him. “I’ll take your word for it.” We lapsed into silence again, and before I could think of something else to say, he asked, “So it’s finally over with Clark?” Topher asked, putting a snide spin on his name.
“Uh-huh,” I said, not saying it, but really thinking that people named Topher weren’t exactly in a position to throw stones.
“So what happened?”
I shook my head, then made myself shrug, trying to force myself back into this role I’d played so often before. Totally over whoever it was I’d been dating and ready to move on with Topher. “
It doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s over.”
Topher took a sip from his Sprite bottle, eyes still on me, like he was trying to figure something out. “That lasted a while,” he finally said.
“Well,” I said, giving him a smile I didn’t even partially feel, “now it’s over.” I looked at him for a moment. Even though we were sitting on outdoor furniture by a pool, Topher looked, as always, beyond cool and composed—like he could have been in an ad for cologne, or Adirondack chairs, or Sprite. “You?” I asked, hoping I knew the answer. I had a feeling Topher wouldn’t have told me about the party if he was seeing anyone, but I wasn’t entirely sure. “With anyone?”
Topher’s smile widened as he shook his head. “Not at the moment.”
I nodded and gave him a smile in return. This was why I’d texted him, after all. “Want to get out of here?”
• • •
The bottom bunk of the little brother of the host—I still didn’t know what his name was—was not the most romantic spot in the world. But when Topher had done a quick recon around the party for our options, this was all that was left. He’d suggested his car—which I knew from experience was a massive SUV with a middle row of seats that folded down, allowing plenty of room to stretch out—but I somehow found I didn’t want to leave the party with Topher, didn’t want to feel the fresh air against my skin as we walked to wherever he’d parked, waking me up and making me think about what I was doing. So the bottom bunk of a room that seemed decorated in some kind of dinosaur-space mash-up was what we were left with. It also wasn’t totally dark—when Topher hit the lights, dozens of glow-in-the-dark constellations and a T. rex night-light came to life.
And as Topher eased me back onto the astronaut sheets and we started kissing, I told myself that this was what I’d been missing all summer. This was who I was, like I’d told Clark, and I never should have veered away from that. I should have stuck with the routine, the one that had been working for me for years now. Trying anything else just hurt that much more when it invariably ended.
And I tried to tell myself this was good as I tangled my fingers in Topher’s hair, trying to lose myself in our kisses, which could normally make everything else in the world totally disappear. But it was like I was too aware, somehow, of everything that was happening, unable to shut off my thoughts, which were spiraling, the opposite of what I wanted them to be doing.
I slipped my hands under Topher’s shirt, and he broke away and looked down at me, and in the night-light glow, I could see his surprise that I was breaking my rules. I tried to pull his shirt up, only to have him say, “Ow!” and realize a second too late that he was wearing a button-down.
“Sorry,” I said, stretching up, starting to undo his buttons, fumbling with them in the dark. “I’ll just . . .”
“I’ve got it,” Topher said, taking it off himself, and I stretched up to kiss him again before reaching down and pulling my own shirt off, tossing the tank top in the direction of my purse. “Yeah?” he asked, sounding surprised but not at all displeased as he smiled down at me.
“Sure,” I said, then added quickly, “I mean, yeah.” I pulled him down toward me, and even as we kissed, my skin against his for the first time, I couldn’t lose myself in the moment, couldn’t shut off the sense that something wasn’t quite right. I opened my eyes, realizing at once what it was. There was no laughter here, no playfulness. No Karl-and-Marjorie-getting-busy-in-a-barn narrative tangents, no Clark making me laugh about how my bra clasps had all been designed by the same people who made bank vaults, since they were impossible to open.
This, now, just . . . felt like it always did with Topher. Like it could have been three months ago, or any other time in the last three years. Which until now had been fine. It had been what I’d thought I wanted. But now I knew there was something else. Something better—something more.
And before I could distract myself, or stop the thoughts from coming, I was missing Clark so much, it hurt to breathe.
I moved back and sat up, pushing Topher away as I tried to get my thoughts in some kind of order.
“What?” Topher asked, blinking at me. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m not sure,” I said slowly. I knew what it was—but not how I could put it so that Topher would understand. “I just . . .”
“Is it that guy?” Topher asked, shaking his head as he sat back from me. “Seriously?”
I looked across the narrow bed at him. The disdain in his voice would have been enough a few months ago that I would have denied it. But I realized, all at once, that I couldn’t have cared less about that any longer. “Seriously,” I said, nodding.
Topher let out a short laugh, still looking at me like he was expecting me to go back to who I’d been, start making sense again. “What, were you like in love with him or something?” he asked sarcastically, phrasing it so that the only answer to this was no.
“Yes,” I said without even thinking about it, but knowing as soon as I said it that it was the truth. It had been the truth for a while now, but I hadn’t let myself see until this moment. “I was.” I took a breath and made myself say it. “I am.”
“Oh,” Topher said, sounding utterly thrown. “Um . . . okay.”
“Yeah,” I said with a small laugh. I sat up a little straighter and pulled the sheet up in front of me, tucking it under my arms, my fingers tracing, for just a second, the pattern of the Little Dipper that was printed there. I looked over at Topher and knew that this—whatever we’d been doing for three years now—was over. That it was better to have what I’d had with Clark than something like this. I might stay safe with Topher and never get hurt, but that also meant I’d never feel anything real. “Sorry I didn’t realize it until right now.”
“You love him?” Topher asked, sounding not cool or dismissive or sarcastic, but for the first time in a long time, genuine. I could hear the hurt in his voice, but also the confusion underneath.
“I do,” I said, nodding. I wasn’t sure what, if anything, I was going to do with that information. But for tonight, knowing it felt like enough. “So I think, you and I, we’re probably . . .”
“Yeah,” Topher said, pulling on his shirt and buttoning it up. “I figured that.” I pulled on my tank top, and then we just looked at each other for a moment, across the comforter with rocket ships printed on it. “I sometimes wonder,” he finally said, his voice soft and maybe the most genuine I’d ever heard it, all games and stratagems gone, “if maybe in the beginning, I’d just . . . if we’d actually . . .” He reached forward and brushed his fingers through the ends of my hair slowly, like he knew that soon he wouldn’t be able to do this. “Never mind,” he said, shaking his head, some of the briskness coming back into his voice. He looked away from me and adjusted his cuffs, and when he looked back, I could see the little authentic window he’d shown me was now closed.
Topher headed back down to the party after that, and I waited two minutes, more out of habit than anything else, before following him. I let myself out the front door and walked to my car, which I’d parked half a mile up the road. It was a breezy night, the humidity cut by the wind, and I took off my flip-flops and held them in one hand as I walked barefoot, tipping my head back to look up at the sky.
I remembered the stick-on, glow-in-the-dark stars that had been all over the walls of the kid’s bedroom—the ones that looked pretty good until you had the real thing to compare them with, and then they just looked like pale imitations. I thought about the guy outside, and his galaxy theory, and as I looked up, I wondered which of these stars—the ones that seemed so permanent and fixed—weren’t actually done changing quite yet.
The Elder shook his head, feeling the weight of each of his years, the wisdom he had that nobody seemed to be able to hear. “You have to try,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. He closed his eyes, just for a moment, then opened them and forced himself to go on. “You have to take your chances. Go and attempt and see what happens. And even if you fa
il—especially if you fail—come back with your experience and your hard-won knowledge and a story you can tell. And then later you can say, without regret or hesitation . . . ‘Once, I dared to dare greatly.’ ”
—C. B. McCallister, The Drawing of the Two. Hightower & Jax, New York.
Chapter NINETEEN
Two beeps from my phone sent me bolting upright in bed the next morning, fumbling for it and sending the stack of precarious things on my nightstand crashing to the floor. I squinted at my phone, trying to get my eyes to focus, willing it to be texts from my friends. Maybe Toby and Bri had figured out a way to move past this, and Palmer had decided not to be mad at me any longer, and . . . I felt my shoulders slump when I saw what was actually there, two calendar reminders that had popped up.
Dad—campaign event/New York. 12 PM
Clark’s reading!!!! New Jersey 3 PM
I looked at these, and at the exclamation points by Clark’s, realizing that with everything going on, I’d forgotten about both events and had certainly not put together that they were happening on the same day. As far as I knew, I was not expected to be at my father’s event—Peter hadn’t said anything and neither had my dad, so I figured I was in the clear.
I flopped back onto my bed, then looked at my calendar for the day—which was totally open. I must have cleared it with Maya for Clark’s reading. Now, the thought of having the whole day ahead of me open—especially with my revelation from the night before—was not appealing in the least. I pulled up my texts and started to write Maya, asking her if there were any walks I could take over today—I’d even deal with a cat—when my phone screen turned black. I’d run the battery down.
My first thought was that I’d have to tell Toby that I could no longer make fun of her for this, before I remembered, once again, what had happened. I pushed myself out of bed and went downstairs, yawning, in my sleep shorts and the ASK ME ABOUT THE LUMINOSITY shirt of Clark’s that I’d never gotten around to returning.
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