Marco leans over to get a better view of Meatball Guy right as a saucy ball drops out the end of his sandwich and rolls down his steering wheel into his lap. “Well, no. Obviously, not like that guy’s.”
The truck ahead of us rolls forward. We follow for three hopeful car lengths, then stop again. “But it’s lots of things. From the little stuff like how cilantro tastes to bigger stuff like…” How I have a clone at home? “I don’t know. If you’re a flat-earther or something.”
“Lucille.” His tone is serious. “This is going to blow your mind, but. The earth is round.”
I roll my eyes. “I mean, there’s all this stuff. General consensus, culture, beliefs, your family and friends and whoever else. Like a rubber-band ball. Every rubber band is some other facet of your reality, some truth. And you’re in the middle of it. Wadded up.”
From the cup holder where I set my phone, the GPS lady warns Marco that the exit for I-76 is in two miles. We crawl forward another dozen feet, and, dutifully, he watches for a gap to merge right. I haven’t told him where we’re going yet—it’s a surprise. I asked him out, so I planned—just plugged the address into my maps app and told him to follow along.
I keep waiting for the call. The panicked “Who the hell is this, she’s definitely not my daughter” call, but it doesn’t come. And the more time ticks past, the more I relax. It’s going to work. It’s already working.
“So. What you’re saying is that everyone is mashed inside their own little reality.”
“Yeah.”
“And because of that, because of all those rubber bands, your decisions don’t matter.”
“No!” He’s misunderstanding on purpose. I can tell from his grin, wide and inciting as he checks his blind spot and makes a quick shift into the right-hand lane behind Meatball Guy. “What I’m saying is that— Okay. Take me. Super-studious, go-getter me, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“My brand. I’ve always been Lucille Harper, Overachiever, to people.”
“To what people?”
I shrug. “Everyone. Kids at school. Teachers. My parents. Friends.”
Friends. Do I still have any of those?
“Okay,” he drawls.
“But it’s chicken and egg. Like, I don’t even know when it started. Elementary school? At some point, I tried hard. Then people expected me to try hard. Which pushed me to keep trying hard to keep up with their expectations. But when you meet people’s expectations a few times, they have this nasty habit of raising them. Like, wow, you did awesome. But the next time, ‘awesome’ isn’t special anymore, it’s normal. Then pretty soon ‘normal’ starts feeling like ‘not enough’ because it isn’t ‘awesome.’
“So you end up, like, running on a treadmill that, every time you finally hit your stride, kicks up a notch. Increasing the speed or the incline or both. Until you’re constantly trying, and failing, to catch up.
“And the best part is, I don’t really know why I’m running on the treadmill at all.” I take a deep breath. Marco, quiet, merges right a final time, then peels off at our exit. “So what I mean is, do I want what I want—college or whatever—because I want it? Or because a bunch of people have spent years expecting me to? And if it’s the second one, am I really in control?”
“That’s…bleak.”
“It’s not bleak. It’s realistic.”
“Or,” he says, shooting me a sideways glance, “since we’re getting all existential here. It’s convenient.”
“Convenient?”
“Yeah. A cop-out. Because if you say you don’t control who you are or what you do, aren’t you really saying that stuff can’t be your fault?”
I make an uncertain sound in my throat. “Clarify.”
He checks his mirrors and blind spot as he merges onto I-76. “Okay. Take Leatherface.” He smooths a hand down his tie. “He’s a murderous psychopath who wears his victims’ faces.”
“Apt comparison. Very flattering.”
“Stay with me! I’m making a point. Swear.”
I wave a hand for him to continue.
“His whole psychopath family supports his murdering, right? Funneling lost coeds his way. Enabling him. Basically being, like, ‘Yeah! Go, Leatherface, go!’ They’re his ball of rubber bands. Does that mean it’s not his fault?”
I breathe a laugh. “Guess I should be glad my rubber-band ball shaped me into an overachiever instead of a chain-saw-wielding maniac.”
“Victim-face-wearing, chain-saw-wielding maniac.”
“That’s a mouthful.”
“But that’s not really what I mean. I think what I mean is that of course it’s his fault. Someone can yell at you every day to pick up the chain saw and do some human-hunting, but he’s the one who said, ‘Sure, cool, I’ll do that.’ But, you know, mutely. Since he doesn’t talk.”
“Yeah, but…not like a murderous rampage and getting into an Ivy League school are comparable goals.”
“I know. I just mean, if you don’t want to be…that”—he shrugs—“then don’t.”
He makes it sound so easy. And maybe it is for him? But I can’t remember a single time in my life where I wasn’t stuck inside my own head. Where I wasn’t thinking about how what I said or did looked from the outside, if it fit into how I wanted people to see me, to think of me. If it fit inside whatever shape I thought I was supposed to take. Smart, pretty, fun, interesting, thoughtful, easygoing, determined, cool. All of it, all at once. Rounding out the edges of the Perfect Girl.
Because that’s what I’m supposed to be, isn’t it? Everything?
Watching out the window as the GPS lady announces the last mile till we exit I-76, as my phone stays free of terrified texts and calls, as I settle into my first night of being both, I smile. Because that’s what Life2 gave me. Everything. And after a month of that, I feel confident I’ll be able to figure anything out.
“That, uh, took a turn,” Marco says. “Have I told you yet how very pretty you are? How special and shiny and bright?”
I look back at him. “And I smell good, too?”
“Like sunshine and puppy hugs.”
I laugh.
He grins, then flips on his blinker to follow the GPS’s directive to exit right. “Okay, your turn. Shower me with compliments. Seduce me.”
“All right.” I twist in my seat to face him, looking him up and down, forcing my smile flat. We slow to a stop at the end of a long line of cars waiting at the off-ramp’s stoplight. “Your tie is appropriate.”
He slouches dramatically in his seat, worming down till his back’s almost on the bottom. “My loins, Lucille dash Beautiful Smile. They’re melting.”
“I will pay you real money, like, five whole dollars, to never say the word ‘loins’ in my presence ever again.”
“Loins,” he says, still melted. “Loins, loins, loiny loin loooooooiiiins.”
“You should have to pay me for that. Like, a dollar each mention. At least.”
Grinning, he sits up. “I’ll owe you.”
The light changes, and the cars ahead of us inch forward. GPS lady says, “In one hundred feet, turn right.”
“So,” he says, “why’s my tie appropriate? Unless this ‘date’ ”—he does the air quotes—“is all part of your plan to deliver me to a chain-saw-wielding maniac, in which case I have some objections.”
“Hardly,” I say. “That would be a waste of your ridiculous lashes.”
“Not if he—”
“Don’t—”
“Two words.”
“Nope.”
“Lashes Face.”
“That doesn’t even—”
“Okay, okay, I’ve got it: Marco Mask.”
“Dear god.”
“What? My face would make a great ma—”
“Stop. Now.”
He grins. The GPS lady gives her last direction, and he turns into the parking lot.
“Behold,” I say, “the reason for your tie’s appropriateness: a shitty old slasher film at a drive-in!”
“No way! I Know What You Did Last Summer?” he says, reading the marquee. His expression turns into a legit emoji, that one with the wide-open smile and too-big eyes. He pulls up to the booth to get our tickets, then, focusing on navigating the parking lot, looking for a good spot, says, “First, this is amazing. You are amazing.”
He pulls into a space in the middle, halfway back from the screen. I reach for the bag of snacks and blanket I left in the backseat, avoiding his eyes thanks to all the delighted blushing, and take three seconds to check my phone. But there’s still nothing. Forty-three whole minutes, and nothing. I send the Life2 number a quick how’s-it-going text and slip my phone into the pocket of my dress.
Outside, Marco helps me spread the blanket on the still-warm hood of the car. “Second?” I ask, climbing up.
“Second.” He sits beside me. “Did I hear you suggest that Texas Chainsaw Massacre is shitty?”
“Um, maybe?” I smooth the skirt of my dress around me. “I’ve never seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre and so cannot declare it either shitty or good.”
He shifts closer, so we’re hip to hip. “Disturbing.”
“What is? Me never seeing Texas Chain— Okay, I don’t feel like saying that whole title again. Why didn’t they just name it Leatherface?”
“No, no no no no.” He shakes his head emphatically. “Texas Chainsaw Massacre is neither good nor shitty, it is disturbing. Start to finish, forked-up. The original, of course. The other ones range from whatever to meh, but the original is a solid eeeeeeeee.”
I laugh. “What does eeeeeeeee mean?”
“That you kind of hate what you’re watching but respect it for making you hate it? Hate, like, dear god this is going to haunt me for weeks it’s perfect.”
“Sounds awful.”
“It is. Also, awesome. And I’m totally going to make you watch it someday.”
“No thanks.”
“You can cover your eyes if you want.”
“But then how will I plug my ears to avoid hearing the shrieking? I assume there’s shrieking.”
“Of course. And, I’ll help you.”
“Cover my ears?” I can barely believe how good it feels, sitting this close to him, feeling his body heat mingle with mine. Feeling, knowing, that I’m wanted. And not even just in a general sense, but by a guy like him.
“Sure.” He smiles at me, face lit by the last of the sunset and the glow from the screen, which is playing a rotation of ads. “Or I’ll build you a blanket fort to hide in.”
“Or we could just not watch it.”
“No way. Blanket fort.”
“It’s not fair,” I say. “I don’t have anything to inflict on you.”
He brings his knees up, resting his elbows on top with his hands clasped between, and the nonchalance of it—the way his shoulder rests against mine, the way his arm overlaps my personal space—wrecks me. At least three points of contact between us, and it’s…normal. “What,” he says, “no sexist stereotypical love of rom-coms?”
I shake my head. “Honestly? I’m not sure what I like.”
“Other than me.”
“Funny.”
“But true.”
“Yes. Anyway. I blame the rubber-band ball of expectations. It’s made me a little one-note.”
He laughs.
“What?”
“You are so not one-note.”
“How so?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Let’s discuss the internal and external cyclical validation of identity some more, and I’ll see if I can figure it out.”
Even though my phone didn’t buzz, I reach into my pocket to check the screen for a reply. “Just wait till you hear me talk about parthenogenesis, biodegradable polymers, and the G-zero cell phase.”
“Um, what?”
I laugh. “Okay, so I have at least three notes. Academic ambition, existential ramblings, and an ability to spout random scientific jargon.”
“Right,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Just three.” He stretches his legs out and leans back against the windshield. “Let’s play a game.”
“A game.” The sky’s nearly dark. Or, as dark as the sky gets in the middle of a metropolis that’s home to a few million people. Cars have filtered in around us, some people backing in to watch through the open hatchbacks of their SUVs, others sitting outside like us, a few blasting their music while we wait for the preview to start. My phone buzzes against my thigh, a text from Lucy: Good, watching a movie.
I breathe deep and lean back on the windshield beside Marco, feeling like I could float straight up into the sky. “Like Truth or Dare?”
“No. Sort of. More like, I’ll say a word and you tell me something about yourself that you associate with it.”
“What?”
He pushes himself up onto one elbow and looks down at me. A spot down low in my stomach squeezes. “Like, I say ‘water,’ and you tell me that you’re a championship swimmer or how you fought off a man-eating shark one time. Or whatever, really. The rules are fluid.”
“Nice pun.”
He smiles wide and gorgeous, still hovering barely six inches above me.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll play.”
“Awesome.” He lies back down and reaches for my hand, lacing his fingers with mine. “But that’s not the word, so save your ‘awesome’ association. How about…dog.”
“Too easy. My Great Pyrenees, Boris.”
“Those huge white slobbery dogs?”
“Yep.”
“Ari’s going to be so jealous when I tell her. She’s been asking for a dog since she could talk, but my mom won’t let her have one. You’ll have to text me some pictures.”
“Will do.”
The screen turns green and a preview starts, but neither of us moves.
“My turn?” I ask. He nods, and I think for a second. “Macaroni.”
He squeezes my hand. “Good one.” I turn my head to look at him. Staring up at the sky, he says, “Backpacking with my dad. You have to be careful about weight, so he’d buy this awful just-add-water dehydrated stuff. Worse than Kraft, even, since at least you use milk and butter in that. But the fun thing is that we’d always have it our first night, and I’d be so tired and hungry from hiking in that it’d taste like the best meal I’d ever had.”
“You still go with him a lot?”
He shakes his head. “I see him maybe twice a year.”
“That…sucks.”
He shrugs against the windshield. “It’s one of those things, you know? Like how you get used to a smell and then can’t smell it anymore? Normal.”
I think of my dad’s apartment. The weeks it took after he moved out to stop listening for him to get home in the evenings, for Boris to stop waiting by the garage door. I want to ask him how long that took, for it to feel normal. But I also don’t want to know.
“Okay, now me,” he says. “Chemistry.”
I lean up to give him a look, like, really? Then laugh when my answer pops into my head. “Oh no. Your bubble of me is going to burst.”
Marco’s eyes go wide. “Why?” He shifts up too, turning onto his side and dropping my hand to prop his head up on his palm before immediately reaching for my other. I mirror him so we’re lying at an angle on the windshield, facing each other. “Did you lure me here under false pretenses after all?”
“Not chemistry like…romantic sparks.” I can smell his deodorant or cologne or shampoo or whatever m
ixture of those he uses. I purse my lips to keep from smiling too wide. “Chemistry like bases and acids and compounds.”
“Oh, good. Proceed.”
“Okay.” I take an exaggerated breath. “I took chem two last spring and…cheated on every single test.”
“Ha! Really?”
I give him a slow nod. “Yup. I’m shit at memorizing formulas. And I have no intention of studying it in college, so I wasn’t about to let that grade eff up my whole average.”
He’s rapt. “How’d you do it?”
I shrug a shoulder. “Snuck in a cheat sheet in my shoe. When you’re the perpetual overachiever, teachers stop looking very close.”
“Damn.”
The screen goes black in the space between one preview and the next. Around us, people mutter and eat quietly. “My turn,” I say. “Blue.”
“Aw!” Marco rolls back, away from me, pulling our linked hands with him. “Mr. Blubbers!”
“Oh no. What is a Mr. Blubbers?”
“Only a stuffed blue whale and my most prized possession of all time. Well, I don’t know if he was actually a blue whale, but he was a whale that was blue.”
“Was?”
“Yes, was!” he says, indignant. “My mom washed it once when we lived in our old apartment and someone stole it out of the dryer.” He sits up, twisting back to look at me, incensed. “I mean, who does that? Steals a ratty old stuffed toy out of someone’s dryer?”
“Someone who’s going to spend eternity trekking, barefoot, across an endless field of thumbtacks.”
“Hell yeah, they are.”
“Why ‘Blubbers’?”
“Because of whale blubber. Which, at five, I thought had something to do with whales chewing giant wads of gum. And oh was I sorely disappointed when I got older and actually googled it.”
“Rough.”
“Yeah. And I clicked images.”
“Eeeeeeeee.”
“Precisely.”
The preview stops, the opening credits for I Know What You Did Last Summer roll, and Marco cheers. He drops my hand to fist-pump and whoop when the title appears on the screen, and he’s not alone. He reaches back for me, grabbing my hand again and pulling me to sit up beside him. Then he leans in close and whispers over the opening song, “Okay, last one. Don’t kick me.”
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