“I wasn’t—”
“I actually do have a Jewish great-uncle Milton. That’s whose apartment we’re staying in.”
“Who’s we?”
“You mean who do I live with in my great-uncle Milton’s apartment?”
He nods, and I just look at him. Like, who does he think I live with? My boyfriend? My twenty-eight-year-old smoldering-hot boyfriend who has big gaping holes in his earlobes and maybe a tongue piercing and a tattoo of my name on his pec? On both pecs?
“With my parents,” I say quickly. “My mom’s a lawyer, and her firm has an office here, so she came up at the end of April for this case she’s working on, and I totally would have come up then, but my mom was like, Nice try, Arthur, you have a month of school left. But it ended up being for the best, because I guess I thought New York was going to be one thing, and it’s really another thing, and now I’m kind of stuck here, and I miss my friends, and I miss my car, and I miss Waffle House.”
“In that order?”
“Well, mostly the car.” I grin. “We left it at my bubbe’s house in New Haven. She lives right by Yale, which is hopefully, hopefully my future school. Fingers crossed.” It’s like I can’t stop talking. “I guess you probably don’t need my life story.”
“I don’t mind.” Box Boy pauses, balancing the box on his hip. “Want to get on line?”
I nod, falling into step behind him. He shifts sideways to face me, but the box looms between us. He hasn’t stuck the shipping label on yet. It’s sitting on top of the package. I try to sneak a peek at the address, but his handwriting sucks, and I can’t read upside down.
He catches me looking. “Are you really nosy or something?” He’s watching me through narrowed eyes.
“Oh.” I swallow. “Kind of. Yeah.”
That makes him smile. “It’s not that interesting. It’s leftovers from a breakup.”
“Leftovers?”
“Books, gifts, Harry Potter wand. Everything I don’t want to look at anymore.”
“You don’t want to look at a Harry Potter wand?”
“Not when it’s from my ex-boyfriend.”
Ex-boyfriend.
Which means Box Boy dates guys.
And okay. Wow. This doesn’t happen to me. It just doesn’t. But maybe the universe works differently in New York.
Box Boy dates guys.
I’M A GUY.
“That’s really cool,” I say. Perfectly casual. But then he looks at me funny, and my hand flies to my mouth. “Not cool. God. No. Breakups aren’t cool. I’m just—I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“He’s not dead.”
“Oh, right. Yeah. I’m gonna . . .” I exhale, hand resting for a moment on the retractable line barrier.
Box Boy smiles tightly. “Right. So you’re one of those guys who gets weird around gay dudes.”
“What?” I yelp. “No. Not at all.”
“Yeah.” He rolls his eyes, glancing over my shoulder.
“I’m not,” I say quickly. “Listen. I’m gay.”
And the whole world stops. My tongue feels thick and heavy.
I guess I don’t say those words out loud all that often. I’m gay. My parents know, Ethan and Jessie know, and I kind of randomly told the summer associates at Mom’s firm. But I’m not a person who goes around announcing it at the post office.
Except apparently, I kind of am.
“Are you for real?” Box Boy asks. “Or are you just being an asshole?”
“I’m for real.” It comes out breathless. It’s weird—now I want to prove it. I want some gay ID card to whip out like a cop badge. Or I could demonstrate in other ways. God. I would happily demonstrate.
Box Boy smiles, his shoulders relaxing. “Cool.”
And holy shit. This is actually happening. I can hardly catch my breath. It’s like the universe willed this moment into existence.
A voice booms from behind the counter. “You on line or not?” I look up to see a woman with a lip ring raining down the stink-eye. No fucks given by this postal employee. “Yo, Freckles. Let’s go.”
Box Boy shoots me a halting glance before stepping up to the counter. Already, there’s a line stretching out behind me. And okay—I’m not eavesdropping on Box Boy. Not exactly. It’s more like my ears are drawn to his voice. His arms are crossed, shoulders tense.
“Twenty-six fifty for Priority,” says Lip Ring.
“Twenty-six fifty? Like twenty-six dollars?”
“No. Like twenty-six fifty.”
Box Boy shakes his head. “That’s a lot.”
“That’s what we got. Take it or leave it.”
For a moment, Box Boy just stands there. Then he takes the box back, hugging it to his chest. “Sorry.”
“Next,” says Lip Ring. She beckons to me, but I swerve out of line.
Box Boy blinks. “How is it twenty-six fifty to send a package?”
“I don’t know. That’s messed up.”
“Guess that’s the universe saying I should hold on to it.”
The universe.
Holy shit.
He’s a believer. He believes in the universe. And I don’t want to jump to conclusions or anything, but Box Boy believing in the universe is definitely a sign from the universe.
“Okay.” My heartbeat quickens. “But what if the universe is actually telling you to throw his stuff away?”
“That’s not how it works.”
“Oh really?”
“Think about it. Getting rid of the box is plan A, right? The universe isn’t going to thwart plan A just so I’ll go with another version of plan A. This is clearly the universe calling for plan B.”
“And plan B is . . .”
“Accepting that the universe is an asshole—”
“The universe isn’t an asshole!”
“It is. Trust me.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“I know the universe has some fucked-up plan for this box.”
“But that’s the thing!” I stare him down. “You don’t actually know. You have no idea where the universe is going with this. Maybe the whole reason you’re here is because the universe wanted you to meet me, so I could tell you to throw the box away.”
He smiles. “You think the universe wanted us to meet?”
“What? No! I mean, I don’t know. That’s the point. We have no way of knowing.”
“Well, I guess we’ll see how it plays out.” He peers at the shipping label for a moment and then rips it in half, wadding it and tossing it into the trash. At least he aims for the trash, but it lands on the floor. “Anyway,” he says. “Um, are you—”
“Excuse me.” A man’s voice reverberates through an intercom. “Can I have your attention?”
I glance sidelong at Box Boy. “Is this—”
There’s a sudden squeal of feedback and a rising piano intro.
And then a literal fucking marching band walks in.
A marching band.
People flood into the post office, carrying giant drums and flutes and tubas, blasting a somewhat off-key rendition of that Bruno Mars song “Marry You.” And now dozens of people—old people, people I thought were on line to buy stamps—have launched into a choreographed dance number, with high kicks and hip thrusts and shimmying arms. Basically everyone who’s not dancing is filming this, but I’m too stunned to even grab my phone. I mean, I don’t want to read too much into things, but wow: I meet a cute boy, and five seconds later, I’m in the middle of a flash mob wedding proposal? Could this message from the universe be any clearer?
The crowd parts, and a tattooed guy rolls in on a skateboard, skidding to a stop in front of the service desk. He’s holding a jewelry box, but instead of taking a knee, he plants his elbows on the counter and beams up at Lip Ring. “Kelsey. Babe. Will you marry me?”
Kelsey’s black mascara tracks all the way down to her lip ring. “Yes!” She grabs his face for a tear-soaked kiss, and the crowd erupts into cheers.
> It hits me deep in my chest. It’s that New York feeling, like they talk about in musicals—that wide-open, top-volume, Technicolor joy. Here I’ve spent the whole summer moping around and missing Georgia, but it’s like someone flipped a light switch inside of me.
I wonder if Box Boy feels it, too. I turn toward him, already smiling, and my hand’s pressed to my heart—
But he’s gone.
My hand falls limply. The boy is nowhere. His box is nowhere. I peer around, scanning every single face in the post office. Maybe he got pushed aside by the flash mob. Maybe he was part of the flash mob. Maybe he had some kind of urgent appointment—so urgent he couldn’t stop to get my number. He couldn’t even say good-bye.
I can’t believe he didn’t say good-bye.
I thought—I don’t know, it’s stupid, but I thought we had some kind of moment. I mean, the universe basically scooped us up and delivered us to each other. That’s what just happened, right? I don’t even know how else you could interpret it.
Except he vanished. He’s Cinderella at midnight. It’s like he never even existed. And now I’ll never know his name, or how my name sounds when he says it. I’ll never get to show him that the universe isn’t an asshole.
Gone. Totally gone. And the disappointment hits me so hard, I almost double over.
Until my eyes land on the trash can.
Okay. I’m not saying I’m going to dig through the trash. Obviously not. I’m a mess, but I’m not that messy.
But maybe Box Boy is right. Maybe the universe is calling for plan B.
Here’s my question: if a piece of trash never makes it into a trash can, can you even call it trash? Because let’s just imagine—and this is totally hypothetical—let’s say there’s a crumpled shipping label on the floor. Is that trash?
What if it’s a glass slipper?
About the Author
Photo by Decisive Moment Events
BECKY ALBERTALLI is the author of the acclaimed novels Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda and The Upside of Unrequited. A former clinical psychologist who specialized in working with children and teens, Becky lives with her family in Atlanta.
You can visit her online at WWW.BECKYALBERTALLI.COM.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Books by Becky Albertalli
Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda
Leah on the Offbeat
The Upside of Unrequited
What If It’s Us
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Copyright
Balzer + Bray is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
LEAH ON THE OFFBEAT. Copyright © 2018 by Becky Albertalli. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Cover art © 2018 by Chris Bilheimer
* * *
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017934758
Digital Edition APRIL 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-264382-7
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-264380-3 (hardcover)
ISBN: 978-0-06-281985-7 (international edition)
ISBN: 978-0-06-280419-8 (signed edition)
* * *
1819202122PC/LSCH10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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Leah on the Offbeat Page 24