Meg looked up and there was Colby: broader in the chest and shoulders than she’d been expecting, with shaggy brown hair and a vaguely suspicious expression. She’d spent the better part of last night trying on basically everything she owned before finally deciding on dark jeans and her very favorite T-shirt—another present from her mom’s cousin Jodie, a V-neck with a picture of a bespectacled fox and the slogan I don’t care for your misogyny—but Colby was barefoot in a pair of knee-length basketball shorts, like possibly she’d woken him up from a nap.
“Tris,” he said, grabbing the dog by the collar and setting her gently back down on all four paws. “Easy.”
“Tris?” Meg repeated, reaching down to scratch behind her velvety ears. “Like the girl from Divergent?”
“Who?” Colby looked at her strangely. “No, um, Tris Speaker. All-time greatest hitter on the Cleveland Indians.” He shrugged, something about the gesture weirdly defensive. “My dad named her.”
“Oh.” Meg nodded, straightening up again. “Right.”
Colby nodded back. His face was more delicate than Meg had expected, a jaw as sharp as sandstone and a scattering of tawny freckles across his nose and cheeks. His eyelashes were as long as a girl’s.
They stood there for a moment, looking at each other as Meg realized all at once that she had no idea how she was supposed to greet him. Did they hug? Shake hands? She couldn’t imagine how she’d somehow failed to think about this. “Hi,” she said finally, spreading her fingers in an awkward wave.
“Hi.” Colby shoved his own hands in his pockets. So, okay. No touching at all, then. That was fine. There was no reason to feel disappointed about that. “Um. Come on in.”
He led her up the front walk, Tris ambling along behind them. The house was small and super neat inside, so different from the expansive, vaguely artsy squalor of her own: Lacy curtains were tied back with gingham bows at the windows. A framed, embroidered Bible verse hung on one wood-paneled wall. A fleece blanket stitched with the logo of the Cleveland Indians was folded tidily over the back of one of those reclining sofas with built-in cup holders in the armrests, the kind her mom always called couch potato skins. Come to think of it, Meg could just imagine her mom’s reaction to this whole room, this whole neighborhood: a full-body shudder and a generous slug of wine.
“So,” Colby said, setting her backpack down on the seat of a brown corduroy armchair. “How was your drive?”
“Good,” she said immediately, her voice coming out loud and a little bit squeaky. Right away, Meg felt herself blush. God, this was Colby, who she’d been talking to constantly for nearly a month now. Everything was fine.
Everything . . . did not feel fine.
“Um,” she said, trying to think of something to ask him in return and drawing the kind of massive blank Mason always called a brain fart. Oh God, had she just driven eight hours to find they had nothing to say to each other? She looked around, suddenly desperate for someone else to draw into the conversation, someone she might possibly be able to charm. “Is your mom here?” she begged.
Colby shook his head. “She’s working a double this weekend,” he said, shifting his weight on the carpet. “She won’t be back until tomorrow after church.”
Meg tugged on her lip, a little bit weirded out. She had figured there would be a female adult in his house, honestly—on top of which something about the way he’d said it had her eyes narrowing in suspicion. “But she’s cool with me staying here, yeah?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Colby said immediately. Then his face dropped a little bit. “I mean, I didn’t mention it to her, exactly. But she wouldn’t care.”
Meg frowned. “Colby—”
“I’m serious!” he promised. “My friends stay over when she’s at work all the time.”
“Yeah, but—” She broke off.
“I know,” Colby said, sounding for the first time since she’d arrived like the person she was used to talking to on the phone. “I just didn’t know how to explain it to her, I guess. I wasn’t doing it to be sketchy.”
“It feels a little sketchy,” Meg said.
“I’m sorry.” Colby scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Do you want me to call her now?”
She considered that, watching as he bent down to rub the dog along her backbone. Something about the way he was with Tris made her trust him more, even though she knew that was literally how serial killers lured people into vans. “It’s fine,” she said eventually, perching on the edge of the sofa. After all, she didn’t exactly have a leg to stand on when it came to telling the truth about this particular situation. “If you’re sure she’s not going to be upset.”
“She’s not even going to know,” Colby said immediately. Then, seeming to sense that wasn’t the best way to win Meg over, he plowed ahead. “Are you hungry?” he asked. “We could go out and get something to eat, if you want.”
Meg stood up so fast she startled the dog, she was so excited about the idea of an activity. “Sure!” she said, swinging her backpack over her shoulder again. “Let’s go.”
Colby refilled Tris’s water bowl and got his sneakers on, then led Meg outside to the driveway. “Um,” she said, hesitating a moment. “I can just follow you in my car.” She was reasonably sure he wasn’t a murderer at this point, but it felt like the more responsible thing to do, as if she could somehow negate the recklessness of the rest of this whole trip by providing her own transportation.
“Sure,” Colby said, looking at her a little oddly. She had no idea whether or not he was glad she was here. For all the times she’d thought about it, asking to come here had been more impulsive than she usually was, the weirdness of everything about her regular life crushing down on her all at once; still, he’d sounded excited about the idea at the time. At least, she’d thought he had. “Whatever you want.”
They went to a Subway not far from the Dollar General, Meg ordering the veggie sandwich even though she knew it was probably exactly what he expected her to do. She glanced around the shop. “Do you want to eat outside, maybe?” she asked.
Colby frowned. “There aren’t any tables or anything,” he pointed out.
“We could go somewhere, though, couldn’t we?” she asked. “A park or something?”
“Sure, I guess.” He filled his giant cup with Dr Pepper at the soda machine, thinking a minute. “There is one place we could go, actually.”
They got back in their respective cars and pulled out into traffic, heading back in the direction they’d come. Meg watched through the windshield as the stores and businesses got farther apart, then almost disappeared altogether, giving way to long stretches of field and the occasional farmhouse, an old-fashioned water tower hulking off in the distance. Finally, Colby pulled off down a narrow, gravel-covered road that twisted and turned before leading to nothing, just an overgrown lot full of weeds and wildflowers. Tall trees made a canopy overhead. The air was thick with pollen, wasps humming noisily. Planted in the ground was a faded, listing wooden sign:
THE PARADISE HOMES
SINGLE-FAMILY ARTISAN RESIDENCES, COMING SOON
“What is this place?” Meg called as she climbed out of the Prius. The grass was already tall even though it was only April, tickling her ankles in the gap between her pants and her sneakers.
“It’s mine,” Colby said.
Meg’s eyes widened. “Really?”
He nodded. “My dad left it to me,” he explained. “He bought it when he and my mom were first married, and we always used to come out here for, like, family picnics when me and Matt were real little—the two of us used to run around like wild animals out here, roll down the hill and stuff. We were nuts.” He smiled at the memory, his face softening for a moment; Meg could picture exactly what he’d looked like as a little kid. “Anyway, my dad and my uncle Rick used to be in business together—they built houses, you know? And my dad had this idea for putting, like, six of them on this land, all of them totally different styles, and then up there”—he motion
ed to the hill in the distance—“he always said he was going to build my mom’s dream house.” He stopped then, like he’d suddenly realized he’d said more than he’d meant to, dropping his sandwich on the hood of the car with a quiet thunk. “He . . . didn’t do that, obviously.”
“Why don’t you do it?” Meg asked immediately.
“What, build my mom’s dream house?”
“Build your own dream house.”
Colby laughed. “Yeah, Meg, I’m going to just go ahead and build a house by myself with no money. This is real life, not The Notebook.”
Meg raised her eyebrows, momentarily distracted by the shape of her name in his mouth. “Have you seen The Notebook?”
“Maybe,” Colby said, with something close to a smile. “My dad liked corny movies.”
Meg nodded. She wanted to ask more about his dad—they hadn’t talked about him at all since that very first night on the phone—but she could never figure out exactly how to bring it up. “What did he leave to your brother?” she finally asked.
“Nothing,” Colby replied, so deadpan that it took her a moment to realize he was serious.
Meg blinked. “Wow.”
“Yep,” Colby said, in a voice that made it pretty clear that was the end of that.
They climbed up onto the warm hood of his car to eat their sandwiches, sunlight lacing through the trees and a butterfly hovering not far from Colby’s elbow. The back of his hand brushed hers as they traded their bags of chips back and forth. “What would you build here, hypothetically?” she asked, pulling her feet up onto the bumper. “If you could build anything?”
“I dunno,” Colby said, but she could tell he was lying. “I’ve never thought about it, really.”
Meg rolled her eyes. “Tell me,” she said, nudging him with her ankle. “What, do you think I’m going to make fun of you? I don’t know how to build anything.”
Colby shrugged. “Just a regular house. I don’t know.”
“You don’t have to be embarrassed,” she pressed—it felt important, all of a sudden, to get him to tell her. “It’s just me, remember?”
“Oh, right, it’s just you, like you’re—” Colby broke off, made a face. “Fine,” he said, taking a sip of his giant soda. “Something with a big porch, I guess. And a bunch of fireplaces.” He thought. “And a game room.”
“See?” Meg said, her skin warming slightly. “There you go. You do have an imagination.”
Colby snorted. “Oh, I’ve got an imagination,” he said, almost under his breath. This time when she kicked him he grabbed her ankle and held it, his fingers curling around the jut of bone in a way that set off a string of tiny explosions she felt all over her body. Meg didn’t breathe until he finally let it go.
He gazed at her for another long moment, an inscrutable expression in his hazel-brown eyes. “What?” she finally asked.
Colby shrugged, finishing the last of his sandwich in one giant bite. “You look different than I thought you’d look” was all he said.
Meg laughed. “You seriously never Googled me?”
“No,” he said once he’d swallowed.
“Really?”
“Why?” He raised his eyebrows. “Did you Google me?”
“Of course I did,” Meg admitted immediately, unembarrassed. “Like, the very first night we talked, even. But you’re basically impossible to find.”
Colby smirked. “That’s the idea.”
“Well,” Meg said, tugging a bit of cucumber out of her sandwich with her thumb and forefinger, “I’m infinitely searchable.”
“That is . . . not surprising to me.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Meg smiled. “Good different or bad different?”
“What?”
“Do I look good different or bad different?”
Colby’s mouth twitched then, infinitesimal. “That seems like a trick question,” he said.
“How is it a trick question?”
“Meg.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “You’re pretty, if that’s what you’re asking. You’re, like . . . really, really pretty.”
“Oh.” Meg felt her whole body prickle—and now she was embarrassed, a little, to be caught fishing for a compliment so blatantly. But there was another part of her—the part of her that had asked to come visit to begin with, maybe—that wasn’t embarrassed at all. “Yeah,” she said, bending down and rubbing her nose against her denim-covered knee, looking at him out of the corner of her eye. “I guess that was kind of what I was asking.”
“Uh-huh.” Colby gazed back at her for a moment, inscrutable. Then he grinned. “Come on,” he said, crumpling up his sandwich wrapper and pushing himself up off the bumper. “Let’s get going.”
Seventeen
Colby
They were just getting back to the house when Colby’s phone dinged with a text from Micah. “Who’s that?” Meg asked, reaching down to scratch the dog under her chin.
He watched her for a moment, intrigued; he’d automatically assumed she was one of those people who was going to be weird and stupid about pit bulls, and he was surprised and pleased to find that he’d been wrong. “Just a buddy of mine,” he said, tucking the phone back into his hoodie pocket. “They wanted to know what I was doing—well, what we were doing, I guess.” That wasn’t true, technically, since he hadn’t told anyone Meg was coming in the first place. Honestly, he hadn’t really thought she was going to show up. Now he kind of wished he had. “They’re hanging out.”
Meg raised her eyebrows. “You want to go meet them?”
Colby shook his head like a reflex. “That’s okay,” he said. “We don’t have to.”
“Why not?” she asked—straightening up again, lifting her chin like a challenge. “You embarrassed of them, or are you embarrassed of me?”
The answer to that question was emphatically both, but there was no way to explain that to her. Instead, Colby just shrugged. “Neither,” he said, hoping his voice didn’t betray him. “We can go if you want. But I’m warning you, they’re literally hanging around in front of an abandoned office building. It’s not exactly a fun night of culture in the big city.”
“I love abandoned office buildings,” Meg deadpanned. Colby snorted, fully thinking she was joking, but she shook her head. “No, I seriously do!” she protested. “I love all abandoned places. Have you ever watched, like, those videos of abandoned amusement parks or psych hospitals?”
Colby had, actually, and they scared the shit out of him. He’d never been inside the office building for that exact reason, like at any second some scaly, red-eyed demon was going to dart around a corner and drag him off to Hell. “You’re kind of a weird chick, huh?” he said with a grin. He held his breath for a moment after he said it, unsure if she was the kind of girl you could joke around with like that.
“You like it,” Meg said, only she was already walking away from him when she said it, and he couldn’t see her face.
But yeah. He liked it.
He changed into a pair of jeans and fed Tris before they headed out, the sun already starting to sink behind the trees at the west side of the house. He tried to think of a way to suggest Meg put on a different shirt before they went—he could already picture the look on Micah’s face when he saw the one she was wearing—but couldn’t for the life of him figure out a way to do it that wouldn’t make things totally awkward, so in the end he just let it be.
He glanced at her across the driveway, watching as she unlocked her prissy little car in the pinkish twilight. She was even more of herself in person somehow, all noisy laugh and strong opinions, the kind of energy he associated with perpetual motion or a nuclear power plant. Colby kept catching himself staring at her like a total chump. He’d meant what he said, back at Paradise—she was pretty, with dark hair and skin so pale she reminded him of something out of a storybook, like Snow White or Briar Rose. She looked like somebody who had no business tooling around Alma, Ohio. She looked like somebody who wasn’t going to stay for very long.
Jordan and Micah were already in the parking lot when they got there, Jordan digging through his pockets for a lighter while Micah turned idle circles on his hands in the empty fountain. “Hey,” Colby called, getting out of his car as Meg parked the Prius behind him. He had no idea how to introduce her, really, finally settling on, “This is Meg.” The miracle of Micah and Jordan was that he knew they wouldn’t ask questions, would take what he offered at face value without pressing for more. It was part of why they’d all been friends for so long.
“Hi,” Meg said brightly, sticking her hand out like she was running for Congress. “Colby’s told me a lot about you guys.”
“Really?” Micah asked, his bushy eyebrows crawling.
“Quite the shirt you got there,” Jordan said as they shook.
“I could say the same thing about your hat,” Meg said, motioning at Jack Skellington’s hollow grin even as Colby winced a little. “I love that movie.”
“Oh yeah?” Jordan asked, brightening. “It’s the best, right?”
Meg nodded eagerly. “My friend Emily and I used to be obsessed with it when we were in middle school. I mean, actually I didn’t go to middle school—my school is K–12—but anyway, I actually just read this thing on Tumblr about how The Nightmare Before Christmas is a great allegory for cultural appropriation, you know? With how they’re trying to celebrate somebody else’s holiday but messing it all up.”
“Uh.” Jordan looked at her blankly. “What now?”
“Uh-oh,” Micah teased. “Moran brought his librarian to the party.”
“She just used, like, four words in a row I’ve never heard before,” Jordan said with a laugh.
“Oh, sorry,” Meg said, apparently undeterred. “Cultural appropriation is just when—”
“Did anybody bring food?” Colby interrupted before she could whip out her phone and offer to send them all a clarifying article from BuzzFeed. “I’m starving.”
“Did you bring food?” Jordan countered, and that was when Joanna’s car pulled into the lot.
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