by Emma Mills
“Okay.”
“Do you have your phone?”
“Yes.”
“And Gideon’s driving safe, right?” she says expectantly, like Gideon was planning to run us off the road.
“Gideon’s prepping for the Indy 500. We’re going to do a few laps around the block, practice for pole position.”
“That’s not true,” he says, eyes wide.
“No worries, Gideon, I know exactly how sarcastic my daughter can be. Have fun, okay?”
Gideon takes my hand. “We will,” he says, and we leave the kitchen.
I look down at our clasped hands in the hall, and Gideon hesitates, loosening his grip as if to let go.
“Is this okay?”
I give his hand a squeeze. “Only because it’s Saturday.”
“Does that make a difference?”
“Yeah, I mean, hand-holding on a Tuesday is pretty risqué.”
His lips quirk. “It’s also a quarter moon, you know.”
“What happens on the quarter moon?”
“I turn into a quarter werewolf.”
I grin.
* * *
Danforth’s gym is transformed for the dance, and everyone in it is transformed a bit, too. Themselves, but now in formal wear.
We run into people we know and say hello like we don’t see each other’s faces five out of every seven days, like we hadn’t just seen one another a day ago in class. It’s kind of funny.
Alicia greets me with a kiss on each cheek. I had no idea we were so cosmopolitan. Or that we were that friendly. But she smiles at me and compliments my dress and then slips her arm through Noah’s. He’s a good few inches shorter than her in her heels, and they make a striking pair.
“You guys look adorable,” she says to Gideon and me both.
“Thanks. You too,” I say, because that seems like the kind of thing people say. Alicia flags down someone to take a picture of all of us, and as she’s flipping through her phone afterward, she says, “Iris was looking for you, by the way.”
“She’s here?”
“Uh-huh.” A new song starts up. “Ooh, I love this one! Let’s dance.” She grabs Noah, and off they go.
We find Iris sitting on the bleachers, her purse on her lap. She brightens a little when she notices our approach.
Even in the dim twinkly light of the gym, I can see her dress is very pretty, and very pink.
“I didn’t think you were coming.”
“Yeah,” she says. “I thought I’d just … check it out. Just to see.”
“We haven’t seen Paige yet,” Gideon says.
“Why would I care?”
“I know you don’t,” he replies. “That’s why I mentioned it. Expressly because I know how much you don’t care.”
“Shut up,” she says, but not without a small smile.
“Wanna dance?” Gideon says.
“Yes, go dance, go away, both of you.”
“I was talking to you,” he says. “We can all dance.”
For a second, I’m reminded of Iris and Paige way back when, dancing together in front of the literature building. Iris holding back until Paige took her hands, then the both of them jumping around, uninhibited.
Right now she levels Gideon with a look and is met with his easy smile. Then she shifts her gaze to me.
“Come on,” I say. “It’ll be fun.”
Iris sighs, getting to her feet. “Ugh, sure, I guess. If it’ll pass the time.”
* * *
It passes the time quite well. Gideon is a ridiculous dancer, but I would’ve expected no less.
People, as always, seem to gravitate toward him, so we get a good group going. Gideon twirls Iris around and hip-bumps Noah and busts out all sorts of moves—some successfully, some not so much—and basically doesn’t stop until finally a slow song filters on.
Then he looks at me hesitantly. “Want to dance?”
“What have we been doing for the last hour?”
“I meant, like, with me.”
“Who have I been dancing with all this time? Did someone get a face transplant with your face?”
He grins. “You know what I’m saying.”
I glance around, but the rest of the group has melted away. Even Iris has disappeared.
So I step up to Gideon and clasp my hands loosely behind his neck. I mean to leave some space, but he steps closer, circling his arms around my waist so it’s more of a hug than a traditional dance hold.
We sway back and forth. My entire front is warm. Everything is Gideon Prewitt sensory overload, but then I don’t think there could even be such a thing. I don’t think there could ever be too much of him.
“You never definitively responded to the face transplant thing,” I say.
“Do you need me to confirm my identity?”
“Yes. Say something only Gideon Prewitt would say.”
“Connect Four is the greatest game ever invented.”
“You could’ve looked that up online.”
“Bloomin’ Onion,” he whispers right in my ear, and it tickles but also sends a spark of electricity through me. I let out a laugh.
He laughs, too, his shoulders rising and falling a bit, and then it’s quiet.
Until Gideon murmurs, “Thanks for coming with me tonight.” His mouth is still close to my ear. “I really, um.” He pulls back the slightest bit, looks at me for a second. “I really like it when we hang out.”
“Me too.”
“Sometimes … around some people, I feel like I have to, like … try, you know? Like really hard.” His hands tighten a bit on my waist. “But with you—when I’m with you, I can just … exist. You know what I mean?”
His expression is open, his eyes serious.
I know exactly what he means.
I nod. And stare at the stitching on Gideon’s lapel.
He stops swaying, ducks his head to try to look at me. “Claude?”
Someone taps my shoulder. “Claudia, will you take our picture?”
It’s Lena, dressed in yet another variation on her patented minidress. She’s holding her phone out to me, smiling expectantly.
Mechanically I step away from Gideon and take the phone, snapping a few pictures of her and Sudha and Madison, their arms around one another.
When I look back at Gideon, he’s running one hand through his hair, a chagrined sort of smile on his face.
I try to return it, but I’m not sure how convincing it is. “I, uh. I need to find Iris,” I say. “I have to ask her about something.” I know he’ll offer to look with me, so I break away, calling “I’ll be back” over my shoulder.
The lawn dividing the gym from the parking lot is perfectly manicured, and the grass is soft and plush beneath my shoes as I cut across it.
I make it to the sidewalk bordering the lot. I don’t have my coat, or my phone, but I don’t care.
When I’m with you, I can just exist.
It’s the same notion as Will Sorenson’s, isn’t it? Just packaged differently. Someone you exist around. Someone you feel regular about.
I want to deny it, squish it down to nothing, go back inside, throw my arms around Gideon again. But I can’t. Or rather, I can, but I won’t, because I know the truth—it’s over before it’s even started.
I just need air. I just need to be alone.
But I’m not. Not for long, anyway. I hear a set of footsteps making their way from the gym.
“Hey, I saw Iris but she disappeared again, you’d think she’s—” Gideon pauses when he reaches me. “You okay?” And then, “It’s cold, geez,” and he’s shrugging out of his suit jacket and it’s all too much.
“Is this a date?” I say.
He blinks, extending the coat toward me, but I don’t take it. “I mean, it’s a … it’s a dance date. Not like a … date date. But still kind of a date?” There is a hopeful upward inflection at the end of that sentence. “I was actually … I sort of wanted to ask you about that.”
“About what?”
“Maybe you and me could … maybe we could go on a date. A real one. Maybe we could be, like. Dating.” There’s a small smile on his lips, and he’s still holding the coat.
I’m meant to say something. I’m supposed to respond.
I like you, you majestic space prince.
How hard would it be to say that? It’s the truth. How hard would it be to close the distance between us? Thread my fingers through his hair, thumb the corners of his jaw, kiss him right.
But.
I’m the kind of person you feel regular about. I know that. And if anyone is going to find me … not regular … it certainly isn’t going to be Gideon Prewitt.
And if he thinks he does, it’s because I’m amusing, the same way trick birthday candles are amusing. Just in the moment, just situationally. Interesting until they aren’t, diverting until they’ve served their purpose. He likes that he can exist around me—he likes it now—but he doesn’t even realize it, that it’s the very reason his feelings will wear off later.
I force myself to speak: “It’s really … flattering. You know. But … I just think … Maybe it’s not such a good idea.”
“Why?”
“I just … I’m just trying to look out for myself.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No, you wouldn’t, would you?” I say, and he frowns, takes a step forward.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“Gideon, it’s not…” I shake my head. I can’t look him in the eyes, so I look up instead. I speak to the velvety sky above, my breath billowing up so that the words appear to puff out of me: “You’re great, you’re lots of fun, but I just don’t think of you that way, okay? I’m not … interested … in you like that.”
This is a lie, and some small stupid part of me hopes that Gideon will challenge it.
But he doesn’t. It’s quiet. Until finally he says, “Oh.” And then, softer: “Oh. I thought you were.”
I think of Havil the Wise: The kill, young warrior. It must be clean, it must be swift, it must be complete. “Yeah. Well. You were wrong.”
When I dare to glance at Gideon, he’s looking off across the parking lot, the coat now hanging limply at his side.
“Can we still be friends though?” he says, small.
“Of course,” I reply. And I want that to be the end of this conversation. I want him to walk away. And maybe he’ll turn back at the last moment with a wink and a cheeky grin because he doesn’t really like me. Not really. He just thinks he does, and this will cure him of it. He’ll head inside and dance the night away with the masses.
But he just looks in my general direction, and when he speaks, it’s halting, stilted in a way I’ve never heard him speak before.
“I’m sorry if … like, if I made you—uncomfortable, or anything. I didn’t … I thought…”
“It’s okay.”
“But we’re still friends?”
“Yeah.” I nod, too vigorously. I can salvage this. I can make it okay. I can be so chill.
I hold one hand up and say “High five?” like the colossal idiot I am. Gideon just smiles, lopsided, and he’s blinking fast.
“I’m just gonna—I think I’ll—” And then he nods, like he finished the thought, and walks away, in the opposite direction of the gym.
I lower my hand.
forty-five
I find Iris in the gym, back on the bleachers in the same spot we found her earlier.
“Do you want to go?” I say.
She frowns. “What happened?”
“Can we just go? Please?”
She looks at me for one beat more, and then she stands, tucks her clutch under one arm, and guides me out of the gym.
We go back outside, and I’m halfway crying by the time I realize that Gideon drove me, so I have no way to get home. I’d have to call my parents and try to explain how I rejected my date mid-dance, or Alex, who’s not speaking to me, or Zoe, who would have to borrow a car and is still probably not speaking to me.
I look over at Iris, who’s now on the phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling a ride,” she says, before having a brief conversation with whoever’s on the other end of the line.
A sleek black sedan whispers up to the curb a few minutes later, and we both get in the back. The driver is not Iris’s mom or dad but rather a youngish-looking guy in a suit.
“Tell him your address,” she says as we strap in.
“You have a driver?”
“No,” she says, but it’s in direct contradiction to the person currently sitting in the front seat. I blink at her, and she elaborates. “My parents have a driver. Sometimes.”
I give the man my address, and we ride in silence for a few minutes until Iris finally heaves a sigh.
“Do I have to do the whole ‘tell me what happened’ thing, or can you just tell me what happened?”
“You just did the thing,” I say, and sniff.
“Claudia.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and tell her what happened in the parking lot with Gideon.
“I’m doing us both a favor,” I say when I’m finished. “I’m being responsible. This is better than…” Than doing the whole thing. Hanging out and dating and getting attached and feeling feelings and having them be meaningless afterward.
Iris nods. “Yeah.”
“Tell me I did the right thing.”
“What if I can’t?”
“Then lie, Iris, that’s what friends do,” I say, before a sob escapes.
“You did the right thing.”
“How do you know?”
She doesn’t reply for a moment, and when she does, her voice is even, measured. “Because I know you. And I know … you’d do what you thought was the right thing.”
“But it feels terrible,” I say.
She reaches out and pats my shoulder awkwardly.
I blink through the tears. “What are you doing? What is that?”
She pulls her hand away. “I don’t know, I’m bad at this. Do you want a bottle of water?”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t know! They keep them in the car! And you’re like … losing fluids. I said I was bad at this.”
I let out a weak laugh.
“Hey, look at that,” Iris says, and she almost looks proud. “Maybe I’m better than I thought.”
I wipe my eyes on the back of my arm. “Maybe.”
It’s quiet. Until Iris pulls out her phone. “Some pap pictures of Kenji went up earlier, do you want to see?”
I nod, and she pulls up an impressive array of photos of Kenji in skinny jeans and a slouchy hat, looking disgruntled as he walks into a fro-yo store and then out of a fro-yo store.
“He wore that shirt when the boys were on The Tonight Show,” Iris says, and taps the photo, zooms in on Kenji’s shirt. “It’s Gucci. Do you like it?”
I nod. “He looks good in blue.”
“Did you ever see the suit he wore to the VMAs last year?”
I shake my head.
“God, you’ve missed so much. Okay. Brace yourself.”
I manage a small smile.
“What?” Iris looks up from the phone.
“Nothing.” I’m glad you’re here. “Show me.”
* * *
I get a text about an hour after Iris drops me off. Gideon.
Are you around? Do you want a ride home?
No, I type and then pause before hitting send. Thanks, I add, I’m good. And then delete that. I got a ride but thanks anyway!!! Delete.
I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment. And then type, Already home, and hit send.
forty-six
Monday brings the first tech rehearsal.
It’s an all-afternoon, into-the-evening affair. A handful of people are called to the shop at the start to pick up specific costume pieces that they want to rehearse with.
Kaitlyn Winthrop needs her skirt, which is a little tougher to move ar
ound in than the other fairies’ outfits. I help her get it on and then fuss with it a bit.
Gideon has come, too, to get his cloak. I manage to only glance his way when he’s spinning around for Del to assess. After she adjusts a few little things and pronounces him finished, she turns to help Aimee with her stuff.
“All done?” Kaitlyn says.
“Um.” I turn back to the seam I’m supposed to be fixing, smooth it down, and nod. “You’re good to go. Let me know if you need anything else.”
“What do you think?” she says, and when I look up, I see she’s addressing Gideon, who’s come up behind us.
“Ravishing,” he replies. “What about me?”
Kaitlyn grins. “You look like a sexy pirate.”
“Thank you,” Gideon says quite seriously, and then Kaitlyn heads off to talk to Caris. Leaving me and Gideon alone.
Silence. I start sifting through my sewing kit like I’m looking for something.
He picks up a pincushion on the table beside us and then puts it back down. “Hey. So … sorry for leaving you hanging the other night. High-five-wise.”
Sorry for abandoning you at the dance. “No problem.”
Gideon shifts from one foot to the other. Scratches the back of his neck. I almost want to laugh—with him wearing that cloak, it’s like I’m having a really awkward moment with some mercenary mage in Battle Quest.
“And I’m sorry,” he says after a pause. “You know, if I made things weird. I thought…” I glance at him, and he’s looking off across the room, his eyebrows pulled down. “I thought about it, and I realized you always … I mean, you’ve always been really nice and friendly, but you’ve never done anything to—like, encourage me, and I think I was just seeing something there because I wanted something to be there, and I—I’m sorry.”
When I speak, it comes out kind of short, kind of gruff, because I don’t know how else to control my voice: “It’s fine. Don’t be sorry.”
He nods.
I go back to my kit. I don’t know what else to do. Gideon just stands there.
Del finishes with Aimee, and Aimee pauses at the door, waiting for Gideon.
“You should probably get back,” I say.
“Yeah. Okay. I … I’ll see you, I guess.”
I nod, then say “See you” tightly. Gideon and Aimee leave.