by Lynn Painter
But we had a deal, so we exchanged numbers so he could text me after he talked to Michael, and we decided that he was going to pick me up for the party at seven o’clock the following day.
As I walked back to my house in the rain, I couldn’t believe he’d agreed to it. I was a little unsure about going anywhere with Wes, but a girl did what she had to in the name of true love.
* * *
I wasn’t a fan of running in the rain or in the dark, so doing both at the same time was a major suckfest. Helena had made spaghetti by the time I’d gotten home from Wes’s, so I’d had to sit down for a full-scale family dinner—complete with How was your day conversation—before I could take off. My dad tried to convince me to hit the new treadmill he’d bought the day before, since it was pouring outside, but that was a non-option for me.
My daily run had nothing to do with exercise.
I tightened the string on my hood, put my head down, and hit the sidewalk, my worn-out Brooks splashing water up onto my leggings with every step. It was cold and miserable, and I picked up my pace when I turned the corner at the end of the street and could see the cemetery through the downpour.
I didn’t slow until I went through the gates, up the familiar one-lane blacktop road, and just past the crooked elm; then I ran fifteen steps farther to the left.
“This weather sucks, Ma,” I said as I stopped next to my mother’s headstone, putting my hands on my hips and sucking air while trying to slow my pant. “Seriously.”
I dropped to a squat beside her, running my hand over the slick marble. I usually sat down on the grass, but it was way too wet for that. The driving rain made it seem even darker than normal in the shaded cemetery, but I knew the place by heart, so it didn’t bother me.
In a weird way, this was my happy place.
“So Michael is back—I’m sure you saw—and he seems just as perfect as ever. I’m going to see him again tomorrow.” I pictured her face, like I always did when I was here, and said, “You’d be excited about this one.” Even if I had to go to Wes for help. My mom had always thought Wes was sweet but that he played too rough.
“It just feels like it’s a fate thing, the way he was kind of dropped into my lap right after I was listening to ‘Someone Like You.’ I mean, what’s more fate-y than that? Your favorite song, from our favorite movie, and our favorite cute-ex-neighbor just happened to drop in? I feel like you’re writing this Happily Ever After from your spot…”
I trailed off and gestured at the sky. “Up there somewhere.”
Even the cold rain couldn’t keep me from being excited as I described his Southern “y’all” accent for my mom. I squatted beside her chiseled name and rambled, like I did every day, until the alarm on my phone buzzed. This ritual had kind of become like an oral diary over the years, except I wasn’t recording, and no one was listening. Well, except—I hoped my mom was.
It was time to head back.
I stood and patted her headstone. “See you tomorrow. Love you.”
I took a deep breath before turning and jogging down the hill. The rain was still coming down hard, but muscle memory made it easy to stay on the path.
And as I ran past Wes’s house and turned into my driveway, I realized I was more excited than I’d been in a really long time.
* * *
“Liz.”
I glanced up from my Lit homework to see Joss climbing in my window, with Kate and Cassidy following behind her. We’d discovered years ago that if you climbed onto the roof of my old playhouse in the backyard, you were just high enough to slide open the bedroom window and step right in.
“Hey, guys.” I cracked my back and turned around in my desk chair, surprised to see them. “What’s up?”
“We just got done with a planning meeting for the senior prank, but we don’t want to go home yet because my dad said I could stay out until nine, and it’s only eight forty.” Cassidy—whose parents were wicked strict—plopped down on my bed, and Kate followed, while Joss sat her backside on my window seat and said, “So we’re hiding here for twenty more minutes.”
I readied myself for pressure from them about the senior prank.
“It was basically, like, thirty people jammed into Burger King, loudly shouting out ideas of things they think are funny.” Joss giggled and said, “Tyler Beck thinks we should just let loose with, like, twenty thousand Super Balls in the hallways—and he knows a guy who can hook us up.”
Kate laughed and said, “Swear to God he had the whole group convinced it was the money idea. Until he said he would need actual money.”
“We seniors are funny, but cheap as hell.” Cassidy lay back on my bed and said, “I personally liked Joey Lee’s idea to just say screw it and do something horrible, like flipping over all the shelves in the library or flooding the school. He said it was ‘ironically funny because it’s so terribly not funny’ and that it ‘would never be forgotten.’ ”
“That’s definitely true,” I said, taking out my ponytail and digging my hands into my hair. I didn’t want to look at Joss because I felt like she’d take one glance and know I’d been scheming with Wes, so I kept my eyes on Cass.
“You should’ve been there, Liz,” Joss said, and I prepared myself for what came next. A lecture about how we were only seniors once, perhaps? She was really good at those. Just do it, Liz. We’re only high school seniors for a few more months.
But when I looked at her, she grinned instead and said, “Everyone was talking about ideas, and then Conner Abel said, ‘My house got forked once.’ ”
My mouth fell open. “Shut up!”
“Right?” Kate squealed.
Last year, when I was crushing hard on Conner, we thought it’d be funny to fork his front yard one Saturday night when there was nothing going on and we were all sleeping over at my house. Yes, it was silly, but we were juniors—we didn’t know any better. But in the middle of the midnight forking, his dad came outside to let the dog do its business. We took off running into the neighbor’s yard, but not before the dog managed to catch his teeth on Joss’s pajama pants, exposing her underwear for all to see.
Joss cackled and said, “It was hilarious because, you know, he uttered the bizarro words ‘My house got forked.’ ”
“I cannot believe he said that,” I laughed.
She shook her head and added, “But it was also funny because someone asked him what the hell he was talking about, and listen to this. He said, and I quote, ‘A bunch of girls stuck forks all over my front yard last year, and then one mooned us while running away. I shit you not, dudes.’ ”
“Shut up!” I died laughing then, leaning into the memory of those good times. They were pure, in a way, untouched by my stressful senior issues that had stained the memories we’d been making this year. “Did it kill you not to take credit for it?”
She nodded, stood, and went over to my closet. “Big time, but I knew we’d come out looking like obsessed stalkers if I confessed.”
I watched as she flipped through my dresses, and then she asked, “Where’s the red checked dress?”
“It’s buffalo plaid, and it’s on the other side.” I pointed and said, “With the casual shirts.”
“I knew the layout, but I would’ve pictured it with the dresses.”
“Too casual.”
“Of course.” She looked through the other rack, found the dress, and then pulled it off the hanger and draped it over her arm. “So what’d you do tonight? Just homework?”
I blinked, caught in the headlights, but Cass and Kate weren’t even paying attention, and Joss was looking at the dress. I cleared my throat and muttered a quick, “Pretty much. Hey—do you know how much of Gatsby we’re supposed to read for tomorrow?”
Cass said, “Guys, we need to hit it” at the same time Joss said, “The rest of it.”
“Thanks,” I managed, while my friends made their way to the window and scrambled out the same way they’d come. Joss was about to swing her leg over when sh
e said, “Your hair looks supercute like that, by the way. Did you curl it?”
I thought of Wes’s living room and how drenched my hair had been when I’d arrived. “No. I, um, I just got caught in the rain after school.”
She smiled. “You should be so lucky every day, right?”
“Yeah.” I pictured Wes’s cartwheel and wanted to roll my eyes. “Right.”
CHAPTER THREE
“You’re late.”
“You’re stunning.”
“You’re forgiven.”
—Pretty Woman
It was seven fifteen and Wes hadn’t shown up yet.
“Maybe you should walk over there.” My dad looked up from his book and stared directly at my tapping fingernails. “I mean, it is Wes.”
“Translation,” said Helena, giving me a smirk. “Your tapping is driving him to distraction and he thinks your date is capable of forgetting you entirely.”
“This isn’t a date.”
My dad ignored my comment, set his book down on the table beside him, and gave Helena a grin. “Actually, her tapping is driving me to distraction and Wes Bennett is capable of anything.”
My dad and Helena started doing their hilarious banter thing on the love seat, and I had to fight to hold in the eye roll. Helena was awesome—she reminded me of a blond Lorelai Gilmore—but she and my dad were sometimes a lot to take.
He’d met her in a stuck elevator—for real—exactly one year after my mother had died. They’d spent two hours in forced confinement between the eighth and ninth floors at the First National building downtown, and they’d been inseparable ever since.
It was the epitome of irony that they’d had the ultimate meet-cute and seemed made for each other, because she was the polar opposite of my mother. My mother had been sweet, patient, and adorable, like a modern version of Doris Day. She’d loved dresses, homemade bread, and fresh-cut flowers from her garden; that was all part of what my father had fallen madly in love with.
He’d said she was enchanting.
Helena, on the other hand, was sarcastic and beautiful. She was jeans and a T-shirt, let’s-pick-up-takeout, I-don’t-like-rom-coms, yet my dad was lost to her the minute that high-rise elevator malfunctioned.
In an instant, I’d lost my grieving buddy and gained a woman who was nothing like the mom I’d cried for every night.
That had been a lot for eleven-year-old Liz to handle.
I checked my phone—no message from Wes. He was fifteen—no, seventeen—minutes late, and he still hadn’t sent a single Sorry I’m running late text.
Why had I even bothered being ready on time? He’d probably forgotten all about me and was already at the party with a beer in his hand. He’d texted me last night to say that Michael was happy to hear I’d be going to the party, and it’d killed me not to ask all the middle school questions.
Did he say anything about me?
Tell me his exact words.
Ultimately, I’d refrained because Wes would only use that against me.
My phone buzzed and I pulled it out of my pocket.
Jocelyn: What’re you doing?
I put it back without responding as guilt twisted around in my belly. I usually told her everything, but I knew she wouldn’t approve of me going to the party. Do you even know who Ryno is? Michael Young is NOT your racing-to-the-train-station dude. The minute she’d said that, I’d known she had no idea how much this mattered to me.
I was going to just go to the party, and I’d text her after I got home.
My dad asked, “You’ll be home by midnight?”
“Yep.”
“Not a second later, understand?” My dad looked more serious than usual and added, “Nothing good happens after midnight.”
“I know, I know.” He said those words every single time I went out. “I’ll call if—”
“No, you won’t.” My always laid-back father gave a shake of his head and pointed at me. “You will just make it a priority to not be late. Understand?”
“Honey, relax—she gets it.” Helena and I exchanged looks of understanding before she pointed out the window and started rambling to him about the grass. My dad was only ever tense when it came to curfew, and it was only because of my mother’s death. His favorite thing to say if I ever dared to push back was If your mom hadn’t been out at midnight, that drunk driver couldn’t have hit her.
And he was right. And intense. So I pretty much always shut up about it.
I kept tapping my nails on the end table, shaking my crossed legs as nerves settled in. I wasn’t nervous about Michael; I was excited about that part. What I was nervous about was going to a party with the populars. I didn’t know any of them besides Wes, and my awkward self knew even less about how to act at a keg party.
Because I’d never been to a keg party.
I was more of a low-key girl. On a typical Friday night, Joss, Kate, Cassidy, and I went to a movie or hung out at the bookstore or maybe went to Applebee’s for cheap appetizers. Occasionally we went shopping and ended up at Denny’s or Scooter’s Coffee.
And I liked my predictable life. I understood it, controlled it, and it made sense to me. In my head, my life was a rom-com and I was living it like a Meg Ryan–type character. Cute dresses, good friends, and the eventual appearance of a boy who would find me lovely. Keg parties played no part in that. They belonged in a Superbad kind of life, right?
“And the parents are home?”
I rolled my eyes and Mr. Fitzpervert jumped onto my lap. “Yes, Dad, the parents are home.”
Spoiler: they were not home.
But my dad and Helena were super chill parents. They trusted me, mainly because I rarely went out and never got into trouble, so they didn’t feel the need to call and check up on me when I was away from home. So yeah—I felt a little guilty about lying, but since I didn’t plan to do anything they wouldn’t approve of (except a best-case scenario that had me and Michael kissing on the back porch under a clear night sky with “ocean eyes” by Billie Eilish on a speaker in the background and his hands cradling my face as my right foot popped at just the right moment like in the movies), my guilt was but a fraction of what it could’ve been.
I scratched behind Fitzpervert’s ear, which made him purr and bite my hand.
He was such a dick.
He was currently sporting the gingham bow tie that I’d purchased on DapperTabby.com, so he looked dashing in an I-want-to-murder-you-but-I-eat-too-much-to-actually-move kind of way. The tie did accentuate his recent weight gain, so I wasn’t mad that he’d lashed out.
I got it.
I set him on the floor and walked over to the window, and there was Wes, as if my thoughts had summoned him. He hopped down his porch steps wearing jeans and a hoodie, and proceeded to walk across our front yard.
“He’s here. Bye, guys.” I grabbed my purse and reached for the door.
“Have a nice time, sweetie.”
“Do you have money for a pay phone?” Helena asked.
I squinted at Helena, who shrugged and added, “I mean, you never know. You could get into a whole time machine, Back to the Future thing and need a pay phone to get home, and what would you do then?”
I did roll my eyes then. “Yes, um—I definitely have enough money to get back to this decade should we find a hole in the space-time continuum. Thank you.”
She nodded and put her feet up on my dad’s lap. “You’re welcome. Now beat it, kid.”
I opened the front door before Wes could knock, and closed it quickly behind me. Which resulted in us nearly running into each other. He stopped just in time, looking a little surprised.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.” He looked around me and said, “I don’t have to come in for a parental lecture?”
I couldn’t answer for a second because it was a bit jarring seeing Wes standing on my porch at dusk, smelling lightly of musky-manly cologne and looking freshly showered. He’d been next door my entire life, but it was surreal
that our parallel lives were actually intersecting.
“Nah,” I said as I dropped my keys into my purse and started walking toward his car, which was, of course, in The Spot. “They know this isn’t a date.”
It only took him two steps, and he caught up to me. “But what if I wanted to declare my intentions to your father?”
“Your intentions?” I stopped beside his car. “Do you mean how you intend to irritate me for multiple hours in a row tonight?”
He hit unlock and opened the door for me. “I was actually referring to the way I intend on blowing off the party entirely to use your body as a human shield at the paintball range.”
“Don’t even joke about getting neon paint on this dress.”
He shut my door, went around the car, and got behind the wheel. “Yeah, what’s with the dress? I kind of thought you’d wear something normal to a party.”
“This is normal.” I buckled my seat belt and pulled down the visor to check my makeup. As if Wes knew anything about fashion. I was in love my mustard jumper dress and its flower buttons.
He started his car and put it in drive. “For you, maybe. I guarantee you’ll be the only person at Ryno’s wearing a dress.”
“Which will make Michael notice me.” I reached into my pocket—because of course my dress had pockets—and opened the tube of lipstick that was inside. My hands were shaking and I took a deep breath, trying to make myself chill. It was hard, though, when in mere minutes I’d be face-to-face with the boy I’d daydreamed about for more than half my life.
Deep breath.
“Yeah, that’s definitely true.” He pulled away from the curb and added in a cowboy voice, “Howdy, partner. Who’s the filly in the dress that’s blocking my view of the hot girls?”
“Oh, come on. Michael does not talk like that.” I snort-laughed in spite of myself, which screwed up the lipstick application as I looked in the visor mirror. “He speaks like the intelligent, charismatic guy that he is.”
“As if you even know.” He turned right on Teal Street, and his foot was heavy on the gas pedal. “The last time we knew him, he was a fourth grader.”