by Claire Kann
Dallas’s shadow bounced impatiently behind the curtained window.
I was 100 percent making the wrong choice. No denying that. An illogical and dangerous wrong choice.
Staying on my tiptoes, I crept forward, one step at a time, pausing to let my weight balance before moving again.
Creep.
Creep.
Creep.
The wicker doormat under my feet sans Granny’s eyes boring holes into my back brought sweet, rough relief. After putting on my shoes, I braced one hand against the door and turned the knob with the other. The door opened barely a crack before Dallas’s smiling face filled it.
“Hi!”
“Hush yourself! My God.” I rushed out, closing the door behind me with care.
“Why so jumpy?”
“I don’t want to get in trouble.”
“That only happens if you get caught. Come on.” Sneaking out must have been something he did regularly.
At home, my nonnegotiable curfew stayed in full effect no matter how old I got. Sunset, then streetlights, ten p.m., eleven p.m. Midnight. No exceptions. Sneaking out was impossible because of our alarm system, not that I’d ever wanted to.
“Where are we going?”
“I have a surprise for you.”
“Is it murder? I’ve seen TV movies on Lifetime that start like this.”
Dallas grinned and handed me the orange helmet. “Definitely not murder.”
“And this surprise couldn’t wait four hours?”
“It’s time sensitive.” His eyes were clear and bright, smile easy as sunrise.
“What is it?”
“Something you want.” He stepped closer, taking my hand.
The cool, post-midnight air did nothing for my skin, burning hot enough to sear the next unwanted hole in the ozone layer. His palms and fingers felt clammy—like he was nervous.
“I don’t know.” Eye contact. So much eye contact. “If my granny wakes up and I’m gone—that might be the end of me.”
“I won’t keep you out too late. Or early.” He shuffled closer to me.
The apartment had a decent-sized porch ringed by a metal banister. We stood near the top step with plenty of room around us, and yet he stood unnecessarily close. His thumb rubbed along the back of my hand in slow, lazy circles, daring me with an inviting gaze to defy logic, forget the rules, and run away for the rest of the night.
“Okay. But we have to be quick.”
We slinked down the stairs, Dallas snorting with suppressed laughter every time the wood creaked. The second we hit the pavement, we took off running toward the front of the building.
“Really, if it’s murder, you can just tell me.”
“It’s not murder.”
“Okay, it’s really dark. The murder vibes are really high right now.”
He squeezed my hand. “Trust me.”
“You are truly asking for a lot tonight.”
We exited Goldeen’s parking lot, running a few more feet until we reached a black-with-dark-red-trim motorcycle.
“You have a motorcycle, too. Of course you do.”
“I don’t actually have a car. The one I usually drive here is my mom’s. This is mine.” He tilted the bike and swung one leg over, positioning himself on the seat. “Hop on.”
“I am not hopping any goddamn where.”
“We’re just going up the road. A quick little trip, there and back.”
“Why are you doing this to me? Think of my blood pressure!”
He held out his hand.
This was my Moment after all. Would I live in it or reject it?
Remember that time I snuck out my house, almost got on a motorcycle with my crush to go to a surprise he’d planned specifically for me? Good almost times.
“Is that thing safe? You have your license, right?”
“Yes and yes.”
I sighed. Closing my eyes, I put the helmet on. My braids made it a tight fit, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. “This better be worth it or I will never trust you again.” Once settled on the bike behind him, he showed me where to put my feet. “Where do I put my hands?”
“Around me. Lean forward.” He guided me into position. “Not quite so tight.” He laughed. “I still need to breathe.”
I adjusted my grip. That familiar mint-and-soap smell woke up my crush butterflies. “This is terrifying. You realize that, right?”
“I think the word you’re looking for is exhilarating.” The bike roared to life. That explained why he had parked so far from the diner.
Not even thinking about the Wrath of Granny could stop me from screeching as we thundered away. “Too fast! Too fast! OH MY GOD!” I squeezed him tighter—I could feel him laughing as I buried my face into his neck.
He tapped my hands a few times. His thumb rubbed my right wrist. And then he let go. Before I even had time to get used to riding on the bike, we rolled to a stop. I opened one eye as I lifted my head from my ridiculously ineffective hiding spot.
“The park? A picnic? I wanted to go on a picnic in the park?”
A large gingham blanket had been set up underneath the massive willow tree. Haven Central had voted to wind fairy lights around the trunk and attach hundreds of hanging ones to the branches. Usually, the lights were turned off by now, but they shone, twinkling in the summer moonlight.
Dallas removed his helmet and looked at me over his shoulder. “Did you really think I would make it that easy?”
He helped me dismount the bike and kept holding my hand as we sat down on the blanket facing each other.
“Now what?”
“Now you tell me?” He smiled biting his lip. “How’s your brother?”
“He’s okay.”
“And everyone else?”
I laughed softly. “You’re so cute. Inquiring about my loved ones.”
“If they’re important to you, I’d like to know how they are.”
“And you couldn’t just call me and ask that? I would’ve answered in the safety of my bathroom so I didn’t wake up Sam.”
“Nope. Because you don’t see your face right now. You didn’t see it when you opened the window or when you opened the door. You didn’t see your smile when we ran down the stairs and across the parking lot. This was as much for you as it was for me because—”
“—we want the same thing.”
He kissed the back of my hand.
Everything was happening, speeding up and dragging us along with so much going unsaid. Asking felt like it would break the spell. I wanted to know for sure, but part of me was strangely content. Not saying it out loud didn’t make these moments, these monumental baby steps, less real.
The first step to coming to terms with a serious crush is admitting you have one. It was never a simple, “Oh dear. I appear to have a crush. How quaint.” It was “JESUS NO HOW DID THIS HAPPEN I ABSOLUTELY DO NOT” kind of denial. Explosions and heart eyes and awkward stuttering and throat clearing. Bad, irrational decisions and hormones and condoms in back seats and empty houses. It was awful and wonderful and it caught me off guard every time.
None of that was happening with Dallas anymore. Now that we were friends, everything felt different. It was a slow, insidious kind of feeling that made me stare into space, imagining his face, his smile. I thought about his skin, his nimble fingers and callused palms, thought of myself thinking about him. Thought of how it came from seemingly nowhere but had been building this whole time. How he had crawled into my head and refused to leave, occupying space that wasn’t his to have.
I wasn’t sure what to do next. Last time, I had told Kara out loud. Everything had worked, but lightning wasn’t supposed to strike twice. This didn’t feel like how it felt with her.
Different, yet familiar at the same time, and just as confusing.
I loved Kara more than I loved anyone else. Even still, the way I felt never crossed that intangible romantic line. I didn’t crave her the way I did with Dallas. The way I wanted him to touch me felt
different from what I wanted from Kara. Equally intense but not the same.
Sometimes when I tried to hold those thoughts in my head side by side, they looked identical, but I knew they weren’t.
“It’s not just me.” I crawled across the blanket to sit next to him instead. “Kara told me what she did. We’re working through that now, but we’re still together.”
“I figured.”
Feeling bold, I rested my head on his shoulder. His fingers grazed my forehead as he pushed back the braids that had fallen over my face. I closed my eyes, imprinting that touch to memory.
“It has to be both of us. That’s still where I’m at.”
He was quiet for so long, I thought I’d lost him. “What would,” he began, unsure, “what would I have to do? I want you, not her. I’m not interested in her at all.”
I raised my head to look at him, fear and worry slashing through me. “Not even as a friend?”
He shook his head. “I’m sure you see something I don’t, but no.”
“Would you be willing to get to know her?”
“No offense, but I probably know her better than you do.”
I sat up, trying to rein in a sudden flash of anger. “She made a mistake.”
“When people show you who they are, you should believe them.”
“If I can forgive her, couldn’t you at least try?”
“I don’t see why she would have anything to do with us in the first place.”
“It’s the other way around actually. She comes first. If we’re not together, me and you”—I couldn’t believe I fixed my mouth to say those words—“then she comes first.”
“And if we are?”
We stared at each other. He wanted to be with me. I hadn’t missed that, but I couldn’t just say yes and lie to him. “Then it has to be equal. I’ve never done anything like this before. I only knew that I might want to someday, so I’m winging it. I just know I don’t want to be one way with you and then another with her. I want us all to get along. You don’t have to date her, but I can’t be with someone who doesn’t want to at least try being her friend.”
I didn’t know how to make him understand. I couldn’t force him to give her a second chance. All of my hopes began to crumble into ash because it wasn’t going to work.
He looked away first. “Looks like you’re the one asking for a lot tonight.”
Kara (Kara Kara Kara Kara) Chameleon
Kara: You are cordially invited to dumpling night at my house
Kara: My mom wants me to tell you that she would really like to see you
Winnie: Just your mom?
Kara: And me. Always me.
Winnie: Sure.
Winnie: I’m going to say something. I don’t know if I mean it or if I’m just sad and getting my feelings out. I want to talk about it later.
Kara: Okay. I’m ready. I’m here for you.
Winnie: I’m not mad about what you did anymore. But I still feel like you betrayed me because you messed up something that could have been really good for me that I wanted /on purpose/
Winnie: I really like Dallas. And he likes me too.
Winnie: But he doesn’t want anything to do with you now.
Winnie: I’m not choosing you or him because there isn’t a choice to be made. I’m just upset so if I’m not my usual self at dinner, that’s why. I’m sad.
Winnie: I’m allowed to be sad about this.
Kara: I never told you this but during the pearl diving competition, he helped me. Underwater. He found the pearl necklace and gave it to me.
Kara: He could’ve won at any time. At first I thought he helped me as payback to humiliate me later. That’s why I kicked him.
Kara: I think he did it because he wanted to make it fair. He likes you and he knows you like me so he wanted to try to make you happy by giving me a chance.
Winnie: THIS IS MAKING ME FEEL WORSE STOP
Winnie: He gave you an extra minute too. He waited the full three minutes you wanted damn it
Kara: I don’t know if I can fix this for you. I’m sorry.
Thirty
Sam didn’t show up.
I waited almost fifteen minutes, sweating in the sun, grimacing against the funk, ready to go, before texting her.
SA(RU)M(ON)
Sam: SORRY!
Sam: The Hernandez family had an emergency at 4 am and called me in!
Sam: I thought they’d be back by now but no sign of them
Sam: Can’t leave the kids.
Winnie: Soooooo you couldn’t text me and say that?
Sam: I figured when I didn’t send my usual morning reminders you’d guess something was up since you don’t want to run anyway
I groaned, kicking a rock back toward the parking lot. The geese had already assumed the position. One of them bared its teeth—that weren’t really teeth but looked a whole lot like teeth—and serrated tongue at me. Those things had to be some genetic experiment. Some mad scientist out there gave them the body of a goose, the mind-set of a hippo, and the teeth and bloodlust of a piranha, and then dumped them in Misty Haven because they kept attacking their creators, who loved the homicidal things too much to euthanize them.
They seemed to have an extra murderous slant to them today. No Mabel the Doggyguard—they’d probably attack me the second I set foot on the path.
No one would know or care if I skipped today.
Each session, I had jogged one more minute than the previous session. I memorized how to control my breathing and keep my stride steady. But who would egg me on when I was seven minutes deep and swearing up a storm when I wanted to stop? Who would tell me jokes to distract me? Who would sing while running backward?
Going at it alone seemed even worse than doing it in general.
I set the alarms on my phone. “All right, geese.” Jesus, they were already watching me. “I’ve been nothing but respectful of you. So just let me do my run, don’t start none, won’t be none.” I walked toward the trail.
A goose leaped out of the water, another charged at me while flapping, and a chorus of HONKS serenaded me as I ran back to the car screaming, “PLEASE DON’T MURDER MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”
Safe inside, clutching the steering wheel, I tried to catch my breath. “If God wanted me to run today, he wouldn’t have let the Devil Birds win.”
* * *
“It is not funny! Those things are horrifying!” I should have known Dallas would laugh. Why did I even bother to tell him?
Kara had laughed, too. Her nonstop LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL and LMAOOOOOOOOOOO texts didn’t stop until I threatened to block her number.
Dallas continued to laugh as he capped off the bottle he’d filled and set it to the side. He reached across the table to start in on my bottles. The boy had some kind of ketchup-bottle-refilling supernatural ability. I’d been doing this for years, could do it in my sleep, but he was faster than me.
I finished my bottle but didn’t start a new one. Instead, I pushed all of mine toward him without making eye contact. “You haven’t bought anything yet. Work off your debt.”
“As you wish.”
I totally recognized that quote and did the most dramatic thing ever: sighed, resting my chin on my hand. I’d expected things to be awkward between us, exposing my total lack of romantic dating experience and just how much I still had to learn about him.
Fact: Dallas had all but asked me to be his girlfriend and I turned him down because of my commitment with Kara.
I have never hated myself so much in my life. In a summer of bad decisions, that felt like it had to be the worst one yet. I wanted to say yes, throw my arms around him, kiss him, and finally, finally touch his hair, because those beautiful curls had started to grow back.
But my brain and my heart had reached an agreement. I definitely did the right thing, but fuck. And worse, I had no idea what to expect from him.
Would we only see each other during Royal Engagements?
Would he stop calling and telling
me he just wanted to hear my voice?
Was he upset? With me?
Did he want to stop being friends?
And then he’d showed up, unannounced, to keep me company.
“I’m glad you’re here.”
“Are you?” I loved that cheeky grin of his.
“This feels gross but I’m going to say it in the spirit of whatever this is.” I tried to keep my tone light and kind of playful, copying an aloof, flirty vibe I’d seen in a movie once. “I thought you wouldn’t want to talk to me anymore because of the other night.”
He topped off the last ketchup bottle and sat back with a shrug. “You don’t live here. Even if you did, we’re going to different colleges in August anyway. Things can stay how they are.”
Oh. I hadn’t even thought of that, what would happen when summer ended. I’d gotten so used to Kara I guess I thought it could have been the same for us. We didn’t have to end when the seasons changed.
I’m not saying we would have had to promise each other forever and a day or anything like that, but we could’ve at least tried.
I think that might have been a big difference between us.
He wanted a summer fling. I wanted some effort.
“Is that okay?” he asked.
“It might be better that way. Less pressure.” I didn’t sound nearly as disappointed as I felt, because he was still there. Still looking at me with an expression that made my heart feel safe and my knees weak.
I might always want more with him, but he was still in my life.
“Yeah. Better.” Bittersweet looked agonizingly beautiful on him.
My phone buzzed. Winston. “Do you want to re-meet my brother?”
“I already know him?” He sounded unsure.
“No, you know of him. Winston hides himself really well.” I smiled, grateful for the subject change into something I could be happy about. “He’s on a steroid inhaler for a bit and it’s keeping him up at night. We’re going to watch a movie.”
I slid out of the booth, running back to my podium to grab my backpack. Returning to the table, I set up my laptop against the window, between us.