At Bio, Cyn is a no-show. I have to redo the experiment from the last class because I didn’t make any notes. Maxwell has already handed in the assignment. But does he help me? No. He abandons me to figure out the experiment on my own while he chats up Mila and the girls at the next lab station.
Then, at lunch, he’s full of stories. He says, “That Dove guy Cyn works for?” He crams a sandwich into his mouth. “They went out. Apparently, he used to pick her up from school in a big-ass SUV.”
Dove was the boyfriend? I feel my face get hot. “Maybe he was giving her a ride to work.”
Maxwell shrugs. “I’m just telling you what I heard.”
“From Mila and the girls in Bio?”
“Yes. They live in the same neighborhood. Mila and Cyn used to be best friends. Their parents are in Hawaii together as we speak. So I guess Mila would know if Cyn went out with Dove.”
“It’s also possible that Mila just thinks she knows what she’s talking about.”
Maxwell gives me a long look. “I like Mila.”
“I’m sorry.” I am. “But I don’t know why you’re talking about me with Mila.”
He holds up his hands. “Whoa, it’s not like we were discussing you. All Mila said was that she’s glad Cyn is going out with a solid guy now. It sounds like Dove creeps her out.”
I’ve never met the guy and he’s starting to creep me out too.
I’m leaving school when I get a text from Cyn. She’s waiting at her car in Meridian Park. By the time I get there, hers is the only car in the lot. She sees me and gets out and runs to meet me. She buries her face in my neck. I say, “Where were you today? Did you go to any of your classes?”
She shrugs. “I was there for part of the day. I had a dentist appointment.”
“We could have met up.”
“And walked around in the halls, holding hands?”
The way she says it, it sounds like maybe that’s not the most exciting thing she’s ever done. I say, “Well, I’d like that. We’d be like a normal couple.”
“I’m not exactly normal, Daniel.”
I think about the time we met here in the middle of the night. I remember last night. I kiss the top of her head. “You are extraordinary.”
I feel her sigh.
“I’d settle for ordinary.”
What Maxwell said at lunch about her dating Dove comes back to me. Dove must be at least four years older than her, already graduated, with his own business. I say, “So am I your ticket to ordinary?”
“I want to be a normal couple, Daniel, more than anything. I want to hang out and watch movies and, yes, I want to walk around the school holding hands.”
“Would you go to the totally lame and ordinary dance with me next week?”
She grins. “Yes. And I’ll even wear shoes with heels.” She opens the passenger door and reaches behind the seat. She pulls out a bag. “Don’t worry. This time I bought stuff for me.”
I say, “You went across again today? For someone who hates shopping, you sure go a lot.”
“My dress came in. And I bought those sandals you liked.” She tugs the shoes out to show me. “So now I can go to the dance.”
I hug her. “You could wear a garbage bag and still be the most beautiful girl there.”
She slips her hands under my shirt. Her hands are cold, and I gasp. She laughs. “You are kind of extraordinary yourself.” She’s making me crazy with her touch. She says, “Anyone at your house?”
I groan. “Everyone is at my house. What about yours?”
She shudders. “I wish we could just go away.” She tips her face to look at me. “Right now. Tonight. The two of us. We could get a tiny suite in the city.”
I stroke her neck. “We’d both have to work two jobs to afford even a closet in the city.”
“I would.”
“And we’d have to take Livy.”
She smiles. “I would.”
By the time she takes me home, it’s getting dark. She pulls up in front of the house. “Come on up,” I say.
She shakes her head. “I’d love to, but I’ve got a ton of homework from missing class. Say hi to Livy for me.”
She kisses me, and it’s like I’ve always known the curve of her lips, the taste of her, the way her breath catches when I touch her.
I get out of the car and manage to drop my book bag. Then, as I grab my bag, my house keys drop out of the pocket and onto the ground. “Just a sec,” I say. I have to reach under the car for the keys. When I stand up, she’s looking at her phone, a small crease in her forehead. I say, “See you at school tomorrow, right?”
She looks at me and her face softens into a smile. “Ordinary, normal school.”
She drives off, and I head into the house. As I’m hanging up my jacket, I notice something stuck to the sleeve. It is a strip of gray duct tape.
“Weird,” I say to myself. “Where did that come from?”
It had to have come from the bottom of Cyn’s car.