UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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“MADISON, THESE PHOTOS ARE PERFECT.” PIPER stood over our proposed Sadie Hawkins layout, a rare grin across her face. “I love this one, it’s such a standout.”

She pointed at the photo of the balloons, the one with the word choice. I’d edited it so the word stood out, and the way the shot was angled, the balloons looked otherworldly in the background. I’d put in a mix of photos in the layout, some student candid shots, the band, and some more esoteric shots. I also snuck in the one of me, Wren, and Jazz, hoping Piper would be okay with it. She wasn’t one of those “Let’s make the yearbook photos about the yearbook staff” people.

“Thanks, I think so too.”

“I thought these pages would be a throwaway, but it’s one of my favorite layouts in the book so far. This picture might be a bit much,” she said, pointing at the one I’d been worried about. “But maybe I’ll let it slide.”

She moved on down to the next group of staffers. Wren was busy on her laptop, working on some copy for the page on the fall fund-raising walk.

“Hey, I forgot to send you something.” I attached the picture of her and Grayson from the dance to an email and hit send. I’d cropped Jesse out of her photo but kept the original intact. Every so often I pulled it up and studied it, imagining what he’d been witnessing when the photo was taken. I was dying to ask him about it, but the other night at the diner didn’t really seem like the proper place. I’d noticed he wasn’t wearing that infinity bracelet he used to wear . . . maybe that had something to do with it? My stomach still turned to jelly whenever I thought of our fingertips touching.

Wren gasped. “Mads, I love this picture. I didn’t even realize you took it! I’m making it the wallpaper on my phone.” Jazz peeked over at Wren’s laptop and smiled.

“Yes, too bad I didn’t have a camera the other night. You can see a lot through a camera . . . like things people don’t want to tell you.” Jazz glanced away when I said this, busying herself with more typing.

Wren and I had dished our versions of Saturday night via text all weekend and every day since, but Jazz had remained quiet throughout. And really, out of the three of us, she hands-down had to have the most different version of the night. The most she’d said was that she didn’t want to talk about it. We were close to wearing her down, though.

“It can’t be that bad,” Wren whispered, leaning in.

Jazz chewed her bottom lip and moved closer to us, sliding her laptop along to create a barrier, under the guise of doing work. She ducked behind it and spoke.

“Nothing happened, okay? That’s the embarrassing thing.”

“Why did Logan just leave?” Wren asked.

“And were you really cool with it? That’s what he told me outside,” I said.

She pressed her lips together, maybe trying to keep the story in still, but finally relaxed. “Yes, I was cool with it. Everything was fine when he first got there. We held hands, talked—well, as much as you can talk over the music. He wasn’t really into the band and then his friends wanted to leave. They were going to a party at a brownstone that these girls at the bar invited them to.”

“He said he asked you to go. Did he?” I wished I could go back to that moment I’d watched Logan leaving and stick out my foot to trip him.

“Yes, he said I could get a ride home with them, but I wanted to stay with you guys. When he left it was like a whole different night. I tried to make it up front, but the crowd was too much, and those girls from the bachelorette party kind of took me in.”

“You should have texted me, I would have found you,” Wren said.

“I don’t know, it was fun being someone different, like, maybe I could be Diara Jones for a night. Diara did blue shots and danced on the bar and completely forgot about Logan. You know, he’s cute, we talk, and I really like him as a running bud, but there’s no . . . magic.” When she said magic she brought her hands together and then slowly apart, wiggling her fingers a bit, in what I imagined was supposed to be represent sparkly, magical love glitter.

“You watched Sleepless in Seattle again, didn’t you?”

She laughed. “No. Haven’t been romcom-ing it lately. I’m sick of pining for some meet-cute that probably won’t happen but I don’t know, isn’t that how it should be, at least a little bit? That something you can’t quite put your finger on? I feel like we’re both just kind of forcing it, because he’s a boy and I’m a girl and that’s what we’re supposed to do. No one has written the script about good friends, have they?”

Wren and I both shrugged.

“Anyhow, after I did those blue shots, I started feeling dizzy, and ran into Tanner and he walked with me outside for some air. It was cold, so I took his hat. Do you know that’s his grandfather’s hat? He was the one who got him into the bass?”

Wren grinned. “Holy crap, you are totally crushing on Tanner.”

Jazz bit back a smile, her eyes darting between us. “No, not really.”

“Jazzabelle, you’re blushing.”

“He makes me laugh. It was like, one question about his hat and he kind of cracked open into this whole other person. I’m not saying it was magic or anything, but I wasn’t analyzing every move wondering if it meant something. It felt nice. C’mon, you both know what I’m talking about. I saw you and Jesse holding hands, Mads, not sure why I’m under a microscope here.”

“We weren’t holding hands,” I said. “Just . . . touching fingertips.”

“Whatever it was, you guys looked into it,” Wren said. “How cool would that be if we dated guys from the same band?”

“Decidedly not cool. What would happen if one of us broke up, then what? We couldn’t hang out?” Jazz said.

“Ha! So you are thinking about it,” I said.

“No . . . no, not really. I’m not saying I want to start anything with Tanner, but it was a bit of jolt, to see him in a different way.

“And now I’m meeting my platonic but foxy run buddy to try to shave five seconds off my five-K,” she said. “Wish me luck.”

She packed up her laptop and gave us small wave as she went out to her locker. I stared at Wren.

“Tanner and Jazzy? You think?”

“That would be . . . interesting, but I’m more curious about what Jesse wants to do on your birthday. Did you find out yet?”

“No, he said not to worry, he’s doing all the planning. What could that even be? Free chai for a year?”

Wren smiled.

“Do you know something?” I asked.

“Only that you really want to do more than touch fingertips with him.”

Since my mother was starting her RYT 200 intensive teacher training over the weekend, we skipped our Thursday yoga in order to celebrate my birthday early. I picked Arturo’s, our go-to special-occasion-casual-but-elegant place. We ordered our usual cheese-smothered garlic bread and fried calamari with pepperoncini, which we dug into.

“Omigod, this is so good, but I bet I’ll still be tasting this on Saturday. Hope I don’t reek for Jesse.”

“Are you sure that’s really the way you want to spend a good portion of your birthday—in a car?”

“Mom, for the tenth time, yes. I’m so ridiculously stoked for this.”

When Jesse told me he’d make it up to me for singling me out at Whiskey Business with “Happy Birthday,” I expected at most a movie, cake, a free chai at Mugshot. Instead he’d asked me if I wanted to go to Fallingwater, the house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Mind = blown.

The downside was that it was five hours away.

The upside was that we were spending the night at his aunt’s house.

The downside was the amount of phone calls it took to plan it all. My mother and his mother, my mother and his aunt, the three of them at one point talking so long I thought for sure we’d be in on a vacation share in LBI with them during the summer or spending national holidays together.

Of course, my mother had wanted to make sure that said aunt really existed and that Jesse and I wouldn’t be spending the night in a motel. Then there were my calls to Wren and Jazz. What to wear? Was this too much? Should I really consider doing something so big with someone I’d only just started hanging out with? It was all slightly embarrassing, but completely worth it. For the first time in a long time, I was so flippin’ excited for my birthday, but I wasn’t sure what it had to do with more—seeing Frank Lloyd Wright’s work up close and personal or spending all that time alone with Jesse. Both, I supposed.

After my pre-birthday dinner, we stopped by the bakery for a small vanilla buttercream cake and then went back to the house.

“So what first, presents or cake?” My mother set the cake down in the center of the dining room table.

“Presents? Today?”

“I guess we have an answer,” Paul said. He disappeared into the living room and came back with a large, flat package tied with a blue ribbon. My mother’s grin stretched across her face as Paul handed me the present. I had to shove away from the table to make room for it. My heart raced as I untied the ribbon and ripped away the tissue paper.

It was an art portfolio.

I ran my hand across the soft, smooth leather. My initials, MP, were stamped into the front. I’d been keeping my things in a binder with page protectors; this was probably more extravagant than I needed at the moment, but it was perfect.

“Your mother and I picked it out, but if you really don’t like it—”

“I love it,” I whispered, opening it up and imagining how I would fill it. Slipped into the second page were a few papers that were stapled together.

An application to Pratt’s summer program.

My throat tightened, the initial unease I felt when I spoke about being handed this sort of money danced in my gut. I’d talked myself into accepting NJDI as my only option, that it was what I wanted, what I needed, that earning it was a noble thing. I still believed that, but this? The love I felt at that moment overwhelmed me, filled me up so much that my eyes itched with backed-up tears. They believed in me. They really wanted this for me.

My mother cleared her throat. “Mads, we know how you feel about this, but we really think, if this was your first choice, you should reconsider.”

“Think of it as sixteen years’ worth of birthday presents; when you look at it that way, it’s really not that mu—”

“I’ll do it,” I said. “I’ll apply, I’ll go. I . . . Thank you.” I placed the portfolio to the side and sprung up to give Paul an awkward, seated hug. He laughed and patted my arm, then I went over to Mom.

“You won’t regret it, sweetie, really, you’ll see.” I threw my arms around her, pressed my cheek against hers. We rocked for a minute until she stepped back.

“And wait . . . there’s more.”

“Really?”

“More” turned out to be a set of colored sketching pencils and a pair of boots I’d admired at the mall. I even allowed them to sing “Happy Birthday” to me, softly and without any additions like “a pinch to grow an inch” . . . or a countdown to how many birthdays I was celebrating. It all felt right somehow. The three of us there. A family . . . maybe with the seams showing, but still . . . together.

“Make a wish, Mads.”

The candlelight made the shadows dance around the room.

The other part about birthdays I hated was the wishing. It’s like my mind would go on overload, ever since I was little—what did I want? What did I really, really want?

I could never think of anything specific and I was afraid of asking for the wrong thing—like a genie story gone bad, where if you hadn’t worded your wish correctly it would come out in some different way and burn you.

Wax dripped onto the perfect white buttercream frosting, while different wishes vied for approval.

A perfect weekend with Jesse.

An exciting summer going to Pratt.

Me, Wren, and Jazz becoming yearbook editors.

There was one wish—a whisper, really—that I wanted more than anything. It came on suddenly and surprised me in the sheer fact that it was corny as hell, a made-for-TV movie of a wish.

For that reason, I was sure it was doomed to fail.

But when I closed my eyes to make my wish, it’s all that came to mind.

I whispered those words in my thoughts as I blew out seventeen candles.

Let it always be like this night.