“Are you going to sit with us today, or are you headed to your standing invitation with the Chrysalis bourgeoisie?” Theodore asks, scooting his chair toward my desk. We have US history together with Mr. Gaines, who went from the high-energy Hamilton rapping on the first day to just putting on movies vaguely related to American history while he sits at his desk. So we don’t even have to be stealthy.
“Hey!” I whisper-yell.
Theodore’s lips curve into the most subtle of smiles to let me know he’s kidding. Sort of. “I just want to know if you’ll be gracing us with your presence. Not that I care or anything.”
“You say it like I never sit with you guys anymore!” That actually comes out as a real yell, earning a halfhearted stern look from Mr. Gaines. We both turn our attention back to the front, pretending to pay attention to the movie.
I’ve started sitting with Nico and his friends two days a week. Maybe three, tops. Enough to fall into their rhythm and get a feeling for these people who I used to just watch from across the lawn. Like, Rhys’s constant creation of “casual” videos for his Instagram stories and YouTube (I guess he’s semi-famous there), even though he does at least four takes. And Grayson’s speech, peppered with an embarrassing amount of slang (like, “Dead-ass, that dress is low-key dope, Tess!”), but somehow only to me.
And Nico. He drinks a green juice every day—the actually healthy kind that’s all vegetables. He doesn’t like to wear socks because they make his feet feel claustrophobic. Sometimes he likes to just be quiet, lying out in the afternoon sun like a lizard on a rock, his sleepy eyelids weighed down by his heavy lashes. And he’s also constantly making sure I don’t feel left out, always asking my opinion about things and making obscure Harry Potter references that only I will get. I find myself cataloging each piece of information like I’m studying a rare bird.
It’s thrilling to be accepted into their inner circle, to be someone Nico searches for across the lawn. But Lenore cemented her status as a friend I want to keep forever the first day I met her, and Theodore and Sam have become equally indispensable. I have no interest in ditching them for a new group or throwing the gift of their friendship in their faces.
“I’m sorry if I’ve been over there too much,” I say when Mr. Gaines is distracted again. “That’s not cool.”
“You’re not,” Theodore says quickly, letting out a snort that’s almost a laugh. “I’m just giving you a difficult time for my amusement. Maybe I’m just bitter because you’re sitting with my nemesis.”
“You know, I’m pretty sure Poppy is totally unaware that she’s your nemesis,” I say, and Theodore rolls his eyes. “And it’s not like I’m sitting with her. She hates me probably as much as you hate her.”
Even though I’d rather not, I’m getting to know Poppy too. How she brings a cup of nonfat Greek yogurt every day even though they all complain about the smell, and how, when it moves into October, she’s the type of girl who layers on faux fur jackets and socks under her Birkenstocks even though it’s still a million degrees. Also, her incredible skill at ignoring my presence—even when I’m just a few feet from her.
“Well, that’s just because you’re trying to steal her boyfriend,” Theodore says matter-of-factly.
My eyes bulge and my mouth drops open.
Before my brain starts to spiral, though, he gives my arm a quick squeeze—a first—and looks me in the eye, another rare occurrence. “Hey, no judgment. There’s no shame in going after what you want.”
I smirk at him. “Well, now that we’ve thoroughly discussed my love life, let’s dissect yours. You know, I talked to Lavon during—”
“Oh, shut up,” he says, waving me away and scooting his chair back to his desk. “Why don’t you go sit with my nemesis today? I’m sure you two will be very happy together.”
So, I have Theodore’s blessing, and Lenore is all about Plan Get Yo Man, as she’s taken to calling it. She practically pushes me along to Nico at lunch and whenever we run into him in the hallway.
But Sam never bridges the gap. I usually don’t even see him outside when I’m sitting on the lawn. When I asked him about it once, he says he’s busy working in the class kitchen with Giancarlo. They’ve apparently resolved their mise en place drama.
Which is why I’m surprised when he comes striding over one afternoon, a determined look on his face. He is wearing a Hawaiian shirt, unsurprisingly, but he has on some black jeans that actually fit. I noticed them this morning as soon as we got out of the car. They make his usual dorky ensemble look almost okay.
“Weiner!” Grayson whoops when he sees Sam approaching, and it’s almost imperceptible, but I notice Sam wince.
“Hey, Sam,” I say extra cheerfully, trying to make up for Grayson.
“Sorry, I don’t mean to bother you all—”
“You’re not bothering,” I cut him off, firm. “You want to sit down?”
“Join us, man!” Nico says, putting his arm out. I don’t look around to see everyone else’s faces, because if they do have a problem with it, I don’t want to know.
“That’s okay,” Sam says, waving his hands. “I just wanted to check with you, Tessa. Is it okay if we make a couple stops on our way home? It’s for homework.”
“Yeah, definitely.”
“‘On our way home,’ hmmm?” Poppy asks after Sam walks away. “You and Weiner would make a cute couple, Tessa. You should go for it with him. I think you two would be really happy.”
It’s more than Poppy has said to me probably ever, and that throws me off for a second. But then Nico jumps in before I can even craft a response.
“They’re just friends,” he says, and maybe I’m reading into it a bit, but he sounds a little testy. He looks at me for confirmation, and his gaze lingers on me for a half second longer than necessary.
When I’m driving with Sam later after school, I want so badly to download the tiny—but significant—interaction with Nico, to dissect exactly what that look meant. But I can’t call Caroline in front of Sam, and I don’t want to send Lenore a wall of text. Luckily, though, Sam’s stops provide an easy distraction.
“This is homework?” I ask when we pull up to the white and bubble-gum pink building on Atlantic, not too far from our houses. A spinning cupcake sign makes it clear what’s waiting for us inside.
He grins, showing his signature dimple. “It is in my conservatory. How do you feel about tasting some desserts?”
“I mean, I guess I can help you. If I have to.”
“You are a true saint.”
Inside there are milk-glass cake stands filled with not just cupcakes but cake pops, tarts, and French macarons too. Sam orders an assortment of each, and then we sit at a tiny table, splitting each treat in half. It occurs to me when I’m cutting into a chocolate cupcake piled high with thick, sweet frosting, that this probably looks like a date to anyone watching us.
“What do you think of that one?” he asks, watching me after I take a bite.
“Can I marry a cupcake?”
He laughs. “Yeah, I think the peanut butter cream cheese frosting and salted caramel balance out the richness of the chocolate ganache.”
He makes a few notes in his notebook, and I find myself watching him just like I did when he was baking at his house, a flutter in my chest. I don’t know why, because it’s just Sam—I guess maybe because it’s, like, a privilege to see someone so passionate about their art. It makes me miss what I used to have.
I guess I was staring a little too intently, because his head pops up, and he arches an eyebrow in question.
“I was just thinking how you have the best homework ever. Maybe I need to switch conservatories.”
“Yeah, and we’re not even done yet.”
Stop number two is an ice cream shop a few blocks over.
“Okay, I think we should order a flight here,” he says once we’re in line, rubbing his hands together as he studies the rainbow of flavors in the case. It’s kinda cute how his jaw tightens and he looks all serious, like he’s deciding on which color wire to cut on a ticking bomb instead of ice cream.
“Are there any nondairy flavors?”
“Oh, no,” he says, looking panicked. “Are you allergic?”
I try to figure out the ladylike way to explain to a guy that ice cream, specifically, gives me crazy farts. But then I realize that, duh, it’s just Sam, so I tell him exactly that. He falls over forward laughing, totally unaware of the white-haired woman in front of us who turns around to give us the death stare and shake her head.
When we reach the front, the freckled girl behind the case offers us little spoons with tastes of each flavor, Sam carefully considering each one like wine at a fancy restaurant.
“Oh, and you have to get this one,” the girl gushes, offering us each another spoon. “It’s our most popular flavor: Long Beach Crack.”
Sam takes it gladly, but I wrinkle my nose and wave it away.
“Oh, Tessa, c’mon! You gotta try this one. It’s freaking amazing.”
“It has these toffee pieces in it, um, made with Ritz crackers,” the girl explains. “It’s sooooo addictive, right? Hence the name. Get it?” She lets out a high-pitched laugh like a tinkling bell.
“No, thank you,” I say with a strained smile, and when Sam shoots me a questioning look, I nod toward the door.
When Sam finally decides on six flavors for our flight—three regular ice cream and three sorbet (our noses will be thankful)—we sit outside and he brings it up right away.
“You looked uncomfortable . . . about trying that ice cream? I know you didn’t want too much of the dairy flavors because, uh . . .” He makes a fart noise, which is so much worse than just saying it. But it makes us both giggle. “You tried the other ones, though, so I don’t know, was there something about that . . . ?”
“I just kinda hate when people—okay, white people—make light of stuff and say this or that is like crack. Does that make sense? Like, just because you can’t stop eating chocolate or whatever doesn’t mean you should compare your issues with an epidemic that destroyed people’s lives. It’s insensitive.”
His brow furrows as he nods his head and considers that. He always seems like he’s concentrating so hard on everything I say, actually—like every word I say is important. It’s nice.
“It’s probably kind of silly to be bothered by that, because they’re just words, but—”
“Not at all.” He stands up, a determined look on his face. “You know, we should say something to them.”
I grab his hand, pulling him down, my neck burning hot. “No! No, no. We definitely should not.”
Thankfully, he sits back down. And he also squeezes my hand once before letting it go. Probably a reflex. His cheeks turn pink.
After a somewhat awkward silence, he clears his throat. “So, uh, how is your plan working?” he asks. Now it’s my turn to blush.
“Should we talk about that?” I’m worried we’ll have a repeat of the blowup from before, even if we did eventually work things out.
“Yeah . . . probably not.” He sighs. “I’m just curious if you’re writing again.”
“No,” I admit. “But maybe soon . . . at least I hope so.” I think again about what he looked like, writing in his notebook at the last stop. “I miss it, you know? Growing up, I used to always carry a notebook around, so I could make full use of any downtime. And I would wake up in the middle of the night with words floating in my head and jump up and start writing. It was, like, my constant. I loved writing. Or love, I guess, present tense—at least I hope so. It made me really happy.” To my surprise, my eyes feel a little wet. I hope he doesn’t notice.
“Well, then it will come back. You don’t just lose something that you love like that,” he says softly. I don’t know how he can sound so sure about something that definitely isn’t.
“Just because I love something doesn’t mean I’m any good at it. Maybe it’s good I’m learning this now.”
He shakes his head. “But we’re not talking about you being good at it. We’re just talking about you doing it. Writing, I mean. They’re two different things.”
“Not at Chrysalis. I have to be good to stay at this school . . . and not just good, actually, great! There’s no point in even writing if my writing isn’t great.”
He looks like he’s going to say something, but my phone rings, interrupting him. My mom is frantic when I answer. “Where are you, Tessa? I have to leave in five minutes for Book Club, and remember your dad has a client dinner that’s going to go late tonight.”
Her book club. I totally forgot. In an effort to get out more, she joined a book club with other moms of teens with disabilities. I actually think it’s more of a drinking club, because she always comes home late in a Lyft in a pretty happy mood. I offered to hang out with Miles so she wouldn’t miss it tonight. And I could tell she felt a little guilty, asking that of me.
“Oh my god!” I feel terrible. “I’m so sorry, Mom. I’ll be there in a sec.”
I look up at Sam. I don’t know if it’s the sugar high or whatever, but I’m not ready for this afternoon—now evening—to end.
“Hey, do you want to hang out with me and Miles?”
When we get there, Mom and Miles are waiting in the living room. She grabs her bag, kisses Miles on top of the head, and starts giving me directions. “So Dad won’t be home until nine probably, and I’ll be back right after that. If you’re okay with this—are you sure you’re still okay with this?”
I nod my head. “Of course, Mom.”
She still looks unsure. Things have been good between us lately, and I can tell she’s been hesitant to ask too much, to tip the scale in the wrong direction. But I don’t want my parents to think I see helping with Miles as a burden—because I don’t. So I give her a hug and try to say in my most reassuring voice. “Mom, go. Have fun.”
“Okay.” I see her shoulders loosen a little as she takes a deep breath. “You don’t have to help him with a bath. Dad gave him one yesterday, and for dinner, I left cash on the kitchen counter. You guys can just order pizza—”
She stops, and her head jerks around to Sam, her eyes popping out all cartoonlike. But then Miles’s laugh rattles around the room, and it’s infectious like it always is. Pretty soon we’re all joining in.
“Can we just do half pepperoni this time, though, Miles? No offense, but I’m not really a fan,” Sam says. And that just sets Miles off even more, coughing out, “That was a good one, right?” in between hysterical giggles.
Sam and Miles end up getting along great, trading jokes over our dinner of pizza (half pepperoni, half mushrooms and olives). I think a big part of it is that Sam talks to Miles normal, not in the loud and slow way that most people do—like Miles is a baby or hard of hearing. I mean, he does have trouble hearing, but that’s what the hearing aids are for. He can hear just fine with those and doesn’t need people to shout each extended syllable. Sam gets that without me having to tell him.
Also, he doesn’t wait to follow my lead with Miles. Even Caroline does that sometimes, and she’s known Miles forever. Sam, though—he laughs at Miles’s jokes without looking at me for confirmation first, and if he doesn’t understand something Miles says, he asks him and not me. They’re little things, yeah, but they mean something.
And when Miles jumps on his computer after dinner to watch Dream Zone videos on YouTube, Sam doesn’t even bat an eye at Miles’s high-pitched, warbly voice singing along to “Baby I’ll Give You (All of Me).” Instead he pulls up a chair next to him and peers closely at the screen.
“Hey, I remember this group. Are they still around?”
“Dream Zone. They’re the best band ever. They don’t perform anymore, but they will always be around,” Miles says excitedly. “They’re going to reunite soon, right, Tessie?”
“That’s pretty unlikely, bud.”
“It could happen,” he says, eyes locked on this video he’s seen a million times. The reflection glows on his glasses.
“Yeah, never say never,” Sam agrees. “This group my mom liked way back in the nineties reunited and formed this . . . I don’t know—supergroup or something with another boy band? Anyway, they toured all these county fairs last summer. So it could definitely happen, Miles.”
“See?” Miles says, a bright smile taking up his whole face.
The video he’s watching ends and another one starts from his playlist: “Together Tonight.”
“Oh, this is Tessie’s favorite song!” Miles shouts, jumping up in his seat.
I roll my eyes. “No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is,” Miles insists. “Tessie, you looooove this song. She really does, Sam. She knows all the words and can even do the dance.”
It’s true. Caroline and I once spent an entire summer studying the music video and perfecting every jump, snap, and hip thrust.
Sam looks at me, smirking “Oh yeah?”
I consider lying. I mean, I probably would with anyone else. But something makes me decide against it. Maybe it’s knowing that Sam won’t judge me. And even if he does, well, who cares? I’m not trying to impress him or anything.
“Guilty as charged,” I admit with a shrug.
“Oh my god,” he laughs. “I need to see that.”
And that’s how I end up belting out “Together Tonight” and doing the corresponding dance moves with Miles, while Sam looks on, alternating between falling over in laughter and looking mildly impressed.
The words and the movements come back to me easily, like they’re permanently ingrained in my brain. And they probably are, with how often I used to listen to this song.
Oh, I’ve been dreaming of a night like this.
Girl, I can see forever i-i-in your kiss.
Let’s not fight, let’s turn out the light
And be together tonight.
Sometime after the second chorus, Sam jumps up and starts trying to do the dance with us—three snaps while you jump to the right, thrust, and then a spin and big step forward. He keeps tripping and he doesn’t know what to do with his long arms and he can’t stay on the beat no matter how hard he tries—and I know he’s trying hard because his face gets all scrunchy in concentration, and he’s biting his bottom lip. He looks so ridiculous, but he doesn’t care. And I know I look ridiculous too, but I don’t care. Which is weird because I always care. But there’re no flaming-red neck hives. I don’t worry if I’m being too loud or how he must see me. I don’t feel embarrassed at all. Even when I get a little too into the moves and accidentally bump my hip into his, and he reaches out to grab my waist, steadying me—I’m fine. Perfectly fine.
When the song ends, and we finally sit down, giggling and breathing heavy, Miles looks Sam up and down. “He looks like Thad. Sam really looks like Thad. Don’t you think, Tessie?”
With the tight pants and the new haircut, I guess I can kinda see what Miles means, but not really. Thad had blond hair and piercing green eyes, and he was, like, heartthrob status—the Dream Zone equivalent of Justin Timberlake. But while Sam has those same elements going on and is good-looking—objectively—he isn’t that.
“Yeah, he definitely does!” Miles insists, getting louder. “Is that why you like him, huh? Is that why you like Sam?”
Okay, maybe I’m just a little embarrassed now.
“As a friend, Miles. I like him as a friend.”
Sam looks at me—his eyes half-moons and his lips curved into a small smile—and it does something weird to my stomach. I look away.
I wake up with the faint flicker of . . . something gnawing at the edge of my brain. I haven’t had this feeling in a while, but I recognize it. It’s as familiar to me as breathing.
I see Tallulah and Thomas standing there; his hands are in her hair, her arms are wrapped around his strong shoulders, and her lips are open, poised to maybe give Thomas a response to his declarations outside the coffee shop.
But when I finally grab my laptop from under my bed (almost falling headfirst onto the floor in the process), Tallulah is still silent, her mouth gaping like Ariel in The Little Mermaid when her voice is stolen by Ursula. And then Thomas disappears entirely. And Tallulah starts to fade away too.
I stay up awhile, hoping the scene will float back into my brain, but eventually I fall back asleep with nothing.