She stood alone—at last alone—wearing a new pair of jeans and one of those shirts that made one think of pirates or peasants, Bryan wasn’t sure which, frilly and billowy and embroidered along the sleeves. She was staring out over the backyard, down at the lights reflected in the swimming pool that hadn’t been covered yet, spotted with leaves that gathered in clumps by the edges. Rows of pale-pink rosebushes lined the fence. Out in the front yard Oz was probably still pretending to shoot bolts of lightning from his fingertips, but here in the back it was peaceful, picturesque, like something from the cover of a magazine.
The cute girl you’re smitten with stands up on the balcony, bathed in moonlight.
Bryan couldn’t remember his line. Something about softly breaking a window. He would need to improvise. He felt in his pocket for his last coin. His last continue. He cleared his throat and held it up where she could see it.
“Penny for your thoughts.”
Jess turned abruptly, eyes squinting, skeptical, as if she didn’t believe what she was seeing, as if maybe Bryan was just a figment of her imagination. “What are you doing here?”
She didn’t sound angry or defensive or even surprised. She sounded curious, as if she had an answer in mind and wanted to see if he could guess it. “You invited me,” he said.
“I thought you had baseball practice?”
“Canceled,” Bryan said. On account of it not really existing in the first place. “I might have made it up,” he confessed. “Because I’m kind of an idiot. And I was nervous. I don’t get invited to a lot of these.” He stretched his arms to indicate the house, the party, all of it.
“I see you got over it, though,” she prodded.
“I had to work my way up to it,” Bryan said. Believe me. He took a deep breath and stepped farther out onto the balcony and up to the railing, so that he was directly across from her, now only a few feet away. Missy Middleton’s backyard was a carefully sculpted paradise—stone benches and a vine-covered gazebo and several gardens in various stages of blossom and shed, nothing like his little patch of green at home with its one tire swing and overgrown ivy.
“It’s really pretty up here.” He avoided looking at her when he said it—in case she got the right idea.
“It’s perfect,” she replied. “If you like that sort of thing.” That same frustrating strand of black hair had come loose again, but she didn’t bother to tuck it away this time. She looked at him sideways along the ledge, leaning on her elbows, the moonlight catching half of her face. Suddenly she looked concerned. Beautiful but concerned. She was looking at the bruise on his forehead. “Is that from this afternoon?” Jess reached over and touched it gingerly with the tip of one finger, just barely, but Bryan still felt a kind of electric shock. “Does it hurt?” she asked.
Bryan tried not to wince. “Not really,” he lied. “I mean, yeah. Kind of. A lot. When you touch it.”
Jess jerked her hand back.
“No. I’m kidding. It’s all right,” he said. “I’m all right. It’s not that bad.”
“It was stupid,” she said. “I can’t believe you even did that.”
Did that. She meant got in a fight with Wattly, but the same could have been said for half a dozen things Bryan had done today, most of which he could barely believe himself. “I know,” he said. “I figured that’s why you asked me to walk you home this afternoon. You know—to get me out of it.” It hadn’t worked, of course, but that was hardly her fault.
“That’s not why I asked,” she said. “I just wanted you to walk me home.”
Bryan risked looking her in the eyes, the same color as half the leaves drifting lazily to the grass below. Jess, who remembered about the sandwich. Who talked about him sometimes. Who didn’t like things perfect—thank God. She’d wanted him to walk her home. Him.
From around the front of the house, Bryan thought he could hear shouting, but Jess didn’t seem to notice, or if she did, she didn’t care. She was looking back at Bryan, daring him, it seemed, to speak. There was no turning back now.
“I’m going to say something, and it’s probably going to sound stupid or lame, but just let me get it out and try not to laugh, okay?”
Jess nodded, not taking her eyes off of him. He thought about everything he’d been through today, everything he’d done. This, by far, was the hardest. He took a deep breath.
Jess Alcorn—I have battled witches and Tanks. I have stolen treasure and fought in wars and solved equations and nearly been run over, twice. I have faced spiders and mice and Bosses and Princes. I have been beaten, again and again, but I’ve continued and continued and continued. And now, finally, I’m here. Finally I think I can say what I’ve wanted to say for years.
Bryan set the penny on the ledge between them.
“This has probably been the absolute worst day of my life,” he said, breathless. “But right now . . . at this moment . . . it’s totally worth it.”
Jess shook her head, but she didn’t laugh.
“You’re kinda weird. You know that, right?” she asked.
Bryan nodded. It was hard to argue, but it wasn’t exactly the response he was hoping for.
Before he could say anything else, though, Jess smiled. “But you’re pretty sweet, too.” She looked up at the moon, then reached for the penny on the ledge, balancing it carefully on her thumbnail. “Make a wish,” she said.
“Me?”
“It’s your penny,” she said.
So Bryan shut his eyes; he made a wish, then he opened them just as Jess flicked the penny into the night. He watched it, his last coin, pirouette up over the ledge, heads over tails, glinting once, like a firefly, before disappearing into the electric-blue water of the pool below. Then Jess turned so that their noses were almost touching, and he could feel her breath on his cheek.
“So this is how it ends,” he said.
“Maybe not,” she said with a shrug.
Bryan Biggins closed his eyes.
He never saw the writing in the sky.
He didn’t need to.