My phone is off, and it’s deliberate. It’s morning already and Seeley isn’t here climbing in my window or running up my stairs. And even though I know what that means, I know, as long as I don’t turn on my phone, I can still pretend I don’t.
I can’t pretend forever, though.
I flick on my phone and stare at the background, a selfie of Seeley and me at junior prom. She’s sticking her tongue out and I’m kissing her cheek like we have a thousand times before. Except now it’s different and I would give anything to go back to that moment. But I can’t, and the worst thing is, that’s it. That’s all there is to see. No texts, no missed calls, no desperate voicemails, no reprieve at all waiting for me on the other side of the off button.
She doesn’t love me back. She doesn’t.
I hurl my phone across the room. It doesn’t break, but I wish it did. I grab a pen off my desk and pull the notebook out from my bag, not for any real reason other than to take up space in a room I want to disappear in.
I doodle a dot that turns into a sun, which turns into an explosion, which seems fitting somehow, par for the course. I’m still tiptoeing through the minefield in my head when my dad knocks on my door, popping it open without waiting for me to invite him in.
“Elouise?” he says, and I look up. I can tell by the way he instantly furrows his brows that I must look like hell.
I spin in my chair, slipping back and forth a little, waiting for him to say something. I wonder for half a second if he’s going to tell me that Seeley’s downstairs, my stupid hoping heart, but I can tell by the frown set on his lips that she isn’t.
“The boy is back.” Dad pushes my door open wider. “Something about frosting and banners, I don’t know. You’re going to have to handle this. He’s talking incredibly fast, and I haven’t had any coffee yet.”
“Same.” I yawn. “Did you put some on?”
“You’re not drinking coffee. You’re sixteen years old.” He looks scandalized, like I just asked if he could hook me up with some meth on his way out or something.
I laugh. “Seventeen next month!”
“Don’t remind me. But right now: Boy. Downstairs. Take care of it.”
Nick is standing in the foyer, rocking on his feet with his hands in his pockets.
“How much coffee have you had?” I hop off the bottom step. “And why is there none for me?”
“Coffee is for losers. Here.” He shoves an energy drink in my hand and darts into the kitchen, pausing when he sees the mess from the night before. “You didn’t clean up.” He turns around. He looks all happy and expectant, but it slips off his face when he takes a good look at me. “Oh.”
Nick grabs his phone, crinkling his eyebrows and firing off a text. “Sorry, I’ll help you clean up.”
“Why are you here again?”
“We have two hours before we have to be there, right?”
“And?”
“And that’s just enough time to make some flyers and a banner and stuff, update the GoFundMe, and post that shit everywhere. And come on, Elouise! Think, think, think!”
“Do we really need all that?”
“Do you want to raise a lot of money for Mr. P, or do you want to make five bucks and call it a day?”
“A lot of money.”
He whirls around the kitchen, grabbing pans and bowls off the counters and tossing them in the sink. “Okay, you can draw, right? I mean I’ve seen all the drawings on your shoes and stuff.”
“A little.” I shrug. “Seeley did my shoes. She’s the one that’s good at drawing.” And wow, just thinking about my shoes hurts.
“Shit. I was hoping you would say ‘A lot,’” Nick says, yanking me out of my head. “Okay. New plan. No, wait! Maybe old plan still.” He laughs and pounds the rest of his energy drink. “If you really suck, maybe they’ll think his granddaughter drew it.” He looks down at his phone again, as his lips curl up. I wonder if it’s Jessa; I wonder if they’ll find their way back to each other. I watch him punch in a response with his twitchy, over-caffeinated fingers. I don’t know if that makes me happy or sad.
“Okay.” I’m trying to snap out of it, trying to keep up with the words that pour out of his mouth even as he texts. “I’m definitely good at sucking at drawing. Seeley used to—” But I catch myself, because I can’t go there right now, not if I want to stay standing.
“All right.” He flips on the water, squirting in a ton of soap and staring at it until the bubbles are up to his elbows. “Let’s see what you can do, okay? Grab the markers and stuff out of my backpack, will ya? I left it by the door.” He jerks his hand out of the water. “I would get them myself, but I’m totally, undeniably soaked.”
I roll my eyes and hop off the stool next to the counter, walking back out into the foyer, where he left his bag. I crouch down next to it, messing with the zippers and the ten thousand compartments, trying to find the markers and other supplies he was babbling on about.
A noise from outside makes me pause: a scuffling sound, a tentative footstep, a hand on a knob it doesn’t twist. I look up, hopeful and desperate. Seeley’s there, standing awkwardly on the other side of the storm door, one arm wrapped around herself as she looks down at me.
“Seeley?” I blink hard, my voice soft like I’ll scare her away if I’m too loud, too fast, too me. Maybe I will, maybe I already have. I stand up slowly and go still, afraid to touch the handle in case she won’t come inside. I want to memorize every second of this, just in case. She raises her other hand slowly, biting on her nail as she looks at me, and I wonder if she’s thinking the same thing. I yank the door open, because if this is my last moment with her, I want to at least be breathing the same air.
“See—”
Her lips are pressed against mine before I can finish and I freeze, my whole body rigid and my eyes squeezed tight. She steps back, takes a deep breath, and then lets out a sigh. “Open your eyes, Lou.”
I blink hard against the sunlight. Did it get brighter out, or is it her? Nick bangs some pans around the kitchen, and I turn my head toward him, just for a second, but long enough for the smile to slip a bit on Seeley’s face. And now it’s my turn to take the lead, to bring a clumsy kiss back to her, because Seeley kissed me and that’s got to mean something, it’s got to, and I will spend the rest of my life doing whatever I can to bring her smile back, swear to god.
I press my forehead to hers, smiling so hard it hurts. “Hi.” My cheeks heat furiously because that was dumb, but I didn’t know what else to say.
“Hi,” she says back, and I wait to see if she’s going to say anything else, but she doesn’t.
“I guess you got my note?”
She nods, lacing her fingers into mine and leading me over to the chairs on the side of the porch. “Lou,” she says.
My heart pounds so hard I can feel it in my ears because it feels so good to hear her say my name again. It feels like my whole brain is burning down and she’s the only one that can stop it.
She sighs. “I’m not having this conversation with Nick and your dad watching us.”
Okay. So, if I made a list of all the possible things that could’ve come out of her mouth next, that . . . would probably still not have been on it. I dart my eyes up to the two people standing sheepishly in the window. They wave, the curtains trailing after them as they beat a hasty retreat. I groan and drop back into my seat, staring at the ceiling and trying to swallow the tears and the laughter that are bubbling up inside me.
Her chair creaks as she leans forward, scratching at my knee gently with her nails until I look up. My eyes are glassy and I feel like I’ve lived twenty lives in the span of the last thirty seconds. “You kissed me.”
Seeley laughs and wipes at her nose. “I did. And then you kissed me.”
There’s a clunk behind the door and the curtains shift again. I roll my eyes because seriously, guys, seriously? I stand up and pull Seeley to her feet, bolting into the house and up the stairs to my bedroom before anyone can stop us, careful to never let our fingers disconnect. Seeley wraps our hands tighter, laughing as she kicks the door shut and falls onto the bed on top of me. She sits up, and she’s practically kneeling in my lap, her legs pressed hard and warm against the outside of my thighs, her fingers wound around mine, holding them tight.
I stare up at her. “You liked the note?”
“I liked the note.” Her words come out sort of breathless, sort of quiet, and her eyes get all watery to match mine. “But I love you, Elouise May Parker, and I’m in love with you too. Both things.”
“But . . . ”
“But what?”
“How long—” But the knock on my door effectively shuts downs that line of questioning.
Nick peeks his head inside, and I fight the urge to throw my pillow at his face. Seriously, guy?
He glances down at our hands and grins. “Glad you got my text, Seeley.”
My eyes dart back between him and the girl on my bed. “You told her to come?”
“I may have texted her that I had a sad sack on my hands, and that she had better get her ass inside because I was sick of you guys both moping around when we have cupcakes to sell.”
Seeley rolls her eyes. “I was already in the driveway when I got it, which you know because I pulled in right behind you.”
“Wait, what?” I ask, but they just talk over me.
“I’d like to think I at least helped get you to the door faster.” He drops down into my desk chair with a satisfied smirk. “Listen, I’m sure you guys have hours of angsty conversations and kissing ahead of you, but if we don’t get this stuff done, our sale is going to be a total bust.”
“Five minutes.” Seeley gestures toward the door. “Give us five minutes, and we’ll be down.”
“Fine,” he grumbles, and pushes up off the chair. “But I’m setting the timer on my phone.”
“Fair enough.” Seeley follows him to the door and flicks the lock, crossing back over and pushing me back down. Her lips turn up against my cheek when she settles in beside me. Her arm winds over my stomach, and she finds my hand and laces our fingers together again.
I turn, leaning my head back to look at her even if it makes me go a little bit cross-eyed. “You love me?”
Seeley nods with a sleepy smile.
“You’re in love with me?” I clarify, because I don’t think this can be really happening, can it? But she smiles and nods again, leaning forward to kiss the tip of my nose.
“Both things?” I ask. Even though she said it once, I have to be certain before I can dare to believe it.
She nods again. “Both things.”
This time when she leans in, her lips meet mine, gentle at first, but then more urgent. It feels like lightning striking right in my chest as she rolls over on top of me. We barely stop for air before her lips are back on my skin, teasing and tasting, and when the tears come this time, they are happy, so happy.