My curfew always comes too early when I’m with Holland. Especially tonight, considering I was forced to bring my Life Skills doll on our date, which means we spend the majority of the time wandering around a park with Lucy and trying to get the thing to stop wailing.
Poor Lucy is quite concerned by the whole situation and keeps licking the doll’s face in an attempt to comfort it.
“Well, that’s adorable,” I say when we’re back in the car—the doll finally quiet—and Lucy rests her head on top of the carrier, keeping watch.
Of course, now it’s time for Holland to take me home, and I sigh as he pulls up to the curb in front of my house.
“She’s quite a caretaker,” he says. He’s been much more patient than me about the whole thing, and grins over his shoulder at Lucy.
“Next week is Webster’s turn, so you won’t have to suffer through it again, promise.”
“Except...next weekend I’m going up north. My dad wants a guys’ weekend at the cabin. Ice fishing, that sort of thing.”
“Boooo.” I’m bummed to say the least. It sucks how little we get to see each other. “I’ve never understood the appeal of ice fishing. You just like...sit in the cold and stare at a hole in the ice, right?”
“There’s a little more to it than that,” Holland says with a grin. “But yeah, basically. It definitely wouldn’t be your thing. It’s sort of a tradition for me and my dad, though.”
“Right,” I say, suddenly remembering Webster once mentioned his cousin had a cabin on a lake. He was supposed to go up with his dad and uncle that first summer, and that was the trip his dad canceled last-minute. “Does Webster go with you sometimes?”
“He used to, when we were kids,” Holland says. “He and Uncle Matt used to make the trip up from Chicago every summer, and we’d hang out there for a week or so. But that kind of stopped after his parents’ divorce.”
“That’s too bad,” I say idly, trying not to think too hard about how sad Webster had been to miss out.
“Yeah. Though to be honest, it was always kind of a disaster. I loved spending that time with Webster, but Uncle Matt never seemed that into it. Not a close-quarters, rustic-living kind of guy.”
Not a nice guy on the whole, as far as I can tell. But I shrug and say, “Well, we can’t all be as well-rounded as you.”
I lean across the console to kiss him good-night before he can get in his rebuttal. After a moment, the kiss deepens. I wrap cold fingers around the base of his neck. Holland sucks in a surprised breath against my mouth, then pulls back.
“Hang on.” He hurries to put the car in Park and unbuckle his seat belt, which reminds me I still have mine on, too. When we’re both unrestrained, he strokes his thumb across my cheek. The gesture sends a shiver down my spine. He threads his fingers through my hair as our lips meet again. His tongue presses gently into my mouth, and he tastes like the mint he ate in the park, fresh and slightly sweet.
The radio is on, but too quiet to drown out our heavy breathing, and I don’t want to ask Holland to turn it up because I sort of hate this song. That’s one thing I’ve discovered—aside from Janelle Monáe, who Holland only listens to because I made him, we don’t like the same type of music. But that’s a minor thing, easy to overlook when he’s got my bottom lip between his teeth, when he shifts his kiss to a spot under my jaw that always gets my pulse up.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I’m vaguely aware that we’re on display here, the streetlamp above us like a spotlight. Anyone could see us. My parents. Neighbors taking their dog for a walk. Webster, if he were to look out the right window.
I dip my chin and catch Holland’s mouth with mine again. He truly is the best kisser. I want more of it, more of him—I want to drag him to the back seat, crawl onto his lap. Slide my hands under his shirt and feel the heat of his skin against mine. But he’s slowing down now, pausing for breath between our kisses. His forehead tips against mine.
“Your curfew...”
“Ten more minutes.” I kiss the corner of his mouth and feel him smile.
Holland pulls back far enough to look me in the eye. His expression is teasing. He enjoys being the one to hold back. “I don’t want your parents to hate me. Or for you to get in trouble. ’Cause...I kind of want to see more of you.”
My hands are tight around the fabric of his sweater. “Yeah?”
“Uh-huh.” He kisses my cheek once more, then retreats all the way to his side of the car. I release his sweater with a pout, which makes Holland laugh.
“I really am sorry about the whole screaming-baby thing,” I say as I gather my stuff. “Kind of put a damper on our date.”
“Nah. Imogen’s not so bad.”
“Stop with the name!” I swat his arm and give him a look. Ever since Holland found out how Webster co-opted my middle name, he’s gotten a kick out of teasing me.
“Point is,” he continues, “you know I don’t care what we’re doing, as long as we’re together.”
I shake my head in mock disappointment. “How do you even come up with these lines?”
He grins broadly. “It’s not a line!”
“Sure, Spiller.”
“I’m serious.” He reaches over and catches a piece of my hair between his fingers. His head tilts, and he looks at me like I’m perfect, like I should be hanging on a museum wall. “I might love you, Aubrey TBD Cash.”
It’s ice water in my veins. Suddenly my whole body’s on high alert. Mouth hanging open and whatever’s written on my face, it turns Holland’s smile self-conscious. He exhales a small laugh and wrinkles his nose like maybe he just realized it was only a couple weeks ago we were sitting in this very car, and I was fully freaking out over being called his girlfriend.
“Too soon?”
“Way too soon,” I tell him. But the smile is still playing at his lips, and I can’t help the way my lips curve to match.
He shrugs in a sorrynotsorry kind of way. “You should get inside.”
He’s giving me an out. Knows I can’t say it back yet and understands why. I take a deep breath, then lean across the console to give him one last kiss.
“I’ll call you,” he promises when I pull away.
“And text me pictures of Lucy.”
“So demanding.”
“Hey, you knew what you were getting into.” I grab the doll from the back seat and give Lucy one last scratch before shutting the door.
He waves as I walk around the car, and waits to go until he sees I’m safe inside. I head straight up to my room and leave the doll’s carrier on the floor as I collapse on my bed. I touch my lips and remember the way Holland’s felt against them.
We’ve been together long enough now it should be easy to prove why we’d never work together long term. The flaws in our relationship should be obvious. Only...they aren’t. I’m not saying Holland is perfect, or even that we’re perfect for each other. I’m still not sure such a thing exists—soul mates or whatever you want to call it.
I think back to when Holland and I first started dating, when Webster asked what I saw in him, why we were together. And I wish it was easier to pinpoint the answer. I wish it was possible to engineer a relationship like a recipe, that love made as much sense as science. But no—whatever biology may be behind physical attraction or attachment, relationships don’t have a set of guiding principles you can follow to ensure success. There are infinite ways to fall out of love.
But that doesn’t mean I didn’t like the way it felt, to hear Holland say he loves me. Or might.
I grab my laptop and open up the spreadsheet I started the day my NC State acceptance letter came. A pro/con list with a column for each school. I’ve done so much research on the facilities available at each university, the specializations. As far as my academic criteria go, they’re neck and neck. But now I add Holland’s name to the pro list under NC State.
For just a moment, I let myself picture it: the two of us meeting on the quad for coffee every morning. Walking to class together. Meeting up again for dinner in the cafeteria. Driving home together on school breaks.
My heart is beating faster, and I can’t tell if it’s from excitement or something else. I mean—what am I even doing? I’m considering changing my mind about what college I attend because of a boy. That’s not me.
I close the spreadsheet and pull up my Bayes’ list. And in spite of the fact I’m vaguely aware that I’m backsliding, I start writing down the names of every one of Reese’s ex-boyfriends, switching to all-caps for the ones she claimed to have loved, or who claimed to love her.
Proof, I think, that even when you learn from your mistakes and do your best to make contingency plans, when it comes to loving someone, nothing is in your control. Even if it was possible to predict which way you were going to fall out of love, and even if you could do something to prevent it, the universe would just find some other way to fuck things up.
Kevin, I type at the bottom of the list, fast as my fingers will let me. Dating four months. R once again believes she’s found the one. Will probably last a week once college starts.
My fingers still on the keyboard, I close my eyes. My chest is wound tight and I focus on taking deep breaths. Finally I close my laptop and sink onto my back, staring at the ceiling as I talk myself down. Listing all of Reese’s exes like that...it accomplishes nothing. I was trying to force a result, trying to twist Bayes’ theorem into something it’s not. I can’t let myself do that—look to the past as if all the answers are written there.
I take another deep breath and tell myself, you have time to figure this out. Tell myself, you’re still in control—it’s not like you love him back.
Only I’m not sure if that part’s true anymore.