THEN
I quick-walk out the automatically opening doors of Moonville Market, face tilted up to catch the cool evening breeze.
This is my favorite time of day. The sky is a wavy purple smear on ocean blue, flares of ruby between the trees, the gas station and tire service shop across the street. The higher up it all goes, the darker it gets, stars twinkling. My ballet flats are pinching my toes after standing in one spot for so long, the cherry on top of an already bad shift. I hate it when kids I know from school go through my checkout. They’re visibly awkward and won’t look at me, as if I’ll judge them for buying Kid Cuisine TV dinners.
I dance to the steep slope at the edge of the parking lot where it spreads onto Vallis Boulevard, high beams lighting me up. I clutch my purse against my side as I turn, tucking a long brown strand behind my ear. Down a ways, the revolving milkshake above Pit Stop Soda Shop smiles tantalizingly. If I turn right, I can be in a stool licking ice cream off a cone in ten minutes. Maybe Corey will finally notice me.
I press my lips together, considering it. Then my phone rings.
I don’t recognize the number, but I answer anyway. “Yes?”
“Hey.”
He sounds different over the phone, voice deeper. This isn’t Alex King in world history, it’s Alex King, Normal Human Outside of School. He might even be in his bedroom.
I smile in spite of myself, other hand gravitating to my hip. I shake my head at nothing. “You again. I knew it.”
“And yet you answered.”
“You’re really pushing it today.” I once borrowed a pencil from him and he wouldn’t let me give it back, even though the pencil was personalized with his name. This newfound confidence is exquisite.
“I’m across the street.”
I spin, even though that’s facing the wrong direction. Spin again. I hear him laughing, both loud through the phone and faint in my physical surroundings, farther away—and ah, yes, there he is. Blue-and-gold hoodie, our school colors. As he moves closer, sharpening into focus, I read the letters across the front: NATIONAL HONOR SOCIETY.
He checks both ways before crossing the road, and my brain snaps a picture of what this looks like: Some boy I’ve hardly ever spoken to before today walking across a Moonville street at five minutes after eight, wind ruffling his springy hair, hands in his hoodie pockets. The powerlines above him seem to shine for a moment, lit up neon with a wild charge, sky a magical blend of every color that drops with the night.
I feel as if I’m visiting someone else’s life when he strolls over like we’re good friends, like we do this every day. “Did you leave candy on my desk today?” I ask him.
He nods. “Milky Ways are your favorite, right?”
Actually, no. That was a lie I told my friend Brian in algebra so that he’d give me half of his candy bar. We’re given an absurdly short lunch period—by the time I’m through the line with my tray and sitting, I’ve got six minutes to choke it all down.
Instead of correcting, I circle him slowly. He watches me, brows lowered the way they were earlier when he was writing Ottoman Empire notes. Nerves flicker in his eyes. My, my, those are some gorgeous eyes: blue, green, and yellow. He should cut his hair so people can appreciate them better. “How’d you know that?”
“Heard you say it.”
He’s in algebra with me? My mind blows with the wind.
I continue to watch him, biting a hair band between my teeth while I slick my hair back into a ponytail. “You’re quite a conundrum.”
That flicker shifts, nerves into amusement. The corner of his mouth tips up. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Well.” He twists his upper body, blush from an old streetlamp touching the edges of his profile. Evening cuts his figure into fascinating angles, and I stand up straighter. “I think we should go to the homecoming dance together.” I didn’t know this kid was in math with me? That’ll be the last time I don’t notice what Alex King is doing.
A car horn honks. We both jump out of the way, startled. “I’ll walk you home,” he offers, leading the way. He can’t possibly know where I live.
Actually, he might. I forgot he came over once, to work on a group project.
I’m still delirious from his proposition. “Me and you?”
“Anybody else intending to walk you home?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
He grins, and oh, boy am I noticing that, too. He’s got nice teeth. A shallow but long dimple curving along the right side of his mouth. I’ll have to see if there’s another dimple on the left, but so far it appears he smiles more to one side.
“What color’s your dress?” he inquires. “I need to know what color tie and corsage to get.”
I marvel at him. “We don’t even talk.”
“We’re talking right now, Romina. I love your name, I’ve gotta tell you. Probably say it in my sleep, too: Romina! Romina! Love it so much, have to say it twice.”
I don’t know how to react to this except with laughter.
He gives me a cheeky grin.
“Wow, I . . .” I don’t get flustered around boys. Around boys is usually where I feel most in command, a shameless flirt. “I don’t get it. Where’s this coming from?”
Alex lifts a hand into his hair, raking it through his curls. Then he extends his arm, pointing. “Know the tracks down there?”
“I’ve graffitied my initials on them.” I shouldn’t sound so proud of this.
He laughs at me, a loud bark that makes me think he doesn’t let it loose enough. That he’s not usually like this, either, but he tried something different and is liking the way it’s working out for him. It isn’t the reaction I expected from Mr. Honors Boy, but I find myself grinning back. I keep trying to shock him and the reverse happens instead.
I am delighted.
“This morning I was walking along those tracks to school, had my headphones on, almost got hit by a train.”
My smile dies.
I’m picking up that nervous energy from him again, and he walks faster, has to double back for me because my feet hurt, so I’m progressing slowly. He glances down at my shoes like he can actually guess that. “Right? Crazy. Could’ve gotten my insides splattered all over the Moonville tunnel and I’d never even gotten up the nerve to ask you out yet. I would become a ghost with unfinished business; you’d feel cold spots following you all the time, but you’d never know what it was about. Wouldn’t know anything about me, wouldn’t miss me. I’d have been a memorial service that got you out of school for half a day, and that’s all.”
I stare at him. Air sticks to my lungs, unable to circulate.
His forehead creases, serious now. “I just wanted you to know who I am. I made it off the tracks with seconds to spare, and my first thought was, Fuck! She wouldn’t have even cared!”
“I’d care,” I force out.
“Listen, I didn’t mean to freak you out. I’m not dead. Say no if you wanna say no, that’s cool, no pressure.” I hang back, so he returns, but can’t stand still. His shoe taps the concrete sidewalk, fingers drumming against his thighs, reaching to muss his hair, base of his thumb skimming up the bridge of his nose. I can’t stop staring at all the ways he’s in motion even when he remains rooted to one spot.
“You’ll have fun with me, I promise,” he goes on earnestly. “I know you’re more outgoing than I am, but I’ll catch up. I’ll be the most attentive date you’ve ever had. I’ll carry your purse, your shoes, I’ll dance the slow songs, the fast songs, I’ll sit down with you when you want.”
The dance is two weeks away. I have a dress but no date: I’ve had my sights set on Corey, but despite my lending him a stick of gum in third period every day all year, he’s still going with LeAnne. Andrew and Javier are my reserves. Alex from world history (and apparently algebra) did not even register. Until now.
I swallow. “My dress is pink.”
His face transforms. And now he’s the one who can’t bring himself to speak, lips pressed tightly together as his mouth twists, fighting back a smile that I’m scared might change my life if he lets it free.
We’ve reached my porch. He halts. Butterflies twirl in my stomach.
“Night,” I say, voice cracking.
“Is it all right if I text you?”
I nod. After a few seconds, I’m not sure what else to do—I think he was counting on hearing a rejection, and hadn’t prepared for what would happen if the outcome went how he wanted—so I hop up the long, low, wooden steps to my porch. Our front window pours yellow light onto the narrow boards, making my slanting shadow wobble. I hear loud, furious voices inside. This house is where most of my stress lives. It blazes high and sweltering as I approach, ready to feast on me for hours.
He looks at the door, then at me. I don’t want him to have heard, but I think he did.
“You can text me, too,” he says, softer. “And call. Anytime.”
I give him a small, embarrassed wave. “All right.”
Before he gets too far down the sidewalk, he jogs backward, skidding to a stop in front of the house again. “Seriously, please call. I would fucking love it if you called.” The lopsided grin is back. “Oh! Also! What shade of pink? If I show up in a hot pink tie and you’re in, like, coral, I’m gonna look stupid.”
I smile into my hand. “Dusty rose. I’ll send you a picture.”
“Great!” He gives a thumbs-up. Begins to run again.
“You should watch your step.”
“I love that you want me to watch my step, Romina Romina.”
“Hey, Alex!”
He stops dead, arms melodramatically flailing as if he almost dive-bombed. “Hey, what?”
I wrap an arm around the porch column, leaning. Where has this boy been? Good lord! “I’m glad you didn’t get hit by a train today.”
His laugh is a sharp arrow slung upward into the night sky. It gets stuck up there, morphing into a glittering star. “Hey, Romina!”
His laughter is contagious, overtaking me. “Hey, what?”
Even from half a block away, I can still see that grin shining in the darkness. “Me, too!”
NOW
“Look up,” I say. “You’re on a date with me.”
He searches in the wrong direction, then turns, spotting me. I run to the road—a car streaks by, and in a blink, there stands Alex right on the other side, arms spread. I jump into them, grinning as he spins. “Hi.”
My “Hi” echoes from the phone in his palm. He’s got me listed as Sweetheart in his contacts.
Something inside of me that snapped in half long ago burns bright as it heals itself, stronger than ever before, like a bone after a break. I wonder if he notices. If he can see all of my emotions pouring out of me, painting the air.
He loads my groceries into his truck. “You headed home?”
I stare at him as he waits patiently for an answer, like he has all the time in the world to stand here and listen to whatever I’m about to say. I notice that his shirt features a flower wearing a cowboy hat, which says WHAT IN CARNATION, and it makes me weak in the knees.
“What if you took me home with you instead?”
Then, because it’s an important distinction to make: “Inside your house, I mean. I just grabbed dinner for us, if you want to eat together.”
He does a double take, fishing through one of my bags for the Mountain Dew he knows is for him. “Yes.” His voice deepens so instantly that I’d laugh if I weren’t nervous. But good nervous. Spectacularly good. “Yes,” he repeats. “I’d love that.”
In light of a smile like that, anything is easy. I would do anything to see that smile.
I gulp a deep breath. “I’m all-in. I want you to know that I’m all-in, that I’m obsessed with you, that I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything. You still wanna take that next step with me?”
He hugs me tight, the pressure of his arms supplying the words he can’t sweep together just yet. Then he kind of forgets what he’s doing, moving toward his truck, then me, then revolving again. He jerks a thumb toward the gas station. “You got dinner, I’ll get dessert. You still love Milky Ways?”
The weight of a hundred tangled feelings, sparkling, effervescent, are working their way around that fracture, tightening, golden threads that glow in my chest. “They’re my favorite.”
He nods, then turns to sprint inside. “Be right back.”
I watch him go, blinking the dreamy clouds from my vision. The ripped vinyl seats are warm, engine puttering a comforting tune. Caramel has been an acquired taste for me, but the memories are always delicious.
