And as the sky turned a light lavender on the edges, pale pink in the middle, and then a deep orange near the horizon, you, gratefully, felt your littleness in the universe.
I looked over at the KoBra crew and felt so grateful for the small part of the universe I had.
We watched the sun set, quiet with our own thoughts. My head tilted back and my eyes closed as a cool breeze drifted over us. Summer was ending, I guess. It felt good, and it felt sad. Iknew that things wouldn’t be the same with Patrick and Felix, and I was okay with that. I glanced at Hamlet and Rose, their gazes straight ahead, the last of the day’s light shining on them. It was startling how I felt about them now, how fiercely they mattered to me.
Yeah, I was okay with a lot of things.
When the sun dipped behind the hills, my dad jumped off the hood. “We should go before we actually get into trouble.” At the wordtrouble, Rose booked it after him.
I grabbed Hamlet’s hand before he could follow. “Wait a sec.” I watched Rose disappear into the truck, then looked up at Hamlet. It was dark, but my eyes adjusted and I could see his features perfectly. I had his face pretty well memorized now. Like the streets in my neighborhood, the pages of my favorite books. “We need to talk about what you said to me last week, before I left. Um, how you love me.” I was grateful for the darkness, hiding my blushing cheeks.
He took a deep breath. “You don’t have to—”
“I know. And I’m not ready to say it back.” Relief poured out of me, a weight that had been filling the parts between my bones finally lifting. “Is that okay?”
He blinked a couple of times, looking down at our feet. I held his hands firmly, and my palms were dry for once. After a while he looked at me and, while there was some sadness in his eyes, I believed him when he smiled and said, “Yeah, that’s okay.”
I squeezed his hand. “But you have to know… I’ve never said that to anyone before. Except my parents.”
“Really? What aboutallthose ex-boyfriends?”
I lifted my hand up to the base of his neck and wound my fingers into his thick hair. “I never loved them. In fact, I never liked any of them as much as I like you. I think that’s why I freaked out. Not because you said you loved me. Just understanding the extent of my actual feelings for you. It’s really new.”
His eyes softened. His whole face, the edges of his body—they softened. Everything. “You like me more than them?”
I leaned my forehead against his. “Yeah. So much more.”
Catching my belt loops with his fingers, he drew me closer to him and said, “All right. I guess I’ll have to be patient. We’ll live on Clara Time. Not Hamlet Time.”
And then he lifted my chin, gently, touching his lips to mine. The kiss was sweet and full of promise. Like him. When he let go, I felt a lurch in my chest that told me Clara Time was going to catch up to Hamlet Time real fast. And when he climbed down from the roof, I took one last glance at the view—lights sparkling in the inky-blue night.
In this huge city, there were three people in this truck who mattered a lot to me. I’d protect that little part of the universe for as long as possible.
