I bump my arm into hers. “See, you get me.”
She smiles, and it feels like my chance to turn this panic-fest into something else. Something that doesn’t set us back to what we’ve always been. Because I’m sure Sidney’s already decided that this is all going to end in ruin. She’s already convinced herself that the only way to avoid hurting each other is to avoid liking each other. I wonder if this is how Taylor and David and Evan all met their fates. Sidney, alone in the dark, with too much time to think. Too much time to panic. “Just give me three dates.”
She looks straight ahead as she says, “March seventh, June twelfth… and October twenty-third.”
“Smart ass.” I poke her playfully in the side and she jumps.
“Guilty,” she says, but she doesn’t sound it. She sounds proud of herself. And like she’s starting to loosen up again. She sounds like drive-in movie Sidney. Like chocolate-chip pancake Sidney, covered in flour that first morning and dripping with newfound optimism.
“Three dates,” I continue, and I wish we were still on that couch where I was touching her, and not standing here, inches apart. “And then you decide.”
“And you?” she whispers, her face still turned toward the yard. “When doyoudecide?”
I’m about to answer when she suddenly turns to me. “Four dates,” she says. “Two for you and two for me.” She smiles and turns away from me again, but her voice sounds lighter. “I’m not sitting around waiting for you and your dates,” she says, and I laugh.
“That seems… fair,” I say, not at all upset that she seems as interested in this proposition as I am. Thatshewants to go out withme.
“Okay, so four dates before we decide this is a complete train wreck.” The tone of her voice—the defeat it’s already laced with—confirms how she sees this all ending.
“Or four dates before we decide it isn’t.”
“So this is date number one?” I can’t tell if her voice is hopeful or disappointed.
“We live together.” I drape my arm over her shoulders and turn her around, to where our car is waiting two driveways down. “We can’t call it a date every time we end up in the same place. Unless you want to use this as one of yours?”
“No way.” She looks up at me with mischief in her eyes. “My dates will be awesome.”
I look behind us, the white grass still visible in the moonlight. “I expect nothing less.”
DAY 27
Sidney
Today felt a lot like the last few weeks, but it also felt entirely different. And not in any kind of obvious, over-the-top way. It was more like a change of context. Like I saw everything Asher did in a different light. He made me pancakes this morning. Technically, he made all of us pancakes, but I knew they were really for me. And not just because mine were the only ones with chocolate chips. It was like everything he said was directed at me, as if we were having a private conversation, even while surrounded by our parents.
“Did everyone have fun last night?” Asher says as we’re all sitting around the table, cutting into our pancakes. I’m not sure why he’s been beggingmefor pancakes, when his are just as good. Our parents tell us about the wine tasting room they went to after dinner, about the dessert wine that put them all in bed early.
I wonder if anyone noticed that Asher and I barely had anything separating us this morning. That his knee was touching mine under the table. I’m not sure if it was the first time, but it certainlyfeltlike it.
When I ask Asher if we should tell our parents about us, he says no, and I agree. No sense in getting their hopes up when we’reonly four dates away from ruin. But when Asher asks me to go with him to Trevor’s house, I say yes.Maybea little too quickly.
Asher
I met Trevor a few summers ago, at a party at his mom’s house. His sister was throwing it, and I found Trevor in their dining room, setting up this elaborate game, even as a party began to rise up around him.
Trev’s house is tall and white, and sits on one of the country roads outside of the main downtown area. When we pull into the driveway, Sidney seems nervous, her hands twisting in her lap, then pulling at strands of her hair. They’ve been moving in a constant loop—lap, hair, twist, pull, lap—since we got in the car.
“Are you nervous to be going to this, or nervous to be going withme?”
“Yes,” she says, and we both laugh. She pushes her door open and steps out before I have to threaten to drag her, which seemed like a possibility. As we step up to the front door, we’re standing side by side. Sidney stops short at the door and looks at me. “This is the same house.”
I nod.
She looks down at my shirt and laughs. “Are you sentimental or something?”
I shrug. “It’s possible.”
She turns away, but her cheeks are burning red as I turn the doorknob and push her in with a hand on her lower back. My shirt is right, swimmersabsolutelydo it better.
