Asher
When we get back from the fish town, Sidney isn’t in the house, or on the deck or the dock. The only reason I find her is because I call her and hear her obnoxious ringtone. It’s faint, and only rings once, but it’s enough to let me know that she’s here somewhere.
I walk to the front of the house again and catch a bit of movement in the water, to the far side, out by the little cluster of trees that jut out.
“Are you ignoring me now?” I mean it as a joke, but she doesn’t say anything, just squats down and picks up a rock, tossing it into a red sand bucket a few feet away. “Are you mad at me?” I sound amused when I say it, because there’s not anything she can actually be mad at me for. She just keeps looking down at her toes, plucking rocks out of the water, like if she ignores me I’ll go away. “You can’t be, I haven’t even been here all day to do anything.”
Sidney looks up from her toes and meets my eyes. “Did your dad tell you tofix thingswith me?” She throws up air quotes and she has the angriest fingers I’ve ever seen.
Crap.“It wasn’t like that.”
“Wasn’t like what?” She stands up and slams her hands onto her hips. “Like you were suddenly nice to me? Suddenly interested in me?”
Crap crap crap.I know exactly how this looks, and I don’t even know how to explain this in a way that won’t scare Sidney one way or the other. But also, she’s blowing this completely out of proportion. “No, it wasn’t like that.”
“I get why you didn’t want to tell our parents now. I doubt your mom would have been on board with you making out with me just to keep the peace this summer.”
“I’m not some sort of gigolo over here. My dad told me tostop the pranks. He didn’t tell me to leave my bedroom door open to do it.” She’s trying to turn this into something sinister, just because she wants to be mad at me and find a way to tell herself this whole thing should be over.
“Well, consider it mission accomplished. I guarantee there will be no more pranks. No dates required.”
She’s shutting down, shutting me out. It’s like I can see the ghost of Old Sidney floating overhead, preparing to reinhabit her body with every word that comes out of her mouth. She decided I was guilty before we even talked. And our next date was going to be a surprise, but I don’t have the luxury of springing it on her anymore, not when she’s looking at me like she wouldn’t get in my car if I paid her.
“I get that you’re looking for something horrible about me, but—” She opens her mouth but I cut her off. “Just do one thing for me.Withme. And then you can pretend like I don’t exist for the rest of the summer, if that’s what you want. You can go back to terrorizing me. Set all my clothes on fire on the front lawn.”
“I wouldn’t do that.” Her voice is barely a whisper, and it wasn’t a smart move to say it, to remind her of what a one-eighty our relationship has taken since the start of summer.
“I know, Sid, I’m just…” I don’t blame her for being mad, I just want to fix it. Ineedto fix it. “We said four dates. Come with me to Todd’s graduation party this weekend.” She opens her mouth to argue, and I keep going. “Come to my house. See where I live the other ten months out of the year. Meet my best friend. After that, if you still think that this all happened out of nowhere—that my dad somehow talked me into all of this—you can run away screaming.” I shove my hands down into my pockets. “I won’t stop you.”
“I’m not sure how seeing where you live is going to prove anything.”
“It will. Just trust me.” But even as I say it, I know that’s the problem. She doesn’t. Will she ever?
“Maybe I’ll see where you live and decide that you’re even nerdier than I thought. Maybe your best friend isn’t as awesome as you think, and the food will be horrible at the party, and this will all backfire on you…” She looks down at her bare feet in the water and I do, too.
“I’ll take my chances.”
“Fine.” Sidney looks out at the water and then back to me. “But it’s your last date.”
Last.Not second, not next.Last.I imagine Sidney will somehow cramhersecond date in before the party, so she can be done with me and cut me loose like every other guy.
“Fine,” I say.
“I’ll just tell my parents I want to go home that weekend, and you’re going to drop me off on your way.”
She didn’t say it like it’s optional, but I try anyway. “Or we could just tell them you’re going with me. Your parents won’t care that we’re going somewhere together for the weekend.” I’m testing a theory.
Sid bites her lip, and it’s all the answer I need. “You’re making it sound like we’re taking a romantic weekend trip, and not going to sit in a tent to sneak sips of keg beer out of plastic cups when we’re not talking to your friend’s sixty-year-old aunts who want to know our life stories.”
I can’t help shaking my head at the vivid scenario she’s conjured up already. “I thought you were madIdidn’t want to tell them.”
“I’m mad about yourmotivationfor not telling them. We’re not lying, we’re just not offering up information on our personal lives. This is not need-to-know information. Our lives aren’t in danger. And we have nothing to announce. You’re taking me on a last-ditch date to a graduation party…” Her voice has lost some of its bite; she’s back to sounding like the sarcastic girl who insulted my clothing choices every morning while racing me for a stupid chair.
“That’s a lot of explanation for not doing anything wrong.”
“We agreed on four dates.” She says it firmly, her voice edged with that sharpness again. Before tonight it had been weeks since I’d heard it, and I’m hoping not to hear it anytime in the near future.
“Fine.” It’s not how I feel at all. I feel like maybe this is all a colossal waste of time. Like I’m playing a game that I can never possibly win, because the winner—or maybe more accurately, the loser—was picked before the race even started. But if I’m going to convince Sidney that I’m really in this, then this is my best chance. Maybe my last chance. “On the plus side, you can snoop in my room and get your lurky-lurker on.”
