“You already did that.” His voice is hard but it doesn’t feel mean. Maybe because it’s so quiet it’s practically a whisper.
“I know.” I rest my hands on the box in my lap and look out at the water. “I hate failing. And with you, it always seemed saferto just not try. What if you didn’t like me the way I liked you? What if I screwed everything up? What if you realized after ten days that you didn’t want me?” I look up at the sky and then to him. “I think we were always doomed.”
He shakes his head angrily and I charge forward, my voice in a panic. “Because I was never all in.” My voice is frantic, like I’m racing something. I think I am. “I give a hundred and ten percent to everything I do, and with you, I just gave up.” Asher turns his face toward me, and it’s hard to keep going but I do. “You, Asher Marin, are scarier than swinging on a giant wrecking ball of doom, or cracking my head open on the bottom of a pool. And I was so scared of losing you, that I lost you anyway.” His eyes are locked with mine, and I can’t remember what I was saying. I look back toward the lake to try to clear my head.
“What’s in the box?”
I had forgotten the box was on my lap, clasped between my hands now. The lid slides off with a breathy sucking sound, and I place it on the dock between us. “You showed me how much you liked me.” I turn to look at him, just for a second. “And now I’m going to show you.”
I take a piece of plastic out of the box and hold it up between two fingers. It glows bright in the darkness. “From my ceiling that first summer.”
“Your crab.”
I nod, and Asher holds his hand out. He smooths a thumb over the glowing surface.
“Yourmeet me at midnightnote.” I pull the bright white paper out of the box and wave it in the air. “And this ismycontraband picture of us.” I pull it out of the box and hand it to Asher. “Your mom sent it to me.”
“Hm.” Asher lets out a pleased grunt. It’s the same photo he had tacked to his wall.
“Mine was in my locker,” I say, my voice a little embarrassed.
I pull out the weathered paperback of Asher’s favorite book from a few summers ago. “I’ve read this four times.”
Asher takes it from my hand. “Did you love it?”
“I hated it. But you loved it—you were obsessed with it—and I wanted to know why.” I pluck the book out of Asher’s hands and put it back in the box.
I pull a concert stub from the box. “I went to a Greta Van Fleet concert last fall.” Asher’s hands are clenching either side of the dock, so I don’t hand it to him, I just let it flutter back into the box. “I told myself I was going because you played that stupid song so many times that it ruined my brain, but I think maybe I hoped you’d be there. That I could see you out in the world, being normal. Not like you are with me—the way you are with your friends.”
There are other things in the box but I can’t bring myself to pull anything else out. Asher is quiet and motionless beside me, his face still hard. And I think the only thing I’ve accomplished with mybox of Asheris to make myself look a tiny bit psychotic.
“What is all this?” Asher’s voice is cautious when it finally breaks through the cold silence.
“This”—How do I even explain this to him?—“this is proof. Proof to myself, that I had hope at one point. Hope that the second summer, or third, or fourth, I’d finally work up the courage to do something.” That lump is back in my throat. “I was braver when I was fourteen, I guess.”
Asher looks at me, and his face is unreadable. “You scare me, too.”
“I’m still scared. But I’ve seen the worst-case scenario now, and… I’m ready to give a hundred and ten percent. I’m ready for morning swims, and twice-a-day training, and whatever lists and spreadsheets and goal planners it takes to make this work.”
“Spreadsheets, huh?” There’s amusement in Asher’s voice. I really do suck at the romantic stuff.
“Metaphorical spreadsheets,” I clarify. “I told you, you’re the romantic marshmallow one.” I raise my eyebrows at him and muster up a nervous smile.
His hands are still resting on top of his knees, and I put one of mine on top of his. “I like who I am with you. I like who we aretogether.And I’m not scared anymore, because there’s nothing worse than this.”
Asher
“How long have you been planning this?” When I smile at her, I can see the anxiety drain out of her face. “The rocks, and scamming my mom into getting me here… this is the ultimate anti-prank. How many checklists did this take you?”
She scowls at me, but it’s the good kind. The kind that tells me she still thinks I’m funny. “One.”
We sit in silence, and it’s freezing, but I’m afraid to move. If this is all some sort of weird cafeteria-food-induced dream, then I’m not ready for it to be over.
“Hey, Sidney?”
“Yeah?”
“I reallyreallydon’t hate you.”
