“Ha ha.” She sits next to me.
I lean my elbows on the step behind me, and as if we'd planned it, Paige and I let out a big sigh at the same time.
She laughs, and I can’t help but notice the circle of light framing her hair like a golden halo. Somewhere nearby, a frog croaks and crickets chirp, and the summer air feels just right, and there is nowhere on earth I would rather be than on this porch with Paige.
Paige and I look at one another for a moment, neither of us trying to fill the silence between us. There’s nothing awkward about it, just a feeling of home stretching inside me before it nestles into my core. And when Paige gives me her soft smile, I wonder if it’s the same for her. Does she feel complete with me like I do with her?
“How’s work going with your California team?” I ask. After Paige told me about the Z3 opportunity during our rafting trip, she started freelancing for them the following week. And since her internship with Wonderman & Fleck technically would have ended tomorrow, Paige talked to her current boss about Z3. She graciously extended Paige’s internship to the end of next month so that Paige would have time to hear back from Z3 and could make a decision one way or the other. But I know what Paige will choose—nothing puts a light into Paige’s eyes faster than talking about Z3.
“They aren’t my team yet.” She eyes me. “But things are going well. I really like them. And they really liked my ideas for our pitch.”
“What’s your pitch?”
“It’s for a hearing-aid company. The tagline will be Bringing Back Life’s Soundtrack.”
“I love that.” I smile, but my chest feels like it’s splitting in two. She’s going to get this job. I know it. I’m trying to be supportive while trying not to think of what life would be like if Paige were to move. I want to kick and scream like a child whose favoritestuffed animal has been taken away, but that wouldn’t be fair to Paige. She deserves the best. And if Z3 is it, so be it.
“Dove made me think of it when she talked about hearing her grandchildren and the stream in her backyard again after getting her hearing aids.”
“You’ve got to tell her that the next time we see her. She’ll love it.”
“Oh!” Paige jolts upright as if just remembering something and scurries to the door. “Wait there—I’ll be right back.”
When Paige returns, her glasses are on, her hair is in a bun, and she’s wearing her favorite sage-green overalls, the kind so stretchy that they could fit three humans inside. This is Paige in her purest form, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
She shuffles down the steps, holding something behind her back. “Guess what I found?” she sings as she reveals a ratty old composition book—but not just any ratty old composition book.This isournotebook, the one Paige and I passed back and forth to one another all through our junior and senior years.
My mouth drops open. “No way!”
She puts it into my hands, and a wave of nostalgia crashes over me.
“I can’t believe you still have this,” I say. “When did you find it?”
“I was going through my old high school stuff. Ian mentioned this card he gave me once.” She shakes her head. “Anyway. I was trying to find it and came across this. I haven’t opened it yet. I wanted to read through it with you.” Paige’s eyes glisten like she can’t wait another second.
So I open it.
For the next thirty minutes, we flip through the book, reliving our high school experiences with every turn of the page. The book nearly bursts with taped-in Polaroid pictures, ticket stubs from movies and concerts, doodles, song lyrics, notes back andforth, and, to my surprise, so much shameless flirtation. I have to stop myself from peering at Paige every time we read an excerpt that feels like it came from the pages of aTwilightbook.
Was I always this obvious? Am I this obvious now?
We stop scanning pages on one that says, “That is NOT my song.” The words jump out mainly because they are the only words spanning the two-page spread, but also because each letter is emphasized by angry strokes of Paige’s pen.
I chuckle. “You were extremely subtle.”
She flips the page back to the previous one and reads the text, then backhands my arm. “You said my song was the blue song!” she says, referring to Eiffel 65’s “Blue (Da Ba Dee).”
“What’s wrong with that? That song’s a classic with great storytelling.”
“It’s about a blue man in a blue world. Did I miss anything?”
“Sheesh, Devons. Broaden your horizons.” Straightening, I prepare to defend this song to the death. “I believe the song’s an exposé about how you can have all the glamorous things in the world but still feel––”
“Blue?” Paige narrows her eyes at me.
I throw her a smile. “There you go. You got it.”
“You’re right. That sounds just like me.” She snaps the book shut and rolls her eyes.
