“Would you honestly trust me with an important ring?”
Madeline thinks for a minute. “An important one, sure. You can usually keep track of things when they matter.”
“I can’t tell you how many keys I’ve lost.”
“Well, first, I wouldn’t hand you anything else at the same time,” she says, and I squirm a little because yes, she’s found my weakness. “You might lose your own wedding ring, but you wouldn’t lose your mom’s.”
“I like to think I wouldn’t lose my own, either.”
“Whose side are you on?” she asks, laughing. “Ten seconds ago you were ready to lose a whole jewelry store.”
“Either way, there are no flower adults or ring bearers, so I don’t even know why we’re having this conversation.”
“Because you started it.”
I’m grinning helplessly in the car, in this parking lot, in the dark. “I gotta go, or I’ll be late to class,” I tell her.
“Break a leg,” she says, then laughs. “Whatever I’m supposed to say. Learn a lot? I don’t know.”
“Thanks. You, too,” I say, and right as I end the call, I could swear I hear her blow a kiss.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
MADELINE
“I haven’t seenthe first five,” Amy is saying. “I won’t have any idea what’s going on.”
“You don’t need to know what’s going on—it’s aMission: Impossiblemovie,” Scott, Ben’s roommate, argues. “Just go with the flow and enjoy it.”
“How can I enjoy a movie if I don’t know what’s going on? Knowing the plot is the point of a movie,” she protests. “And to know the plot of this movie, I’m fairly sure I need to seeMissions: Impossibleone through four or five or whatever.”
“I do like calling themMissions: Impossible,” Ben says.
“So, okay, Tom Cruise does a lot of cool stunts, and also everyone has rubber masks that make them look exactly like someone else, and they’re always removed at a very dramatic moment,” Scott explains.
“You can’t possibly think that’s an explanation.”
“What about the Barbie movie?” I interject, because I’m pretty sure Scott is just trying to annoy Amy at this point, and I’m tired of it.
“We saw that already,” says Ben. “I would watchThe Batman.”
“No,” Amy and I say in perfect chorus. I hold up my hand, and she high-fives it from her spot next to me.
It’s Saturday night, and I’m over at Ben’s place for movie night, which also involves pizza, Twizzlers, popcorn, and baby carrots with hummus. The carrots and hummus are clearly an afterthought.
“There are too many movies about Batman,” Amy says, which I secretly agree with.
“Blasphemy.”
“Just the truth.”
Turns out my nerves over Ben’s new girlfriend were completely unfounded because she’s awesome and I love her. We almost went and got pedicures together last weekend, until we finally both admitted we don’t like it when people touch our feet, so we went to brunch instead.
After a few more rounds of bickering, we all manage to settle onFury Road, which Ben hasn’t seen because he lives under a rock.
“Blood donation is major plot point,” Amy says, patting his thigh soothingly. “It’s really unsanitary, you’ll hate it.”
“Wow, thanks,” he says, and then the movie starts.
