“This was really fun. Well, not just trying to buy a cow. I mean the whole night. Thanks for… everything,” I tell him honestly.
“Thanks for coming with me,” he says, looking down at me, the back of his hand brushing against mine as I suddenly remember that this is adate, not just two friends hanging out,even though that’s what it has felt like all night long. And dates come with certain expectations that even with as much fun as we had… I’m not at all ready for. But the way he’s looking at me tells me thatheis.
I reach down deep to try to pull out that feeling that I always thought was supposed to come when you want to kiss someone. That feeling from the movies where time slows down and lights seem to dim and maybe your chest feels a little floaty.
But even with the bright lights flashing all around us and the warm summer air, it just isn’t quite there yet. I’m sure I just need a little more time. I mean, not everyone kisses on the first date, right? I feel like I’m just finally starting to get to know him.
“Uhh, I should probably find Savannah, I think they’re about to start closing down for the night,” I tell him, even though I know the fair stays open until midnight opening night.
“Oh, sure. Okay. Yeah, I should be getting home too, probably.”
I give him a quick hug, patting him twice on the back before I disappear into the crowd. My heart is beating a mile a minute as I weave my way through an opening and lean up against the cool concrete behind the bathrooms, filled with disappointment.
I thought it would be easier than this. I thought it would be instant just like my newfound love of coffee with hazelnut creamer. Ihada crush on him before, so I should have a crush on him now. I’m still the same person.
But where are those feelings?
And why aren’t they coming back?
July 7
Stevie,
I realized something tonight at the fair. I can’t sit here and wait anymore. I can’t do nothing or keep lying, waiting for you to call me on it. I can’t keep watching other people lie to you.
I need to find a way to tell you the truth.
About us. About you.
I should have from the start. But I didn’t. So now… I need to figure out how to do it without making you hate me.
Please don’t hate me.
Nora
CHAPTER 18
MY FIRST SUNDAY BACK ATSt. Joe’s this morning felt more like some sort of funeral service than it did Mass. In the hundred-yard walk from our pew to my mom’s car, about thirty people stopped to touch my shoulder and tell me how sorry they were for what happened. Like I’d died or something.
Samantha McDonald from the year below me asked if I was okay and then immediately tried to touch my scar.
My kindergarten teacher asked suspiciously if I really drove my car into the reservoir.
Mr. Yardley told me about his cousin who went into a coma and never woke up.
Old Monsignor Becker, who I can’t even believe has made it two more years, told me it’s all part of His plan.
Not a single one of them said something that might actually make me feel even slightly better. They wanted to make themselves feel better, or even worse, get the gossip on Wyatt’s latest news.
I’ve been going to Mass my whole life, so I’m used to sitting through the fifty minutes of monotony and the gossip that spreads after, but today… I just wanted to get the hell out of there.
“Stevie.” My mom presses her hand down on my knee until my heel settles onto the cracked pavement underneath our picnic table at the farmers’ market.
“Sorry,” I say. I didn’t even realize I was bouncing it up and down.
“You haven’t touched your food,” she says, her eyes flicking down to my hot dog smothered in yellow mustard and mayo. It turns my stomach. I don’t even know if I like hot dogs anymore, but the longer I look at it, the sicker I feel. So I push it away from me to the other side of the wooden table. “I’m not hungry,” I tell her as a big German shepherd strolls by on a leash, sticking his nose out for a hopeful sniff.
“Stevie.” She swings one leg to the outside of the bench to face me. “What’s going on in your head right now? You haven’t said a thing since we got here.”
