“It wasn’t a whole thing.”
“I didn’t know we weremaking memories.”
He didn’t answer.
“Can we listen to the radio?” Shiloh asked.
Cary turned it back on. He switched it over to the seventies light rock station—it was the only station they both liked.
She bounced her forehead against the window. “Aren’t we always making memories?”
“No,” Cary said. “The brain makes note of novelty. Broken patterns. The more we do the same things, the more they blend together.”
Was that true?
How many nights had Shiloh sat in her driveway with Cary, listening to Lite 96? Too many nights to count. Or maybe too many to remember...
Was tonight just going to disappear into the rest of those nights? Sink into the fog of them?
Or would she remember tonight because it had been particularly awful?
She rolled her head back in Cary’s direction. He had gel or something in his hair. It looked dark brown, not dark blond. And he’d shaved—she could tell because he had pimples along his jaw, not because his face was noticeably smoother. The silk lily had gotten flattened against his chest. Probably when he was dancing with Becky.
The idea that this moment was going to slip away from Shiloh—that it was justflotsam,temporally speaking—made it unbearable. She wanted to start something on fire just to make this moment, this night, stick.
What was the point of being alive if you couldn’t hold on to the details?
“I’malways making memories,” she said.
Cary rolled his eyes. “Your brain functions differently than every other human being’s?”
“Yes.” Shiloh said it with certainty.
He huffed out a small breath and shook his head.
Shiloh tried to tuck her left leg under her right. Her heel snagged on her pantyhose. She unzipped her boot and let it fall to the floor, then finished tucking her leg and sat back, turning a little toward Cary.
He was looking at her lap. “You couldn’t walk in those boots.”
She didn’t argue.
“They looked good though,” he said.
Shiloh pulled her bare foot deeper under her thigh.
Cary lifted his head up, almost to her face. “You looked good. Inthat.” He turned back to the steering wheel, wincing. “You know, you looked... pretty.”
“Well, then maybe you’ll remember it,” she said. “Because of the novelty.”
He shook his head again.
“Nobody’s saying goodbye,” Shiloh repeated. More strenuously this time.
“That’s what prom is,” Cary shot back. “And honors night. Senior banquet, senior skip day. Graduation.”
He was looking at her again. She was glad.
“Most of our classmates aren’t even going anywhere,” she said. “They don’t have to say goodbye.”
