I figure out some of the rules for the visions. They only appear the first time I see a couple kiss. I know because I accidentally caught another Shelley/Sheldon kiss and nothing happened. I also think the couple might need to be in love. I’ve seen two first-date kisses and didn’t have a vision for either one. The number of scenes in each vision varies by couple. I think I’m only seeing the most important moments in their love story. I don’t know what or who decides which moments are most important.
I spend a lot of time searching the internet. One of the great and also terrible things about the internet is you can always find a community of people interested in the same things you are. Great because some interests are pretty wonderful. Romance novel reading, for example. Terrible because some interests are awful. I’m not going to give any examples. No matter how long I search, I don’t find any support groups for people who are suddenly able to see other people’s romantic futures.
Another week passes, and the visions accumulate and wash over me. I’m not sure how to feel. Mostly I feel every emotion. Shock that this impossible thing is happening to me. Guilt at invading people’s privacy. Fascination at seeing their private lives. Sadness at seeing their relationships end.
And that’s the thing all the relationships have in common.
They all end.
The girl who saw the movie three times? She got bored with her boyfriend after a few weeks and started going to a different theater.
The boy who pretended not to understand football? His homophobic family moved him away to prevent him from being with the boy he loved.
What I’ve learned over the last three weeks is that all my old romance novels ended too quickly. Chapters were missing from the end. If they told the real story—the entire story—each couple would’ve eventually broken up, due to neglect or boredom or betrayal or distance or death.
Given enough time, all love stories turn into heartbreak stories.
Heartbreak = love + time.
CHAPTER 12
Lesson Learning
“I’M THINKING ABOUTgetting breast implants,” Cassidy says, apropos of nothing. “What do you guys think?”
It’s the first Sunday of spring break, and Cassidy, Martin, Sophie, and I are where we usually are on Sunday mornings: Surf City Waffle. The story is that when it came time to name this place, the owner’s six-year-old drew a picture of a giant waffle surfing on a sea of blueberry syrup. The facts that we’re not in Surf City (officially Huntington Beach or Santa Cruz, depending on who you ask) and are ten miles away from the beach and that waffles don’t surf matters not at all. The waffles are delicious.
“But why?” I ask her, even though I know she has no intention of getting implants. Cassidy is prone to sudden, fleeting obsessions. Like the time she was going to get an enormous Valkyrie tattooed across her back, or the time she wanted to become a professional trapeze artist.
She shrugs like it’s not a big deal. “I just think they could be bigger.” She tucks in her chin and peers down at her breasts. “Do you think everyone will be able to tell?”
“Don’t do it,” Sophie says. “They’re great the way they are.” I’m pretty sure she blushes as she says it.
“I’ll definitely be able to tell,” Martin says as if he’s a breast expert.
“Oh, please,” Cassidy says, laughing. “You wouldn’t know a real breast if it hit you in the face.”
He scowls, but not in a serious way. Unless he’s been keeping secrets from us all, Martin’s never seen or touched a pair of breasts in his eighteen years on the planet. “One day my ship will come in,” he says.
“Will your ship be shaped like breasts?” I ask.
“I don’t think breasts are seaworthy,” says Sophie.
“Well, they definitely float,” Cassidy says, doing a weird bobbing thing with her own breasts that only Cassidy woulddo.
Sophie laughs at Cassidy’s antics, covering her mouth with her hands the way she always does when she thinks she’s laughing too hard.
Cassidy waits for her to stop laughing and then immediately does the bobbing move again.
Sophie laughs even harder this time. Finally, she takes her hands from her face. “Stop making me laugh,” she says, breathless.
“Not my fault you think I’m so funny,” Cassidy says.
“But youareso funny,” Sophie says. The way she says it is almost shy.
I look back and forth between them. If I didn’t know better, I’d think they were flirting.
Martin, Sophie, Cassidy and I don’t have an epic origin story.From the outside looking in, I guess we seem kind of unlikely, if you judge friendships on race alone. Cassidy is white, with incredibly wealthy and neglectful producer parents. Sophie is mixed, Black French mom and Korean American dad, both scientists. Martin I’ve already described. His dad died when he was a baby.
