I wanted him to kiss me.
I wanted the snow to finally start falling, as the crisp night air and gray skies indicated would happen at any moment.
I wanted my other boot because my sneaker foot was get ing really, really cold.
“Edgar Thibaud,” I murmured, trying to sound sexy. I pressed myself up against his warm, rock-solid body. I parted my mouth to his approaching lips.
This was It.
Finally.
I was about to close my eyes for It when, from the corner of my eye, I noticed a teenage boy standing nearby, holding something I needed.
My other boot.
Edgar Thibaud turned to the boy. “Dash?” he asked, confused.
This boy—Dash, apparently—looked at me strangely.
“Is that our red notebook on the floor over there?” he asked me.
Could this be him?
“Your name is Dash?” I said. I burped. My mouth had one more nugget of wisdom to of er. “If we got married, I’d be, like, Mrs. Dash!” I cracked myself up laughing.
Then I’m pret y sure I passed out in Edgar Thibaud’s arms.
thirteen
–Dash–
December 27th
“How do you know Lily?” Thibaud asked me.
“I’m not really sure I do,” I said. “But, really, what was I expecting?”
Thibaud shook his head. “Whatever, dude. You want something from the bar? Aryn’s hot, she’s twenty-one, and she’s buying for everybody.”
“I think I’m a teetotaler tonight,” I said.
“I think the only kind of tea they have at this place is Long Island. You’re on your own, my friend.” So, presumably, was Lily. Thibaud placed her conked-out self on the nearest bench.
“Are you kissing me?” she murmured.
“Not so much,” he whispered back.
I stared up at the sky, trying to search out the genius who coined the term wasted, because she or he deserved mad props for nailing it so perfectly. What a wasted girl. What a wasted hope. What a wasted evening.
The proper response for a lout in this situation would be to walk away. But I, who had such anti-loutish aspirations, couldn’t muster up the bad taste to do that. So instead, I found myself taking of Lily’s sneaker and slipping her aunt’s second boot onto her foot.
“It’s back!” she mut ered.
“Come on,” I said lightly, trying to disguise the crushing weight of my disappointment. She was in no state to hear it.
“Okay,” she said. But then she didn’t move.
“I need to take you home,” I told her.
She started to flail. Eventually I realized she was shaking her head.
“Not home. I can’t go home. Grandpa will kill me.”
“Well, I have no desire to accessorize your murder,” I said. “I’ll take you to your aunt’s.”
“That’s a good good good idea.”
To give them credit, Lily’s friends at the bar were concerned about her and wanted to be sure we’d be okay. To give him discredit, Thibaud was too busy trying to get the birthday girl to try on her birthday suit to notice our departure.
“Drosophila,” I said, remembering the word.
“What?” Lily asked.
“Why do girls always fall for guys with the at ention span of drosophila?”
“What?”
“Fruit flies. Guys with the at ention span of fruit flies.”
“Because they’re hot?”
“This,” I told her, “is not the time for being truthful.”
Instead, it was the time for us to hail a cab. More than a few of them saw the way Lily was leaning—somewhat like a street sign after a car had crashed into it—and drove right on by. Finally, a decent man pulled over and picked us up. A country song was playing on his radio.
“East Twenty-second, by Gramercy Park,” I told him.
I thought Lily was going to fall asleep next to me. But what happened instead was invariably worse.
“I’m sorry,” she said. And it was like a faucet had been turned, and only one sentiment could come gushing out. “I’m so sorry. Oh my God, I can’t believe how sorry I am. I didn’t mean to drop it, Dash. And I didn’t mean—I mean, I’m just so sorry. I didn’t think you were going to be there. I was just there. And, God, I am so sorry. I am really, really sorry. If you want to get out of the cab right this minute, I will completely understand. I will definitely pay for all of it. All of it. I’m sorry. You believe me, right? I mean it. I am so, so, SO sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I told her. “Really, it’s okay.”
And, strangely, it was. The only things I blamed were my own foolish expectations.
“No, it’s not okay. Really, I’m sorry.” She leaned forward. “Driver, can you tell him that I’m sorry? I wasn’t supposed to be like this. I swear.”
“The girl’s sorry,” the driver told me, with no shortage of sympathy shot my way in the rearview mirror.
Lily sat back in the seat. “You see? I’m just so—”
I had to tune out then. I had to stare at the people on the street, the cars going by. I had to tell the cabbie when to turn, even though I was sure he knew perfectly well when to turn. I was still tuning out when we pulled over, when I paid for the cab (even though this got me more apologies), when I carefully maneuvered Lily out of the cab and up the stairs. It became a physics problem—how to prevent her from hit ing her head on the cab as she got out, how to get her up the stairs without dropping her sneaker, which I still held in my hand.