He really doesn’t know. How could he? I’ve never told him.
So as we walk over to the grocery store, I introduce him to all of my friends. He knows Rebecca, and vaguely remembers Steve and Stephanie, but I tell him more about them, and about Preston and Ben and even Will, too. It’s weird, because I know I can’t ask him the same questions back. But he seems okay with that.
Once we get to the grocery store, A says we’re going to go down all the aisles. “You never know what you might miss,” he tells me.
“And what are we shopping for?” I ask.
“Dinner,” he says. “Definitely dinner. And as we do, keep telling me stories.”
He asks me about pets, and I tell him more about Swizzle, this evil bunny rabbit we had who would escape his cage and sleep on our faces. It was terrifying. I ask him if he had a favorite pet, and he tells me that one day he had a pet ferret that seemed to understand it had a guest in the house, so it made his life as difficult as possible—but also gave him something to do because no one else was home during the day. When we get to the produce aisle, he tells me a story about this time at camp where he got hit in the eye by a flying greased watermelon. I tell him I can’t remember being injured by any fruit, although there was a good few years when I made my mom cut up apples before I’d eat them, because someone at school had told me about psychos who put razor blades inside.
We get to the cereal aisle, which isn’t really going to help us for dinner. But A stops there anyway and asks me for my life story told in cereals.
“Okay,” I say, getting what he means. I begin by holding up a cylinder of Quaker oatmeal. “It all starts with this. My mother barely eats breakfast, but my dad always has oatmeal. So I decided I liked oatmeal, too. Especially with bananas. It wasn’t until I was seven or eight that I realized how gross it was.” I pick up a box of Frosted Flakes. “This is where the battle began. Rebecca’s mom let her have Frosted Flakes, and like everyone else, I’d seen the commercials for them a zillion times. I begged my mother to let me eat them. She said no. So I did what any law-abiding girl would do—I stole a box from Rebecca’s house and kept it in my room. The only problem was, I was afraid my mom would catch me putting the bowls in the dishwasher. So I kept them in my room. And they began to stink. She threw a holy fit, but my dad was there and he said he didn’t see the harm in Frosted Flakes if that’s what I wanted. The punch line being, of course, that once I had them, they disappointed me. They got so soggy so fast. So my mom and I reached a compromise.” I walk him over to the Frosted Cheerios. “Now, I’m not sure why Frosted Cheerios are any better than Frosted Flakes, but my mom seemed to think so. Which brings us to our grand finale.” I make a production of choosing from the ninety kinds of granola before landing on my favorite cinnamon-raisin kind. “In truth, this probably has just as much sugar in it as anything frosted, but I have at least the illusion of health. And the raisins are satisfying. And it doesn’t get soggy right away.”
“I used to love how the Frosted Flakes turned the milk blue,” A says.
“Yeah! When did that stop being cool and start being gross?”
“Probably the same time that I realized there was not, in fact, any fruit in Froot Loops.”
“Or any honey in Honeycomb.”
“Or any chocolate in Count Chocula.”
“At least the Frosted Flakes had flakes in them.”
“And frostedness.”
“Yes. And frostedness.”
Talking like this, I am forgetting that this isn’t A. I am forgetting that we’re not on a regular date.
“Moving on…,” I say, taking us to the next aisle, and the one after.
We pick up a ridiculous amount of food. As we’re nearing the checkout, I realize there’s no way I am going to be getting home when my parents are expecting me.
“I should call my mom and tell her I’m eating at Rebecca’s,” I tell A.
“Tell her you’re staying over,” he says.
My phone is in my hand, but I don’t know what to do with it. “Really?”
“Really.”
Staying over. I think about the cabin. About what happened. I mean, what didn’t happen. And how that felt.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” I say.
“Trust me. I know what I’m doing.”
I want to trust him. But he also doesn’t know what it was like. And he might have the wrong idea of what a night might lead to.
“You know how I feel,” I say.
“I do. But still, I want you to trust me. I’m not going to hurt you. I will never hurt you.”
Okay. I look into his eyes and I feel like he knows. There’s a plan—there’s definitely a plan. But it’s not going to be a repeat of the cabin. He knows what he’s doing, and I do trust that.
I call my mother and tell her I’m at Rebecca’s and will be staying there. She’s annoyed, but I can deal with that.
The harder part is calling Rebecca.
“I need you to cover for me,” I say. “If my mom calls for any reason, tell her I’m over.”
“Where are you?” she asks. “Are you okay?”
“I am. I promise I’ll tell you about it later—I can’t right now. But I’m okay. I might not even be out the whole night. I just want to make sure I’m covered.”
“Are you sure?”