[dedicated to ally for the most adorable banners that she made me]

|CHAPTER SIX|

“So, tell me Jovial. Was yesterday a dream, or did you truly accept my proposal to take you out on a date?”

Hearing Bash’s voice sent a wrench flying into the machinery of my brain. It got stuck somewhere between yesterday and this morning, causing a gate to jam and a flood of memories to unlock and drown my mind in an endless waterfall of yesterday’s events. All I could feel were his fingers sliding down my arms and tangling with mine as he brought them soaring into the air while we swayed to a new rendition of an old love song. I felt the burn of the bright yellow sun on my face and heard his scratchy singing voice in my ear.

No, it couldn’t have been a dream.

“I can’t believe we actually did that,” I marveled.

This morning when I woke, I laid still for several moments staring up at the ceiling in complete awe. Nothing felt real. How could it have been me that did all of that? I almost felt foolish, even turned to bury my face in the nearest pillow at the tingling in my gut. Then, I realized something. I didn’t feel the slightest bit sorry for what I’d done. It was a strange sense of relief, but also frantic worry at the thought of the consequences. I was too far out of my norm to even begin to predict what would happen next—and really, I needed a plan or else everything would fall apart.

Bash abandoned the book cart and seated himself across from me. Again, he had managed to appear without a sound.

 I blushed when his eyes met mine and then glanced down at the book in my lap as I smoothed the page.

“So, listen,” he began, “if you were genuine about that date, I think you should know that I’m not a traditional dater.”

A sigh of relief left my lips. I wasn’t a traditional dater either—in fact, I’d never been on a date before. The thought of a lousy dinner or awkward cinema encounter made me nauseated. Those are things I spent most of my life avoiding. Besides, I had news of my own that would make those kinds of dates unnecessary.

“I don’t think we should waste our time on tradition anyway,” I told him. “I can only do this for the remainder of the summer. It’ll be too hard after that. I’ll be different.”

He pressed his knuckles under his chin and studied the stress lines that formed between my eyebrows. “You’ll be different?”

I sighed. “I have a friend that likes to describe me as an algorithm machine—and she’s right. I take the easiest route. Distractions, setting aside time, everything that goes with dating...I’ll just disappear. I have laser focus, and I’m lazy on the social front. I’m sorry.”

He turned to stare out the window and pensively rub his hands together at the news. I thought I’d receive more of a reaction. If I would have said this to Quinn or anybody else, they would have immediately burst into hysterics about how selfish and unfair I was being. I was so used to everyone backing out that receiving such a calm response only made my heart beat faster in anticipation.

“That is so much kinder than just dropping off the face of the earth,” he muttered with a small smile. “If other girls had given me a deadline, I would have done so many things differently.”

I snapped the book in my lap shut, gaining his attention. His eyes flicked in my direction, waiting for my response.

“I don’t understand you,” I told him squarely.

He leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms up over his head before scooping his blonde hair into a rubber band. I watched him with a waiting expression, but he just smiled.

“Jovial,” he said. “Remember. I want to feel everything. It’s part of the human experience. So, don’t worry about me.”

Sometimes I felt like he was made especially for me. Like soul mates really existed, or that we were meant to meet. You know, fate, destiny, or some other cliché.

I had never loved before, and nobody was ever willing to give me a taste all the while knowing it could never end the way we wanted it to. Somehow I think he knew I was waiting for someone like him to stumble in and go through with this, to reveal a different part of me I didn’t know existed. It was charmed, really, and he never explained why it was me he wanted to break his heart.

 He said he wanted to feel everything, and I desperately wished I could comprehend just what he meant, because while he wanted to feel everything, I hoped to feel nothing at all.

 I would soon find out what an irrepressible force I’d reckoned with. It would swallow me whole and leave me to battle the fears that followed me there.

“Are you absolutely positive you want to try this with me?” I asked. I’d never been so concerned about someone before. Feelings were easily dismissed, but not with him.

“Indubitably.”

Then, he stood and left. But, before he got too far, he rolled the book cart back toward me and dropped a book in my lap. But it wasn’t a normal book, it had spiral binding and a bookmark stuck halfway through it. When I opened the cover, his slanted, angular handwriting made rows across the page in word after word after word. In the center of the page was a dull blue sticky note.

Highlight your favorites –Bash

●════════●♥●════════●

My legs dangled off the edge of my dad’s apartment landing, stuck between the wide rungs with my arms threaded through too, holding up Bash’s book of pretentious words. It was cooler out here than in Henry’s apartment since he started using fans and open windows over the AC. Still, the baby hairs that poked out of my ponytail stuck to the back of my neck and my whole body shone with sweat.

obsolete

clairvoyant

idiosyncratic

A highlighter was stuck between my teeth, ready to mark my favorites as Bash suggested I should. It’s funny, the strange things you do for the people you admire. If anyone else had told me to go through a three subject notebook like this, I would have tossed it aside and paid it less than half a mind.

This drive I had to make Bash happy baffled me, but I didn’t have time to analyze it. I just did what I felt I should, because when I did a warm sensation, that wasn’t quite adrenaline, weighed me down into a state of bliss.

I guess, what I’m getting at is—falling in love is a little like daydreaming. It’s a hazy stroll into Neverland, a dizzying rush of unexplainable feelings. It’s a silly smile permanently etched into your face and hot chocolate running down your throat in the blistering cold. I felt as though I was walking on a cloud, only half-aware of what I was doing, eyes heavy, mind constantly going back to Bash.

A small sigh left my lips before I bit down, stomach fluttering when I stumbled upon mesmeric.

That was definitely my favorite.

I leaned my forehead against one of the rungs and glanced into the parking lot. I bolted back up when I realized what prompted me to look was movement. A person, Quinn, was weaving past cars toward the building.

I unhooked my legs from their spaces between the rungs and stood to lean over the banister.

“Quinn?” Her name felt forced but sounded surprised. I was still embarrassed about our last gathering and gulped nervously when she ducked backward to glance at me, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand.

“Oh, good. Jovie, you’re here,” she responded. “Don’t move. I’m coming up.”

I set Bash’s notebook aside and smoothed my hair as she jogged up the stairs to Henry’s floor. My arms crossed, hands absently brushing my upper arm as I waited. I didn’t know what to say to her. We rarely quarreled, and I didn’t have any intention to see her this soon.

When she appeared at the landing she was flush and scooped her blonde hair into a ponytail before making her way over.

“I stopped at your mom’s and she sent me here instead,” she explained when we were at arm’s length. I nodded and her face pinched. “I don’t like—whatever this is—“she motioned with her hands. “I’m sorry I said what I did. It’s not what I meant.”

“You meant it,” I said, then turned my eyes down and licked my lips. “You were right, though. It’s complicated.”

She sighed and bounced on the balls of her feet. “You know it doesn’t have to be,” she told me quickly. That’s the thing about Quinn. She couldn't keep things to herself. She had to say things now. “You never want to talk about yourself—like, really talk about yourself. I know I do that a lot—talk about myself. You know it’s okay with us. To talk.”

I smiled a little sheepishly because I was going to say something that would be hard for her to hear. If we were going to open up like this right now, talk seriously, then I needed to get this out. We were different. She kept her doors open and I barricaded mine closed.

 “Sometimes you let things slip to other people, Quinn,” I told her carefully. “I know you don’t mean to, but you do. Everyone knows me as the mayor’s daughter. They have their assumptions--but, that’s all they get. I want to keep the rest just for me. It’s personal.”

She crossed her arms to and nodded, then she turned her face away to stare out at the parking lot. “I know a lot more than I let on, Jovie.”

That made my heart beat hard in my chest. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“Whoever it is, that you’ve been running off to see,” she begins. “I think they’re really good for you. You always come back with a smile on your face.” A soft smile graced hers fondly and she turned back to me. “I’ve never seen my best friend smile like that.”

My heart continued to beat loudly in my ears and a blush slowly crawled up my neck toward my cheeks. I rocked for a moment and then let out a breath.

“I just really want him to myself,” I told her, and her eyes twinkled at the word ‘him’, but she inhaled a little as to keep the excitement from bursting out of her. “Maybe one day I’ll tell you about him.”

Quinn only got dimples when she was excited, and they poked deep into her cheeks now. Relief filled me from top to toe. Somehow, I got a really good feeling from this. Resolution and closure, I realized, were some of life’s greatest feelings. I wondered why we hadn't done this sooner.

Quinn bounced over, closing the space between us with an off-kilter hug.

“You are my very best friend no matter what,” she muttered into my ear. “Come over soon, I need help making a celebratory summer playlist and you’re surprisingly awesome at that.”

She pulled away with a satisfied grin and waved as she jogged back down the stairs and dashed across the parking lot. My eyes followed her until she rounded the block and got lost somewhere in the orange sunset and the shadows it made off the buildings.

I knelt down at gathered Bash’s notebook and my highlighter and decided to head in. Henry sat at the breakfast bar, face following a rotating fan as it swept from one side to the other. Oddly shaped paperweights held down his work documents.

“Welcome back, Jo-Jo,” he greeted me distractedly. I fanned myself with my hand.  Despite the fans and open windows, it was still stuffy oddly humid. “Congrats on mending things with Quinn.”

I paused and turned. “You heard that?”

He nodded and turned his face away from the fan to look at me, but only for a moment because it was too hot. “I’m proud of you.”

I cleared my throat a little anxiously and clutched Bash’s notebook to my chest protectively. “Proud?”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice light like his lips were wearing a smile. “It’s nice to know there’s a little bit of Henry Underwood in that genetic code of yours. Meredith was all I saw for a long time.”

My brows furrowed some, and at first I thought I would dwell on it, but then I decided to let it go like a ribbon in the wind.

Summer, I thought.

Identity.

Desire.