If It Makes You Happy Read online

  Ten

  Dallas had a long stride, walking faster than I did, but after a few minutes he slowed down without me having to ask. The park behind us, we headed toward Merry’s Main Street in comfortable silence.

  Semi-comfortable. I’d been burning to ask him why he had volunteered at the HSR. After he had brought up Skinner, I didn’t want to just blurt it out and change the subject.

  Other than the people at the park, very few others braved the Haven Central heat, so the streets were fairly empty. There’d be an event that night—something usually went on every night in the summer thanks to Shelley, and people would willingly leave their air conditioners then.

  “I’ve been meaning to call you,” he said.

  “Call? Like on the phone?” I didn’t bother trying to hide the repulsion in my tone.

  “No, I was going to stand in front of my window at sunrise and yodel your name until you answered. I’m pretty good at it.” He tapped his stomach. “Strong diaphragm. Good lungs. Nice tone. It’s genetic.”

  I jokingly frowned at him. He could be slick if he wanted to be, his comebacks almost as good as mine. While I loved a good smart-ass as much as the next snarky girl looking for a challenge, he didn’t need to know that.

  “I meant call as opposed to texting.”

  “I don’t like texting.”

  “Excuse me, what?”

  “I like talking on the phone. It feels better. I’m guessing you don’t like it?”

  I thought about it. “What I like are shortcuts. I’ll talk if I have to, but texting and emailing are faster. I only really willingly talk on the phone with Kara. Or my parents.”

  “Kara.” He said her name so low, I didn’t think he meant for me to hear him. Another frown appeared, quick as the first, and another headshake.

  He must have had a terrible poker face.

  “Why did you volunteer anyway? Kara wanted to do it.”

  “Did she? Oh. I couldn’t tell.”

  Sarcasm. Nice. “Then why?”

  He grinned, eyes on his feet. “It’s kind of obvious, isn’t it?”

  “No. It’s not. I need you to tell me why.”

  “Because I wanted to be king.”

  “So it wouldn’t have mattered whose name was pulled? You would’ve volunteered?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  Between Dallas and the sun, my sweatiness barreled toward an unbearable saturation point. I could feel my skin getting darker by the second. My shirt had three-quarter-length sleeves and I had on ankle socks. Wasn’t really in the mood to have to navigate contrasting skin tone lines until my skin faded back to its natural warm brown color. Most of the Main Street shops had canopies over their front entrances and as soon as we hit that sidewalk, I made sure he knew that was the end of our walk.

  Deonna’s Joint advertised itself as a mixed bar. They sold drinks like standard and imported sodas, milkshakes, some cool craft beers, and super syrupy alcoholic drinks that I swear I have never, ever tried while no one was looking. I waved at Deonna through the window before we sat under one of the umbrella tables on the patio. The shade felt brilliant.

  I started to fan myself with one of the menus. “Look. I need you to be level with me so I can talk to Kara. She’s upset because she thinks you volunteering means I’m keeping secrets from her, which I’m not. Help me out here.”

  “I think I followed that.” He gestured between us, pointing to himself, then me and back again. “She thinks there’s something going on between us? That I volunteered specifically to be with you?”

  A hot flash of embarrassment surged through me. No, I did not think that, why would he even say it like that, Jesus, be an ice cube, God.

  “I don’t know what she thinks other than she’s upset.” This was about Kara not me. I didn’t want him to think he—whatever. I needed to focus. And stop overheating. “I don’t like it when Kara is like this, so I’m just going to preemptively apologize, but in order to do that I need information. So spill it. Why?”

  The heat, and our conversation, didn’t seem to be affecting him. A light sheen of sweat covered his face and exposed arms, but he sat infuriatingly unagitated across from me like he didn’t have a single problem worth stressing about.

  “I was thinking about doing it. And when your name got called, I was sure that I would. You can tell her that, if you want. I didn’t volunteer for you, but I did volunteer because of you.”

  “And that’s not the same thing?”

  “Nope.”

  “Mmmmmm. She’s gonna need a little more than that.” And so did I. Because of me? It’d be way too easy to assume and be dead wrong in this situation. I wouldn’t let myself leapfrog into a full-on face-plant.

  “Tell your girlfriend that’s all she’s gonna get from me. I don’t owe her anything.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  “What? Yes, she is.” He said it with an air of duh authority, scrunching his face and partially rolling his eyes.

  “No, she’s not.”

  His gaze sharpened, confusion slowly settling in. He leaned forward in his seat, body angling across the table to be closer to me. He whispered like he was telling me an important secret. “Yes. She. Is. Everyone knows that.”

  I matched his posture. The table was small, made for two, and we ended up so close together, I had a split second to marvel at the tiny brown freckles that I didn’t know were there, blessing the bridge of his nose.

  “No, she’s not. I think I would know.”

  “But everyone says—”

  “We don’t care what anyone says. They don’t know us.”

  He sat back, watching me with a disbelieving look. “So you two really aren’t together?”

  “I didn’t say that.” And then I couldn’t help myself. “Not so nice, is it? Remember that next time you try that cryptic stuff with me.”

  “Deal. But only if I can trust you. Can I?”

  “Trust me?” Where did that come from?

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t have a reason to lie to you unless you give me one.”

  “Huh.” He tilted his head slightly to the side, eyes never leaving mine. “And if I tell you something?”

  “I’m not a confessional,” I warned. “But I can keep a secret. If it’s important.”

  “I didn’t expect you to say that,” he muttered, looking away.

  The strangest idea like I had just won something he hadn’t intended me to popped into my head. “What were you expecting?”

  “What I wanted to hear,” he said, eyes on mine. “What you thought I wanted to hear.”

  The thrill of making eye contact gave me an immediate adrenaline rush. Talking to him like this—so fast, so close, so candid—made my heart beat at a full gallop. My body moved on its own.

  Closer, my body said. Be close to him again. I didn’t fight it. Neither did Dallas. Close enough to whisper. Close enough to kiss.

  “I don’t know you well enough to even kind of guess that,” I said, meaning it.

  “You don’t need to know someone to do that. Our conversation could have led you to what I expected you to say.”

  “What?” I scrolled back through the last five minutes, remembering. “Yes? You expected me to just say yes to you?”

  “You want to know why I volunteered. I want to know about you and Kara. Pretty straightforward.”

  Except it wasn’t. Why would he expect me to give him an unconditional yes to something so broad? “Can I trust you?” I spat back at him.

  He smiled. “No.”

  “So you would lie to me? Tell all my secrets?”

  “Also no.”

  I frowned at him, not liking where this was heading. It reeked of a word game. A riddle I had to figure out. Some kind of test he wanted me to pass. But just because I didn’t like it didn’t mean I wasn’t about to own his ass.

  “You don’t trust yourself. I’m right, aren’t I? You couldn’t answer me honestly without lying, so
you said no.”

  “Damn it,” he muttered.

  “You’re like a troll under a drawbridge. Don’t play games with me.”

  “It’s not a game. Not to me.”

  “Then why can’t you just tell me?”

  “I did tell you! It’s not my fault that wasn’t enough for you.”

  “But there’s obviously more to it.”

  “Which I obviously don’t want to tell you!”

  Don’t assume.

  Don’t assume.

  Don’t assume.

  The secret to my success had always been to keep my expectations in check. It would be so, so easy to let myself believe the obvious, simplest answer staring me in the face was the right one. The blurred line between fact and wishes all but disappeared with every cryptic word Dallas said. It wasn’t impossible that it could be true. Just—highly unlikely. Improbable. It didn’t make sense that this would come out of nowhere suddenly. The most time we’d ever spent together added up to a handful of hours, the culmination of all the deliveries I made last summer to his house.

  I knew what I liked about him. Besides his face, I mean. People talked about the Meyer family. Not exactly gossip—even banal details spread about him. Through everything that I’d heard and seen firsthand, more than anything else I’d always thought he was kind. Genuine and funny. Dedicated to his family and sports.

  But I didn’t know everything. And I didn’t think Dallas knew anything substantial about me either.

  I wasn’t so down on myself that I believed no one could ever be physically attracted to me. It wasn’t impossible—again, just highly unlikely. I guess.

  Damn it. I balled my hands into fists under the table.

  I did not need those thoughts running through my head. I did not need to tumble down that rabbit hole. I did not need to believe for one second that I was unworthy of anything, never mind a boy thinking I was pretty and wanting me.

  “Hey, guys.” Dana, Deonna’s twin sister, stood next to our table. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but I wanted to see if I could get y’all anything? If y’all just wanna sit, that’s okay, too. Just checking.”

  “Oh, sorry. Do you want a drink?” Dallas asked me.

  I shook my head. I knew I should buy something, regardless of what she said, but I wanted her to leave and not come back more than I wanted to be a decent customer.

  “I guess we’re fine,” Dallas said. “I gotta get going soon anyway.”

  I wanted to know the rest. For Kara and myself. I wanted to know and I was running out of time. He wasn’t obligated to tell me anything by any stretch of the imagination. But maybe …

  Maybe a good-faith payment could convince him to. Trust mattered to him. And I had a guess that fairness did, too. Maybe if I opened that door, started off with something honest, maybe he would follow suit.

  I had surprised him before. I would do that again.

  Dana left us alone. I waited, counting to ten to center my temper in advance, and said, “Kara’s not my girlfriend.” I sounded colder than I intended. When I talked about us, my natural state had turned defensive out of necessity. I had to protect her. “She’s my partner.”

  “There’s a difference? I’m not trying to be rude.” He held up his hands in surrender. “But my friend calls his girlfriend partner, too, and there’s no difference for him. You two are together, right?”

  I pulled on the thin gold chain hiding under my shirt, showing him the gold band with a single glittering blue stone. “I never show this to anyone. And I never take it off. It’s a promise ring. Kara cried the day she gave this to me, and if you know her at all, you’d understand how important that is.”

  He scoff-laughed, looking away quickly and then back to me. “I have an idea.”

  Dallas and Kara were the same age. Lived in Haven Central all their lives. Went to the same school, had been in the same classes, graduated at the same time. He got to see her every day for months at a time, while I only ever had the summer. He knew her in a way I never had. But it was hard to imagine someone, anyone not liking Kara. And yet, all signs kept pointing to the fact that for some reason, Dallas didn’t. I took another deep breath, holding on to that nonsensical thought before continuing.

  “Kara’s parents let her fly down for my birthday a few years ago. After dinner, she waited until we were alone and said she wasn’t sure how to explain everything she felt but wanted to try anyway. She asked me to be her ungirlfriend because being with me felt like falling headfirst into wonderland and she never wanted to leave. But then when she tried to put the ring on my finger, it didn’t fit. She just burst into tears. Full-on uncontrollable sobbing.” I put my ring back in its place, laughing. “I still tease her about how red she got and how much snot leaked out of her. Amazing.”

  “Ungirlfriend?” Dallas asked. “Like unbirthday?”

  “People dismiss friendship. They think of it as not being nearly as important as romance. Instead of having one special day like Valentine’s Day for couples, we have every day. To us, every day gets to be special because we’re together. And if people can’t understand that, then—” I shrugged.

  His lips twitched like he wanted to smile but wasn’t quite sure if he should.

  “It’s not any different from what other people who date and decide to be in a relationship do. We want to have a future together, so we are.”

  “So,” he said, “it’s a non-romantic open relationship?”

  Kara and I both knew the all-encompassing thing between us had to be wrangled into submission. It screamed at us to be defined, to be shaped into a word, to be freed. But we had to find the word we wanted before we could share it with anyone else.

  Non-romantic open relationship? No. Absolutely not. It made sense, those words, in that order, but that wasn’t for us. It didn’t make us happy. Queerplatonic worked sometimes—if we were willing to explain, to sit there and be interrogated. Those conversations usually ended with Kara getting frustrated and saying, “Fucking Google it. We’re not a damn dictionary or lesson for you to learn.”

  “If you must,” I conceded. “If we want to date other people, too, as in ‘in addition to’ us being together, we can. We made rules and stuff. She doesn’t want to, though.” I shrugged again, running out of words. Eventually, it would sink in for him that I didn’t care if he understood. “We just are.”

  “Who. Are. You,” he said, imitating the caterpillar from Disney.

  “Now you’re getting it.”

  “I think I do, actually.” His triumphant grin could make the sun give up the ghost and implode.

  “We still say ungirlfriend, but mostly use partner now when explaining us to other people. You got the behind-the-scenes bonus feature explanation. Feel special.”

  “I do,” he said, standing up. “Thank you. For sharing that. It’s pretty cool.”

  I stood up, too, pushing in my chair. “I shouldn’t have to say this, but thank you for not laughing or calling us weird or something like that.”

  He nodded, stepping out from under the umbrella. I hung back, reluctant to leave my shade sanctuary. With the sun behind him, it made it hard to see his face clearly.

  “Kara gets really excited when we get to do things together, and I think she’s really looking forward to being queen with me.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “Right,” I confirmed, shielding my eyes so I could see him better. It barely worked. “So now that you understand, if you dropped out of the HSR, I’d really appreciate that, too.”

  “Yeah. Right,” he said again. “Umm, when you talk to Kara, please tell her I’m sorry—”

  “Oh, you don’t have to apologize, we—”

  “No, Winnie,” he said. “Tell her I’m sorry because I’m still going to win the tiebreaker.”

  Eleven

  I genuinely didn’t know how long I’d been kicked out for. Granny hadn’t made a joke or a false threat. “Get out” truly meant leave.

  It would’ve been stup
id to waltz through Goldeen’s front door. Granny was most likely down there, in the office or filling in. Instead I slunk around back, taking the old cement stairs two at a time. I held my breath as I unlocked what was technically the front door to Granny’s apartment and pushed it open just a crack, listening.

  Silence.

  Winston’s shift didn’t end until six. Sam tended to randomly show up when no one was looking because nobody could ever remember her hectic schedule. I slipped inside, closing the door behind me, pausing to breathe and listen with my back flat against the wall.

  Empty. Thank God.

  Granny wasn’t the easiest person to love or even get along with. I loved that old joke: if you open up a dictionary, this person’s picture would be next to this word. Granny’s beautifully classic, black-and-white photo would be next to cantankerous.

  My uncle always made excuses like “she’s set in her ways.” My mom gave Granny space because “she refuses to progress with the times.” And my dad, well he’s told me more than once, “You’re just like her. Watch out.”

  I was the first grandbaby on the block. I’ve always known that made a difference in what she expected from me versus the lax attitude she had with Sam and Winston. I never took it personally.

  Finally, in my room, I flopped facedown on my bed before turning over and lightly kicking the top bunk planks with the bottom of my foot in a steady rhythm.

  Stupid Dallas.

  I’d bared my soul for nothing.

  Fine, okay, sure, he wasn’t obligated to help me out.

  And it was a trash move to expect him to open up to me just because I did it first.

  But that didn’t mean I had to like it. Sometimes, I just wanted everything to be the other person’s fault so I could rage in guilt-free peace. Being rational sucked.

  I curled onto my side, facing the wall. Someone had taped a piece of paper, folded into a yellow heart, near my pillow. Carefully, I unstuck it—on the back the words READ ME had been written in a neat, tight print and inside the words Hoping this makes you smile. It’ll be okay. I love you did just that.

  Sam.

  So cute. So corny.

  She’d probably heard about the Dr. Skinner Debacle. Sam was a rapid-fire texter—meaning for every message I sent, she sent about five or six in return. But instead of doing that, she took time out of her day, probably while on break between babysitting jobs, to make the heart and leave it for me. These little notes from her always made me feel special. Loved.