I kissed Chris Baker in the back of an RV in seventh grade, and to this day I can’t smell Polo without remembering how noisy his running pants were.
When the elevator doors opened, there were three guys inside, dressed in suits and expensive haircuts. We stepped in front of them, quietly standing side by side as we rode the elevator car down.
“I’m about to smash some waffle fries,” one of the guys said from behind us.
“I wish they’d bring back Bernie’s Pizza. I like chicken, don’t get me wrong, but it’s been the only option for too damn long.”
“So go get Bernie’s.”
“Nah, bro—I’m too lazy and the caf is too convenient.”
I looked at Nick to see if he also thought the way they were talking was ridiculous, and the way he held his mouth a little too tensely told me he was fighting back a laugh, too.
One of them said “This is us” when the doors opened, and the trio filed out when we scooted out of the way.
Nick let out a big breath, but when the doors started to close he stuck his hand out, and they began opening up again. Quirking one eyebrow in an adorable way, he said, “Hey. You wanna go smash some strips in the caf?”
I squealed. “Ooh—do you think we can?”
He shrugged. “Why not? If they kick us out now, we already got what we wanted.”
I started to get excited. “My mom never let me eat chicken strips growing up, so they’re my secret favorite food now that I only get when I sneak.” I knew I was rambling but I couldn’t help it. “Y’know, when she’s not around.”
“Who’s not allowed to eat chicken strips?” His eyes did the crinkle thing as he said, “You poor, deprived little book-nerd.”
I laughed at that. “Right?”
He gestured toward the elevator doors. “Let’s go, then.”
As soon as we walked out of the elevator, the sounds and smells of the corporate lunchroom surrounded us. We followed in the direction of the dudes, and boom—just around the corner from the bank of elevators was an enormous cafeteria.
There were tables in the center of the room, and food stations all around the perimeter. Everything looked like generic cafeteria food except for the Chachi’s Chicken booth, where a generous line was already forming.
“Chicken?” he asked, his eyes moving around the corners of the cafeteria.
“Chicken,” I replied.
While we waited in line, he told me about the time his sister ran over the foot of a Chick-fil-A employee in the drive-thru, and I was tearing up from laughter by the time we sat down with our food.
“I can’t believe she went back over it,” I said, and laughed.
“She said that when he screamed, it was simple human nature for her to back up to see what was the matter.”
“There is a logic there,” I said.
“I guess,” he said, dipping a chicken strip into his cup of ranch.
“So.” I grabbed the table’s ketchup bottle and squirted a blob onto my plate. “You said you’ve never been in love, but… like, you do believe in it, right?”
“Whoa.” He tilted his head and his eyebrows went down. “You are persistent. What’re you doing, Hornby?”
“Learning about my DONC partner. Now, if you’re shy—I’ll start.” In real life, I would never broach this topic of conversation because of course I would come off as stifling and pathetic. But I wanted to know these things about him, so I was taking advantage of this erasable day. It didn’t matter what he thought of this because he’d never remember it.
As soon as I thought that, though, I felt a little ache of sadness. I’d been having so much fun that the fact that tomorrow would be a reset, and Nick would remember nothing—seemed kind of tragic. “Okay. So. Even though you don’t see it very often in real life, I absolutely believe in true love. I think it requires work and logic, as opposed to fate, but it’s there if you look hard enough.”
He gave a nod, like he was accepting my point, and wiped his hands on his napkin. “But doesn’t that sound a little oversimplified to you? It sounds like a kid saying they believe in Santa. Like, yes—of course it sounds great—but if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
I dipped a fry in my ketchup. “So cynical.”
“It’s not cynical at all.” He slid a handful of fries through my ketchup blob and said, “I don’t grouchily begrudge love—I just don’t expect it to come down my chimney with a sack full of presents.”
“Love is not the same as Santa Claus.”
“How is it not?” he asked, picking up his soda cup. “You hope and wish for it, peeking to see if fate has brought the One to your doorstep, the One who makes you happy forever.”
I picked up a strip and pointed it at him. “It’s not the same because you’re not relying on magic and pretend.”
“Have you ever seen a first date?” He took a sip of his pop before saying, “Talk about your magic and pretend.”
“How are you ever going to get happy,” I asked, taking a bite before saying, “when you’re thinking that way?”
He looked at me and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not looking to ‘get happy.’ ”
I stopped chewing. He didn’t appear to be joking. “Are you one of those guys who likes being broody?”
His eyebrows furrowed and he looked offended, like that suggestion was an insult. “No.”
“So why wouldn’t you want to be happy?”
He shrugged and picked up his soda. “I didn’t say that I don’t want to be happy. I said that I’m not looking to get happy. It’s not my goal.”
I wiped my mouth with my napkin before setting it down on the tray. “But—”
“I mean, are you always happy?” he asked, and I got a little distracted by the sight of his Adam’s apple moving as he swallowed his Coke.
“Well, of course not,” I said, putting my finger over the top of my straw. “But I’d like to be. I mean, happy kind of is the goal. Like, for life, right?”
“Well, sure, but—”
“Because happy is life’s default.” I pulled the straw from my cup, lifted it to my mouth, and moved my finger, letting the soda drip into my mouth. “Content is the baseline. Sometimes we’re not, and sometimes we’re freaking ecstatic, but happy is the default.”
“You’re absolutely wrong.” He set down his cup and looked a little bit intense. “Existence is the default. Merely existing, emotionally, is the baseline. Happy is, like, this floating, fluid thing that’s impossible to hold on to. Elusive as fuck. Sometimes you get lucky and have it, but it’s only a matter of time before it slips back out of your hands.”
I shook my head, trying to figure out how he could have such a bleak outlook. “That is the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard.”
“No it’s not.”
“Yes, it totally is.” I dropped everything on the tray, done with fidgeting because I needed to find a way to change his ridiculous mind. “According to your theory, anytime you’re happy, you have to sleep with one eye open because it’s going to implode at any moment.”
He gave a surprised little cough of laughter and rubbed his cheek. “That’s kind of the truth, though.”
“Who hurt you, Stark?” I teased, and regretted it the instant he looked at me. Because—man, oh man—there was a whole lot of sad in his eyes. For just a split second, he looked like a very sad little boy.
Then he smirked, and just as quickly it was gone. “Who shot you up with happy fairy dust is kind of the bigger question.”
“It’s not happy dust at all. I know that I’m the only one who truly cares about my happiness, so I make it a priority. You should seriously try—like, really try, looking at everything in a different light.”
Now he smiled. “Is that so?”
“Yes.” I smiled back at him and said, “Think about it. On a normal day, you might be thinking, ‘It sucks that I have to go to school.’ ”
He said with a straight face, “I would never think that—education is important.”
“You get what I mean. On a normal day when you’re feeling less than positive, force yourself to change your thinking. Instead of ‘It sucks that I have to go to school,’ think ‘It’s such a nice day that maybe after school I will recline the seat of my truck and read a good book while the breeze smells like springtime.’ ”
Now he flat-out laughed at me. “Why would I ever think something that ridiculous?”
“How about, ‘At least I get to sit next to Emilie Hornby in Chemistry—hubba, hubba.’ ”
“Really with that?” he said, back to full-on sarcastic teasing with his twinkling eyes.
“Oh, like you’ve never thought the words ‘hubba, hubba.’ ”
He said, “I can promise you I have not.”
“Well, what about your friends, Mr. Existence Is the Default?” I leaned on the table, wanting to learn every single thing about him, and asked, “How is it that you’re absolutely free of high school cliques and drama? I see you around school sometimes, and you appear to have friends, but I never hear about you socializing at all. Never see you at any parties, or football games, any other school functions…”
“And…?”
“And… what’s the story? Do you hang with your friends and do activities, or are you an actual hermit?”
He looked over my shoulder, like he was watching someone or thinking about something, and I expected him to give me a smart-ass nonanswer. But then he said, “I used to hang with my friends a lot more. But somewhere along the way, I stopped caring about everything high school. It just feels so… pointless. Not the learning, but all of the games.”
His eyes landed on mine and he looked… intense. “Sometimes I try to power through so I’m not a ‘hermit’—as you so delightfully put it—but it just feels meaningless.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say to that. “Well, maybe if you treat it—”
“Swear to God, Hornby, I will lose it if you tell me to be positive.”
That made me smile. “Well, it wouldn’t hurt, you know.”
One corner of his mouth slid up a smidge. “I think it might, actually.”
