Literally Read online

  “Annabelle!” he says loudly, maybe nervously. “Hey. Hi.” I like the way he does that. The two hellos, as if he’s not sure which one sounds better, so he’s giving them both a shot.

  “Hey, Will,” I say, and it comes out in sort of a sigh, and I want to crawl behind one of the cars I’m standing next to. “How was the rest of your first day?”

  Behind Will’s shiny black hair, I watch one of Elliot’s eyebrows rise quizzically.

  Will nods. “It was great,” he says, “thanks to my tour guide.”

  Both Elliot’s eyebrows are now raised.

  I giggle, feeling my face flush a little. “I did nothing,” I say. And then I say, “What?” Because he’s looking at me again, in that way. That way like I’ve got something in my teeth.

  Will dips his head down like a nervous little kid, and scuffs one of his feet on the pavement. Then he looks up. “I was just thinking. Would you like a ride home?”

  Now both Elliot’s eyebrows are knitted together in a squinty, confused frown, like he did not plan for this and possibly like Will is speaking another language.

  Will sees me looking behind him, and I am instantly nervous that he’s going to assume Elliot is my boyfriend. My annoying delinquent boyfriend, and maybe he’ll think I’m not available anymore. But instead he just says, as kindly as he’s been to everyone else today, “Oh, hey, man. I’m Will.”

  “Elliot” is all Elliot says, without extending a hand.

  “Okay!” I say, grabbing Will by the arm, because Elliot is not going to ruin this for me. Tell some annoying joke about my childhood or give me a noogie. “A ride would actually be great,” I tell him as we walk away. “My family bailed on me and nobody else offered,” I say the last part loudly, so certain parties will hear. And as we peel out of the parking lot in Will’s car, certain parties are still leaning, still staring, still frowning.

  Will’s car is cleaner than my house looks when my grandmother comes to visit. Which is amazing, since he has a surfboard on the top of his hatchback.

  “Is the surfboard just for show?” I ask as we pull onto Ocean Boulevard.

  “What?” Will says as he finishes putting my address into his GPS. “No way. I’m from Hawaii. My grandfather taught me as soon as I learned to swim. I go almost every morning. At least I used to, before we moved here.”

  “I didn’t mean to assume,” I explain. More often than not, I have to apologize after asking a question. My dad says my tone can be a little abrupt. “Just most of the guys I know who surf a lot tend to bring the beach home with them.” Without even realizing it, I reach down and run my hand along the seam of my jeans again, searching for stray pieces of sand from Elliot’s car.

  Will shrugs, looking embarrassed. “Not very cool, huh,” he says. “I’m kind of a clean freak. Check it out.” He flips down the sun shield to reveal a clear sheet of pockets for all the necessities: gum, Advil, an extra USB cable, gas card, quarters. “Lame, huh?”

  But I am in awe of the organization. Everything in its proper place. “Where can I get one?” I breathe.

  Will makes a small groaning noise. “I wish you hadn’t asked that,” he says.

  “Why?” I ask, and I can’t help smiling every time I look at him.

  “Because I made it myself,” he mutters, as though maybe if I don’t hear him I won’t ask him to repeat himself.

  My mouth falls open a little bit. “You made your own car organizer?” I ask.

  Will shrugs. “Well, I really just like when there is a spot for everything. I went to, like, six hardware stores and auto shops, and nobody had what I wanted, so yeah … I made it.” Again, his tone drops off at the end of the sentence.

  I reach up and run my hand over the sleeve. It’s absolutely perfect. “You’re perfect,” I tell him. “I mean—” I straighten up and try again. “You’re perfect. I mean”—I put a hand over my face, shaking my head—“it’s perfect.”

  Will is laughing and blushing, too, and deep in the center of my rib cage, something flutters. The car smells a little bit woody, but also a little bit sweet.

  “So where’s the pocket for the air freshener?” I ask curiously, thinking maybe I’ll get one for myself. And put it on my pillow at night.

  Will looks confused. “I don’t buy those.” He wrinkles a nose. “They make me kinda nauseous. What, is that a hint?”

  “Then what smells so good in here?” I say before I can stop myself, before realizing it’s probably just him.

  “Is this it?” Will politely dodges my question, and I realize we’re already outside my house. Where did the time go? “Your house is cool,” he says, leaning forward across my seat to look out the window. The closer he gets, the sweeter it gets. Yes, it’s definitely him. I swallow. And suddenly I want to lay a hand against his perfect olive-skinned cheek, but then I remember we just met five hours ago.

  “Sensitive subject at the moment,” I say instead. “My parents are selling it.”

  “Been there,” Will says. “Doesn’t feel great, does it?” He’s looking at me so intently, his entire body facing me. Not like I happen to be where he is. Like I am where he wants to be. I remember Ava telling me about an article she read on body language that stated if a guy’s body faces toward you, even his shoes, he probably likes you. At the time it didn’t mean very much to me, since I hadn’t spent enough time around any guys to notice. But now I am noticing.

  “They told me this morning.” I sigh. Then, even though I just met him, I add, “And they told me they are separating.” I don’t want to look at Will, so I look to the right, but that only forces me to stare at The House, my world, ready to fall apart. So I look up. The sky is strangely gray, considering how sunny it was only an hour earlier. Then I feel a hand on my shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” Will says. “I don’t know what to say, except … that really does suck.” He gives me a squeeze, and it tingles.

  “Thanks” is all I can say back, and something sits between us.

  “Will you go out with me?” Will says suddenly, and my mouth almost falls open.

  “Um,” I say.

  “I know you don’t know me very well,” Will continues. “I know I’m supposed to get to know you a little better and then maybe pretend I don’t like you or something, and then ask you out as soon as you get jealous. But I hate games, and ambiguity makes me nervous. I think I already like you. And I think once you get to know me better, you might feel the same about me.”

  “I …” is all I say. Because really?

  “I know it’s kind of last minute,” Will presses on, “but there’s a show tomorrow night. You said you like music, and this band I’m pretty obsessed with is playing.”

  My face is on fire, and I look down at my hands, because I don’t have a lot of experience with this. I’ve never been asked out on a date before. I’ve never even really been asked out on ambiguous hangouts.

  “What band?” is all I can manage to get out. Then even more nervousness piles up in my belly. What if it’s something awful? Could I really date a guy with poor taste in music?

  “Not sure if you’ve heard of them, but they’re called Paper Girl. I promise, they’re amazing.”

  My eyes jerk in Will’s direction. “I love Paper Girl,” I whisper.

  Will’s head pulls back in surprise, the corner of his mouth turning up. “Seriously?” he asks.

  “Seriously.” I nod. Suddenly, I can’t take my eyes off his face.

  The silence is broken by a noise on the windshield. I jump.

  “It’s just rain.” Will laughs.

  “What’s rain?” I ask. “This is Los Angeles!”

  “Good point,” he says. “Do you have a raincoat?”

  “This is Los Angeles!” I say again. And Will just throws his head back and laughs.

  “Okay, let me help you,” he says.

  “I’ll be fine,” I assure him, and am just about to get out, when it starts coming down hard. I duck back in quickly. “This is so weird!
” I exclaim. “I can’t remember the last time it rained like this.”

  But Will isn’t listening. Before I can stop him, he’s out of the car, dashing around to my side, an athletic jacket held over his head. He opens my door and pulls me out under his warm, heavy boy arm, under the umbrella of his coat, and we run to The House, me squealing the whole way.

  Once we’re shrouded by the canopy of our front stoop, Will looks down at me with a smirk, his eyes sparkling as he shakes the wetness out of his hair. “This was fun,” he says, his voice is low. Then he pulls the jacket down from his arms and wraps it snugly around my shoulders. “Looking forward to tomorrow night. And thanks again for today. Stay dry.” And just like that he’s gone, dashing back out to the car through the rain, my knight in shining armor. But suddenly, he stops.

  “Hey, Annabelle!” he calls out, squinting through the rain.

  “Yeah?” I yell back.

  “You never actually answered my question.” He grins, even though he’s soaked.

  I start giggling. I can’t help it. “Yes, Will Hale, I will go out with you!” I exclaim, and when he does a fist pump, I laugh harder.

  When I walk through the kitchen, I know where Napoleon is by the low growl that comes out from below the kitchen table. Sometimes my mom gives him the dry end of a loaf of French bread, and he takes it under there like a tiny wolf in his cave. We call them Bread Bones.

  “Good afternoon to you, too,” I mutter.

  My mother is at the center island with Jae, drinking tea and reviewing some blueprints.

  “Is it my imagination or did you get picked up by one cute guy today and returned by another?” she asks. But I just wrap Will’s jacket around my shoulders and head upstairs with a smile.

  5

  What’s Breaking Your Heart Tonight?

  MY DAD taught me a long time ago that a run would calm me down. He walked into my room one Saturday afternoon and found me rearranging my bookshelf, stacks and stacks surrounding me like building blocks.

  “Didn’t you just do this a month ago?” he asked.

  I paused. “That was by genre,” I explained. “This time it’s by color.”

  “Come with me,” he said, turning around and walking back out my bedroom door. “But first put on gym clothes.”

  My dad gets it because he’s that way, too. A little intense. But you’d never know, because every morning he gets up and does something. Maybe it’s a run; maybe it’s surfing. But he works it all out so he can get down to what matters. And yeah, maybe he doesn’t have a lot on his schedule, so to speak, but he’s always in a good mood, and he’s always there to listen. Or he was. Who knows where he will be after they separate?

  Now I run almost every day in the late afternoon or evening, just before dusk. When I run, I can’t think about the homework I still have to do or the articles I have to finish for the school paper, because there’s no way I could possibly do them at this moment, two miles away on the beach in Santa Monica, dodging people on bikes and dogs of all sizes on leashes. And it’s exactly when I get to that place, when I start making the jog from Main Street down to the Boardwalk, the ocean waiting up ahead, palm tree silhouettes cutting into the sky, that’s when I really get going. When I feel like a bird that’s broken through the net of its sanctuary. That’s when I really fly.

  Today when my feet hit the pavement, I’m already bouncing with energy. No thanks to the ground, which is as dry and cracked as ever, and once again makes me consider the strangeness of that temporary downpour with Will. But to be honest, I don’t really care. Will, with his sweet smell and his chivalry, his heavy arm wrapped around me as he hustled me to my door. Will, grinning at me through the rain.

  It’s not that I have never had a boyfriend in an official capacity. In the fifth grade, Nisha decided we all needed one. Just like that, like we all needed the newest pair of jeans. We talked about it casually at a sleepover, the idea of boyfriends, and then she just called me up one day and was all, “So what do you think of Teddy Shipman?” And I was like, “He’s okay,” and she goes, “Well, I called him and asked him if he wanted to go out with you, and he said cool, so I guess it’s a thing!” “I guess,” I remember mumbling, kind of stunned. The logistics of the arrangement were starting to overwhelm me. What would this mean, exactly? How much of my time would now belong to Teddy? What color should he be in my calendar?

  Turns out very little. Turns out Nisha, at the tender age of eleven, knew more about life than any of us did. We didn’t have to hang out with boyfriends so much as we had to be able to say we had them. There was an awkward exchange of valentines, a couple group hangs, and that was really all the effort I had to put in. I ended it a few months later when Teddy told someone he wanted to kiss me. I wrote him a polite note saying I felt we were moving too fast. I just wasn’t prepared for the intimacy. But it didn’t matter; our places were solidified as the coolest girls in the grade from there on out.

  What I mean is, I’ve never had a boyfriend in the practical sense. Nobody saving me a spot in the library, or holding my hand during assembly, or leaving a note on the whiteboard at school before my next class. Having a boyfriend requires so much time. There is so much “being chill” that needs to be done. So much “go with the flow” to be faked. And the games! You are supposed to like someone but not really say so … You are supposed to be able to tell when someone wants to kiss you when it hasn’t been discussed. There is too much that isn’t said. I don’t really understand a lot of guys, and they don’t seem to understand me. Plus, boys my age don’t make advanced plans. They text What’s up? or What are you doing now? and you are expected to be there. Can you imagine what that would do to my schedule?

  And so, for this very reason, we can all just imagine what Will “I don’t like ambiguity” Hale and his invitation to see Paper Girl are doing to my insides.

  On my way home I swing by Rosewood Café & Bookstore, where Ava has her sneakers up on the register. Rosewood never has a lot of customers, but on Tuesday nights it has nobody at all. Ava scored the perfect gig. A few years back when Amazon reimbursed people for some weird tax they’d unfairly charged to every Kindle book you bought, most people got about three dollars. Ava got $342. That’s how many books she reads regularly. I read, too, but I read the newspaper and autobiographies of badass women and historical figures. Ava loves romantic fiction. The real, get-in-your-bones, make-your-skin-tingle, make-your-eyes-water kind, she says. I say it’s more about girls who love boys they can’t have until the boy notices them for some reason they never did before. I say it’s all the same. But I don’t say it to Ava anymore, because that infuriates her.

  Ava is a lover in real life, too. She’s had a string of relatively long-term, serious boyfriends, all wildly different, all pretty flawed, all of whom she loves to the very ends of the earth, until one day she decides she just doesn’t, and she very politely moves on to another. And none of them ever hate her for it. It’s always an amicable breakup. A part of me has always been jealous of the way she can give herself to someone so easily, and accept that love in return.

  “What’s breaking your heart tonight?” I call out to her, and it takes her a moment to even look up. She’s got a hand buried deep in her brown curls, her mouth hanging slightly agape. When she does meet my eyes it’s with a glossed-over expression, so I decide to see for myself.

  “Something True,” I read out loud. “When Samantha Watson’s parents die in a tragic car accident, she moves to a farm in Iowa with her estranged aunt, only to discover that getting back to basics is exactly what her heart needed.” I look up at Ava with mock intrigue. “Let me guess,” I say. “A young dairy farmer catches her eye? Just tell me”—I throw my body over the front desk, and Ava rolls her eyes in response—“will they make it?”

  “You’re coldhearted,” Ava says. “But I shouldn’t be surprised. Every time we tried to play make-believe as kids, you just wanted to be real people who already existed. Like newscasters.” She makes a
gagging noise.

  “This is WBZN News At Night—Welcome Home,” I say in my best faux newscaster accent, and flash Ava a big grin.

  Ava shakes her head, then catches my eye with a more serious look. “Hey. Do you want to talk about it?”

  I know what she means. The separation. The House. I texted her about it before first period.

  “Not yet,” I reply, wandering over to the biography section, and I glance back to see her nodding. She’ll be there when I’m ready.

  I start to pull the volumes out one by one, then pause.

  “Here’s something I do want to talk about.” I turn back around, leaning against the shelf, crossing my arms over my chest in thought. “I got asked out on a date this afternoon.”

  As I anticipated, Ava is by my side in an instant.

  “Tell me,” she says, facing in my direction and leaning her own shoulder against the stacks.

  “Tell you what?” I say casually, pulling out another book. As a romantic, this is going to kill her, and I want to draw it out. “Tell you how Will drove me home from school today, and how he just happened to ask me to see my favorite band tomorrow night?” I hold the book in front of my face to examine it, then make a face. “Paris Hilton: The Untold Story.” Gross.

  But Ava doesn’t squeal. She is all business, her eyes boring into me. She takes the book from me and snaps it shut, replacing it on the shelf. “I don’t have time for games. Tell me all.”

  I sigh. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I think he might be perfect.”

  I glance over and find Ava’s mouth hanging open. “You realize you’ve never said that about anyone before.”

  “I know.”

  “Like, not even Jamie Garcia, when he asked you to prom last year,” she says.

  “I know.” Jamie was our school president, headed to Stanford, and also happened to look like a South American polo player. But it just never felt right. Now, thinking about Will, my mouth can’t help but curve into a dopey grin. “Will invented an organizational sleeve for his driver mirror to keep track of all his necessities” is all I say, and I don’t need to say any more than that, because a best friend understands you to your core.