I dreamt about this girl last night.

Wow.

This girl.

In my dream I was standing on the edge of a cliff

Looking down over a vast, barren valley below

I wasn’t wearing any shoes and the rocks were crumbling beneath my toes.

It would have been so easy to take a step back,

To move away from the ledge,

Away from a certain inevitable life that had somehow been determined for me

a life that had somehow become my only option.

It had been my life for two years and I accepted that.

I had not embraced it,

But I had accepted it.

It was where I belonged.

As much as it didn’t appeal to me, as much as I yearned for the rivers and mountains and trees,

As much as I yearned to hear their songs . . .

To hear their . . . poetry?

It was apparent that what I yearned for

wasn’t decided by me . . .

it was decided for me.

So . . . I did the only thing I could do.

The only thing I should do.

I prepared myself to embrace this life.

I sucked it up and took a deep breath. I placed my hands on the edge of the cliff and began to lower myself onto the rocks protruding from the edge. I burrowed my fingers deep into the crevices and slowly began lowering myself down.

Down into the vast,

barren

valley

that had become

my

life.

But then . . .

Then this girl . . .

Holy hell, this girl . . .

She appeared out of nowhere, standing directly in front of me on the edge of that cliff. She looked down at me with her sad eyes that ran a million miles deep . . .

and she smiled at me.

This girl smiled at me.

A look that cut straight to my core and pierced through my heart like a million of Cupid’s arrows,

One right on top of the other, on top of the other, on top of the other

Straight . . .

Into . . .

My heart . . .

Now this is the part of the dream where most girls would bend down and grab my hands, telling me not to go . . . not to do it. This is the part of the dream where most girls would grab my wrists and brace themselves with their feet as they pulled me up with every ounce of strength in their being. This is the part of the dream where most girls would scream at the top of their lungs for help, doing anything and everything they could to save me . . .

To rescue me

from that

vast,

barren

valley

below.

But this girl.

This girl wasn’t most girls.

This girl . . .

This girl did something even better.

First, she sat down on the edge of the cliff and kicked off her shoes and we both watched as they fell and fell and fell and continued to fall until they landed in a heap. One shoe right on top of the other in that vast, barren valley below.

Then she slid a rubber band off her wrist,

Reached behind her . . .

And pulled her hair

into a knot.

And then this girl

This girl . . .

She placed her hands right next to mine on the edge of that cliff and she slowly began to lower herself off of it. She poked her bare feet into whatever crevice she could find next to mine. She dug the fingers of her right hand into the cracks between the rocks, then placed her left hand

directly . . .

on top . . .

of mine.

She looked down at the vast, barren valley below us, then she looked back up at me and she smiled.

She smiled.

She looked at me and smiled and said . . .

“Are you ready?”

And I was.

I finally was.

I had never been more ready in my life.

Yeah . . .

This girl.

My mother would have loved this girl.

Too bad she was just a dream.

I CLOSE MY eyes and tune out the noise of the crowd while I wait for my lungs to find their rhythm again. When I descend the stage and take a seat back at the table, Eddie stands up, wiping tears from her eyes. She looks down at me and frowns.

“Would it kill you to do something funny for once?” She storms toward the bathroom, I’m assuming to fix her makeup.

I look at Gavin and laugh, but he’s staring back at me with his arms folded in front of him on the table. “Will, I think I’ve got an idea.”

“Pertaining to . . .”

“You,” he says. He gestures toward the stage, “and your . . . situation.”

I lean forward. “What about my situation?”

“I know someone,” he says. “She works with my mom. She’s your age, cute, in college.”

I immediately shake my head. “No. No chance,” I say, leaning back into the booth.

“Will, you can’t be with Layken. If your poem had anything to do with her, which I’m thinking it had everything to do with her, then you need to find a way to get over this. If you don’t, you’ll end up screwing up your entire career over this girl. A girl you went on one date with. One!”

I continue to shake my head at his reasoning. “I’m not looking for a girlfriend, Gavin. I wasn’t even looking for anything when I met Lake. I’m fine with where I am right now; I definitely don’t need to add even more female drama into the picture.”

“You won’t be adding more drama. You’ll be filling an obvious void in your life. You need to date. Eddie was right.”

“What was I right about?” Eddie says, returning to her seat.

Gavin gestures toward me. “About Will. He needs to date. Don’t you think he and Taylor would hit it off?”

Eddie perks up. “I didn’t even think about her! Yes! Will, you’re gonna love her,” she says excitedly.

“I’m not letting you guys set me up.” I grab my jacket. “I’ve got to get back home. See you guys in class tomorrow.”

Eddie and Gavin both stand. “I’ll get her number tomorrow,” Eddie says. “Is next Saturday night okay? You two could double date with us.”

“I’m not going.” I walk away without turning back or giving in.

8.

the honeymoon

“OKAY,” LAKE SAYS. “Two things. One. That poem was . . . heartbreakingly beautiful.”

“Just like its subject,” I say. I lean in to kiss her but she brings her hand up and pushes my face away.

“Two,” she says, narrowing her eyes. “Gavin and Eddie tried to set you up with someone?” She huffs and sits up on the bed. “Good thing you didn’t agree to it. I don’t care how screwed up our situation was, there’s no way I would have dated anyone else considering the way I felt about you.”

I quickly change the subject before she realizes that, although I didn’t agree to it, Eddie is pretty damn persistent.

“Okay, now for Friday night,” I say, successfully taking her mind off the date. “Your mom.”

“Yeah,” she says, finding a comfortable spot next to me and throwing her leg over mine. “My mom.”

secrets

“PASTA AGAIN?” CAULDER whines. He grabs his plate of food from the counter and takes it to the bar and sits.

“If you don’t like it, learn how to cook.”

“I like it,” Kel says. “My mom cooks a lot of vegetables and chicken. That’s probably why I’m so small, because I’m malnouredish.”

I laugh and correct him. “It’s malnourished.”

Kel rolls his eyes. “That’s what I said.”

I grab my own bowl and fill it with pasta . . . again. We do have pasta at least three times a week, but there are only two of us. I don’t see the point in making expensive meals when it’s just me and a nine-year-old most of the time. I take a seat at the bar across from the two boys and fill all of our glasses with tea.

“Suck and sweet time,” Caulder says.

“What’s suck and sweet?” Kel asks.

As soon as Caulder starts to explain, there’s a knock at the front door. When I reach the door and open it, I’m surprised to find Julia standing in the entryway. Her presence has definitely become more intimidating since the first day I met her; especially after this afternoon when she found out about me being a teacher.

She looks up at me straight faced, with her hands in the pockets of her scrub top.

“Oh. Hey,” I say, trying not to appear as nervous as I am. “Kel just started eating. If you want, I’ll send him home as soon as he’s done.”

“Actually,” she says. She glances over my shoulder at the boys, then looks back at me and lowers her voice to a whisper. “I really wanted to talk to you if you have a few minutes.”

She seems a little bit nervous, which just makes me ten times more nervous. “Sure.” I step aside and motion for her to come in.

“You guys can eat in your room, Caulder. I need to talk to Julia.”

“But we haven’t said our suck and sweet for today,” Caulder says.

“Do them in your room. I’ll tell you mine later.”

The boys pick up their bowls and drinks and head to Caulder’s room, closing the door behind them. When I turn back to Julia her mouth is curled up in a smile.

“Suck and sweet?” she says. “Is that your way of getting him to tell you his good and bad for the day?”

I smile and nod. “We started it about six months ago.” I take a seat on the same couch as her. “It was his therapist’s idea. Although the original version wasn’t called suck and sweet. I sort of ad-libbed that part to make it sound more appealing to him.”

“That’s sweet,” she says. “I should start doing that with Kel.”

I give her a slight smile but don’t respond. I’m not really sure what she’s doing here or what her intentions are, so I silently wait for her to continue. She takes a deep breath and focuses her gaze on the family picture hanging on the wall across from her.

“Your parents?” she says, pointing to the picture.

I relax into the couch and look up at the picture. “Yeah. My mom’s name was Claire. My dad’s name was Dimas. He was half Puerto Rican—named after his maternal grandfather.”

Julia smiles. “That explains your natural tan.”

It’s obvious she’s trying to deflect for some reason. She continues to stare at the picture. “Do you mind if I ask how they met?” she says.

Just a few hours ago she was ready to rip my head off after finding out I’m Lake’s teacher; now she’s trying to get to know me? Whatever’s going on with her, I’m in no position to question her, so I just go along with it.

“They met in college. Well, my mom was in college. My dad was actually a member of a band that played on her campus. He didn’t go to college until a few years after they met. My mom was on a campus crew that would help set up their shows and they got to know each other. He asked her out and the rest is history. They married two years later.”

“What’d they do for a living?”

“Mom was in human resources. Dad was a . . . he taught English.” Just saying the word teacher in front of her makes me uncomfortable. “Not the best-paying jobs but they were happy.”

She sighs. “That’s what counts.”

I nod in agreement. There’s an awkward silence that follows while she slowly scans the pictures on the walls around us. I feel like she wants to bring up everything from earlier today, but maybe she doesn’t know how.