He thought he could hear her heartbeat. Or maybe it was his own, thrumming in his ears. Are you still afraid? Even now? Even as you listen to your own heart beating in death’s shadow? His hand moved more insistently on hers. She didn’t move her hand from his face. He slowly slid his fingers between her long and delicate fingers. The way he’d wanted to for a very long time. His heartbeat grew louder in his ears.
Every part of her felt warm and liquid and flushed as Dill’s guitar-callused fingertips stroked the webs of her fingers. She spread them to let his in between hers. Whatever this is, I like it. However reckless, however unwise this is, I don’t care. I’d rather lose him this way than any other way. This was the most coherent translation of her incoherent thoughts. The wild delirium she felt might have been lack of sleep combined with too much coffee. But she didn’t think so. She’d been sleep-deprived and overcaffeinated before, and it didn’t make her desire her best friend’s hands doing all over her body what they were currently doing to her hand.
Their fingers intertwined and they clinched hands. And here you thought that just deciding to keep living was the bravest thing you’d do this week. He went to the secret vault where he kept his talent show feeling. He opened it for the second time in twenty-four hours. He hoped it would sustain him one more time.
With a quick motion, Dill turned onto his side and raised himself up on his left elbow, his face about a foot from Lydia’s. They looked each other in the eyes. He could hear her breathe and then stop. For a second Dill feared she would start laughing. But she didn’t. Instead, she parted her lips as if about to say something. But she didn’t. He thought the most alive he could feel was in the moment after he’d done something incredibly brave. Turned out, he also felt pretty damn alive in the moment just before.
Dill discovered that there was another thing that came as naturally to him as making music.
Dillard Early’s lips were on hers, and it was her first kiss just like it was his. But they acclimated quickly and after a few hesitant moments, the kissing really began. Face. Neck. Fingers. There was a lust and hunger to it that went even beyond sex. More primal and vital. The weight of years of longing for it.
It is a very bad idea to take this sort of plunge with your best friend two and a half months before you leave for New York City. It is a really good way to have both your hearts broken. It is a really good way to be distracted in your new life. It is.
It is.
It is.
It is.
“Lydia?” Mrs. Blankenship called out, thumping up the stairs.
Dill spun off Lydia like she was radioactive. They lay side by side, staring up at the ceiling, trying to catch their breath and stifling laughter.
Mrs. Blankenship appeared in the doorway, mug of coffee in hand, dressed for work. “Well. You kids had quite the busy night, didn’t you?”
“And morning,” Lydia said. She could feel Dill shaking next to her, trying desperately not to laugh. Don’t do it, Dill. Don’t do it. Keep it together.
Dill let out an involuntary snort from the back of his throat. He tried to cover it with a cough. And that did it. Gales of laughter. Floods. Lydia turned to Dill and buried her face in his arm.
Mrs. Blankenship studied them with a suspicious expression. “Ooooookay…I feel like I’m missing something.”
“Nothing, Mom,” Lydia said, trying to gather herself, her voice muffled in Dill’s sleeve. “We were just laughing about a joke.”
Mrs. Blankenship raised her eyebrows and leaned against the doorframe. “I like jokes. Tell me.”
“Tell her, Lydia,” Dill said, pushing Lydia to face her mom.
Lydia backhanded Dill in the chest and wiped away tears. She cleared her throat. “Okay, okay. All right. Okay. Knock knock.” She and Dill both seized up again, giggling.
“Who’s there?” Mrs. Blankenship took a sip of coffee.
“To.”
“To who?”
“To whom.” Lydia could barely finish the joke. She and Dill were in hysterics. Tears streamed down their faces and dripped on her bedcover. Lydia started hiccuping.
“Mmmhmmm,” Mrs. Blankenship said. “Very, very funny, Lydia. But you know what? I think you two might need some sleep.”
“Yeah,” Lydia said. “We have definitely been having some trouble thinking straight this morning.”
“All right. Have a good day, sweetie. Dill, you too. And congratulations on college. You made a smart choice. I’m excited for you.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I’ve been making lots of good choices lately.”
Mrs. Blankenship smiled and walked away. “Get some sleep. I’m serious,” she called back over her shoulder.
Lydia waited for her mom’s footsteps to fade and turned back to Dill. “We just made out on my bed.”
“Yep.”
“A genuine make-out sesh. Like a grass-fed, free-range, organic make-out sesh.”
“A Grade A make-out sesh.”
“I feel like I’m blabbing. Blah blah blah.”
“No.”
“But I’m not not blabbing.” Lydia snuggled up to Dill.
He put his arm around her. “No. Or yes. I don’t know. Whichever one means I don’t mind. I’m too tired to think through a double negative.”
“You were supposed to be witnessing for Jesus to me,” Lydia murmured.
“That was the story.”
“I feel like there’s a really inappropriate joke in here somewhere.”
“You’ll think of it. I trust you.”
Lydia turned, planted her elbows on Dill’s chest, and rested her chin on her crossed arms. “So you know from now on, ‘witnessing for Jesus’ is going to be our euphemism for making out, right?” From now on???
“Yep.”
“Just wanted to get that out of the way.”
“Okay.”
“So let’s just review the last twenty-four hours. One, you did not kill yourself. Two, you applied for college. Three, we made out. Those are three, like, really good things.”
“The only thing that would be better is if I became a famous musician too.”
“Did I not tell you that every single one of your videos has over a hundred thousand views now?”
“Are you serious?”
“Dead serious.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. You have it all, Dillard Early.”
“Except like a TV and a dad who’s not in prison.”
“Touché. So what do we do now? Where do we go from here?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead.” Dill reached over and stroked her cheek.
“Should we make out some more?”
“Probably. Yes.”
So they did.
“This complicates things,” Lydia said when they were done.
“Our lives were pretty complicated.”
“Yeah, but this further complicates our complicated lives.”
“Yeah. I know.”
There were rules, explicit and implicit. Mostly Lydia’s.
Explicit: they kept things a secret. They didn’t need hassling from Dill’s mom or classmates. Also, it helped Lydia promote Dearly’s music on her blog—so that she didn’t look like she was plugging her own boyfriend. Closely related to this was a strict rule against public displays of affection. And referring to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend.
Implicit: no losing themselves too completely. They were still going their separate ways in a couple months. They didn’t forget.
Dill began his long, slow climb out of the abyss. He had good days and bad days. He quit his job at Floyd’s Foods and Dr. Blankenship hired him to work twenty hours a week filing and cleaning his office. He made more money (which mollified his mother), and better yet, all of Dr. Blankenship’s employees, even the part-timers, were on the group health plan. Dill finally had health insurance and was able to see a real therapist and get on a good antidepressant medication. Those things helped a lot. His music started to come back, bit by bit. The good days began to outnumber the bad.