“Okay.” Lydia was usually emphatic in getting her way, but Dill had rarely seen her this emphatic. Or territorial.
“I hate the thought of you hooking up with anyone, nutty or otherwise.” Lydia maintained her grip on Dill’s arm and gave the stink eye to a guy who glanced over as he walked past.
Dill looked her in the eyes. “You can call yourself whatever you want. But I call myself your boyfriend. And as such, I don’t intend to be hooking up with anyone. Nutty or otherwise. Okay?”
“Okay. Just FYI, I don’t intend to hook up with any dumb, gross boys either.”
“That makes me very happy.”
“Or even nondumb, nongross boys.”
“Good.”
Lydia seemed immersed in thought for the rest of the walk to the student union. For as far as they could see, there were huge 1950s-era buildings surrounded by tall trees. The aroma of warm cut grass, woodchips, and grilling hamburgers hung in the air.
And then, out of nowhere, as if it were the most normal thing imaginable, Lydia reached out and took Dill’s hand. And there they were, walking down the sidewalk, holding hands. In public.
“This is a blatant violation of the rules,” Dill said.
Lydia was unruffled. “Yes, but so is Marissa hitting on you in front of your girlfriend, so I’m declaring a moratorium on the rules. MTSU is a lawless, anarchic no-man’s-land.”
Dill intertwined his fingers with hers. “If that’s true, then there’s no rule against me just kissing you right here, in front of everyone.”
“I guess not.”
“You said anything goes.”
“I did.”
“All right then.”
“All right.”
“I’m doing it.” Dill abruptly stopped, pulling Lydia backward.
“Why are we still talking?”
“Okay.” He drew her close, put his hand on her cheek, and kissed her. Long and slow. Like they were completely alone instead of in the middle of the sidewalk while students streamed around them, hurrying to class.
“Dearly’s first performance at MTSU gets excellent reviews,” Lydia murmured, with her eyes still closed.
“Oh yeah?” Dill’s lips barely brushed hers.
“Yeah. Maybe we should repeat it for Marissa and her friends.”
“I’m down. Let’s go find her.”
Lydia broke away and grabbed Dill’s hand again, pulling him toward the student union, almost yanking him off-balance. “Let’s grab some food. I’m starving. Come on, rock star.”
They got sandwiches in the cavernous food court. Dill set down the bag with his new MTSU hoodie, surveyed the room, and felt something blooming inside him. Nobody could replace Travis. Nobody could replace Lydia. But at least he wasn’t facing the crushing aloneness anymore. Now his life had the sun and the soil to keep growing. He imagined long talks with Lydia in which they both discussed classes and new friends. That’d be a lot better than listening to Lydia go on about classes and new friends while he talked about what a great night they’d had at Floyd’s. Without warning, a mixture of joy and melancholy and hope and nostalgia overwhelmed him. He fought back tears.
It was almost as though Lydia could read his mind. “Hey, Dill.”
He coughed and cleared his throat. “Yeah?”
She patted the MTSU hoodie in the bag on the table. “You did it.”
It was dark when they got back to Dill’s house. His mom would be home in about an hour. Lydia leaned over her seat to kiss him goodnight.
“Hang on,” Dill said. “Come in with me. I have something for you.” He hadn’t planned on this. It wasn’t quite ready yet. But he’d realized that day that there was no better time for it.
Lydia followed Dill inside for the second time ever. Dill motioned for her to sit on his sagging, tragic sofa.
“Do you want me to turn on the lamp?” she asked.
“No. I like the dark.” He went to his room and grabbed his guitar. He stood in front of Lydia, blushing. He hoped she couldn’t see.
He quickly checked his tuning. “Um…okay. So, this is a song I wrote for you. It’s called ‘Lydia.’?” He made one last tweak to his tuning. “I guess I could’ve just told you that the song was called ‘Lydia’ and you’d probably have figured out that I wrote it for you.”
“Probably.”
He played “Lydia” for her. It was a song that was somehow soaring and quiet at the same time—the way his heart felt when he was with her. He heard her start sniffling about thirty seconds in, and saw her take off her glasses. It was messy and imperfect. But he was never prouder of how it sounded.
“Anyway, I hope you like it,” Dill said when he finished, still blushing. “I’m not doing a video of that one. That one’s just for you. I mean if you want—”
But Lydia stood and cut him off with a kiss that felt like a summer storm.
When Lydia got home, her dad was playing his electric guitar (he wasn’t faring well compared with the performance she’d just heard) while her mom sat on one of the porch rockers, reading, with a glass of wine.
“Hey,” her mom said. “You’re home late.”
Lydia flopped down in the rocker next to her mom. “I took Dill to tour MTSU. He got in today.”
Her mom set down her book on her thigh. “Really? That’s wonderful. I gather that’ll be healthy for Dill to get out of here.”
“No kidding,” Lydia said.
They rocked for a while, not saying much. Lydia sat cross-legged in the rocker. “So…out of curiosity, tell me more about how you and Dad ended up getting together.” She tried to sound nonchalant. Just shooting the shit about something I’ve never once cared about. No big deal.
Her mom gave her a canny squint. “Just curious, huh?”
Mental note: be more slick. Lydia refused eye contact. “Can’t I be interested in the process that led to my existence?”
Her mom set down her wine glass. “Honey, I was born in the morning, but not yesterday morning.”
“Fine. Busted. Good job,” Lydia muttered.
“Hey, it didn’t take a master detective.”
The electric guitar fell silent. A few seconds later, her dad opened the front door and poked his head out. “There’re my girls. What are—”
“In,” Lydia commanded, pointing. “Back inside.”
He gave Lydia a wounded look. “That’s a nice way to—”
“In. Side.”
“Denny, darling,” her mom said gently. “Girl talk.”
Her dad raised both hands in surrender and backtracked. “Okay, okay. I’m retreating. I’m making no sudden movements. Don’t hurt me. Glad you made it home safe, Lyd.”
Her mom waited until she was sure Lydia’s dad was gone. “So? How long?”
Lydia picked at the chipped polish on her toes. “About a month. Since Dill’s all-nighter applying to college.”
“I knew it. You two thought you were being so sly with your knock-knock jokes.”
“Well.”
“You have some timing.”
Lydia sighed. “No shit.”
Her mother made a little sound of disgust. “Lydia. Come on with the language. At least try.”
“Sorry. Anyway, back to the subject at hand. Yeah. Timing. Bad. I know,” Lydia said. “It’s not like we planned this. It just sorta seemed like the right thing to do. I mean, I don’t regret it, but leaving was supposed to be easier than this. I don’t know what to do.”
Her mom picked up her glass of wine and took a sip. “What can you do? Enjoy your time together. Let it—whatever it is—be beautiful while you have it. Maybe you won’t end up together forever and that’s okay. But the heart wants what the heart wants. When it wants it.”
“The heart sucks.”
“He’s your first boyfriend, isn’t he?”
“Of course. Who else was I going to date here?”
They rocked for a while. “Dill’s a good first boyfriend. He’s liked you as more than a friend for a long time,” her mom said.
“Really? How do you know?”
“Oh sweetie. It was plain as day. Did you really not know?”
“I had my suspicions I guess. But I knew I was leaving so I never really thought about it as a thing that could happen. I just…couldn’t.” Lydia slumped down in the rocker. “What if you’d known that you and Dad would be separated? Would you have jumped in anyway?”
“Of course. Life is short, sweetie. I’m sorry you’ve had to see that firsthand. You can’t live with your heart locked up in a safe.”