She seemed to sink deeper into his stomach. Beck’s honey-coated voice sang into the perfect California air, Dave mouthing the words. “You’ll find out just who was your friend.”
Dave glanced back at Gretchen and her circle of friends one last time before closing his eyes and putting her out of his mind.
o o o
When school let out that day, there was a palpable sense of happiness in the air. Dave knew that there were still interminably boring days to come. But for now they were forgotten.
Dave met Julia by her locker, though she didn’t bother replacing any of the books in her bag. They ambled to Julia’s Mazda, for once in no rush to leave. “That was actually nice. This even feels like a nostalgic walk down the halls,” Dave said. He pretended to choke up, “I’m gonna miss it so much!”
“Maybe that nap in the sun fried my brain, but I can see myself looking back fondly on some parts of high school.”
“You mean homecoming football games?”
“And the Kapoor parties.” She reached out her hand and brushed her fingertips against the lockers they passed by. “I mean things like that resolution we wrote for Model UN last year where we blamed Disney for all the world’s ills, or having class outside. That group video project for French where I convinced everyone that we should do an infomercial for tampons. I’ve been noticing lately that I laugh a whole lot more in class than I ever realized. I kept track today. Guess how many times someone laughed in class?”
They turned a corner and pushed open the doors that led to the parking lot. A few stringy clouds had shown up, the kind that really took hold of color during sunsets and lit up the sky in a way the sun just simply couldn’t on its own. “I don’t know. Six.”
“Twelve on average per period.”
“Twelve?”
“Twelve!” Julia said, slipping out of her moccasins as soon as they were off school grounds. “I know school in general can kind of suck, and a lot of people here haven’t had an original thought their entire lives, but this place isn’t always awful.”
“Speaking of awful,” Dave said, pointing out Marroney walking to his car, this time not feeling a pang of jealousy at all, but an appreciation for Julia, for how long she’d been in his life, for everything she brought into it. “Seduction, part deux?”
“His shirt is the exact same color your hair was.”
“I’m kind of surprised he isn’t constantly being seduced by someone.”
“David Ruth Gonzalez, I detect a hint of sarcasm in your voice, and I’m telling you I won’t have you insulting the love of my life.”
“He’s not the love of your life yet.”
He grabbed her car keys from her hand. “I’ll make us a playlist to listen to as we drive around, enjoying the beautiful day and talking about our strategy for my prom king campaign and how to get your mom to come down and see it all happen. But first, you’re going to go over there and awkwardly court your math teacher. Try not to tickle him this time.”
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘awkward.’” She removed her hair tie and slipped it on her wrist, then mockingly whipped her hair around. “Careful, it’s about to get sexy in this vicinity.”
“Eww.”
“Sticks and stones, Gonzalez. Sticks and stones.”
“It’s Gutierrez. Go take your awkward womanly charms to that strange little man over there before he gets away and I puke all over the place.”
Julia beamed a big smile at him, the kind of smile that had been making his day for years. There was love in the way she looked at him. Maybe not the particular shade of love that would suit him best, but he’d be a fool not to take as much of it as he could get.
He leaned back against Julia’s Mazda and watched her sneak across the parking lot toward Marroney, crouching behind cars and rolling clumsily over their hoods in action hero/ninja fashion. A preppy kid yelled at her to get off his car, alerting Marroney to Julia’s approach. He sped up, jiggling his keys when he got to his car door like the victim in a horror movie, escaping right before Julia could get her hands on him.