“She’s visiting next week,” I say. “You should come over.”
“Okay, no,” Cassie says. “Mina does not need to meet Grandma. That is a solid nope.” She grins, and I look at her, curled up in the passenger seat, her whole body turned toward Mina. She’s like a flower tilting toward the sun.
“So, Molly, can I ask you something?” Mina says, after a moment, eyes flicking up to meet mine in the rearview mirror.
“Sure.”
“Cass says you’ve had crushes on twenty-five guys.”
“Twenty-six,” Cassie corrects immediately.
“But you haven’t dated any of them?” Mina asks.
“No,” I say. I feel the usual prickle of self-consciousness.
But when Mina glances at me again, her expression is sweetly curious. “Is there a story behind that?”
“There’s no story. It just never . . .” I lean back against the seat, squeezing my eyes shut.
I have this sudden memory of middle school. There was this table of boys in the cafeteria who would yell boi-oi-oing when hot girls walked by. Except when I walked by, they made a womp womp womp sound, like a boner going limp.
I remember feeling frozen. Cassie was screaming at them, and I couldn’t catch my breath. I thought I was dying.
My first panic attack.
I mean, here’s the thing I don’t get. How do people come to expect that their crushes will be reciprocated? Like, how does that get to be your default assumption?
“Well, she doesn’t put herself out there,” Cassie says. “Like, at all. So, Molly’s never actually been rejected, either.”
“And I’m okay with that,” I say. Cassie snorts.
I stare out the window. Bethesda looks so different from Takoma Park. Everything’s a little quieter and fancier, and there are definitely fewer mixed-media art installations in people’s front yards. But it’s nice here. Some of the houses are really, really big.
“Well, what kind of guys do you like?” Mina says, slowing for a stop sign. “Other than Will.”
Jesus Christ. Hipster Will. I never actually said I liked him. I don’t even know if I do. I’ve met him once.
“Oh, she likes all kinds of guys. Molly’s a crush machine,” Cassie says. “Let’s see. Noah Bates. Jacob Schneider. Jorge Gutierrez. That guy Brent from Hebrew school. The eyelash kid from camp. Josh Barker. Julian Portillo. The short guy from pre-calc. The student teacher. Vihaan Gupta. And Olivia’s little cousin.”
“Okay, I did not know he was thirteen.”
Cassie grins. “Oh, and Lin-Manuel Miranda. That’s a major one.”
“Aww, really?” Mina says, beaming at me in the mirror. “Me too!”
“Yeah, well. Just so you know, he’s Molly’s currently reigning crush number twenty-six, so this may end in a fight.”
I stretch forward to smack Cassie, maybe harder than I need to.
“Or a duel,” she adds, under her breath, and Mina bursts out laughing.
I close my eyes again. Mina and Cassie are murmuring softly now. About something unrelated to my wasteland of a love life. So, that’s good. I let my mind wander—but it keeps snagging on a single point.
Molly’s never actually been rejected.
I just hadn’t really thought about it like that before. But it’s true. I’ve never been rejected. Not directly. I’ve never given anyone the opportunity.
I’ve never rejected anyone either.
And maybe that’s even weirder than the fact that I haven’t kissed anyone. At the very least, I’m pretty sure these things are all related. Somehow.
Cassie nudges me suddenly. “Hey, we’re here.”
I let my eyes slide open.
Mina’s house is brick and medium-sized, with a super-gorgeous front yard. You can tell they planned in advance where the bushes would go. Mina parks in the driveway, and Cassie and I follow her down this little path to the front door. Her parents are at work. She slides a key into the lock.
Immediate first impression: everything in Mina’s house looks like it’s there on purpose. The walls are white, with framed family pictures placed almost symmetrically. The windows are huge and clean, so everything feels really sunny. Also, everywhere I look, there’s art: paintings and sculptures and even the light fixtures. Lots of animals, especially tigers—some realistic, but mostly stylized, and it’s the perfect mix of cute and badass.
I kind of want to pin this whole house to my design board.
A painting in the hallway catches my eye—maybe my favorite one yet. “Your parents must really love tigers,” I say.
“Oh, that’s like a Korean thing,” Mina says.
“Oh geez, I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?”
“Okay, this is really cute,” Cassie interjects. She taps the edge of a canvas-wrapped photo of Mina hugging the life force out of some goat in a petting zoo.
“Oh God,” says Mina.
“I love it.” Cassie steps closer. And then their fingertips almost touch. Not quite.
Makes me wonder.
Mina clears her throat. “Um. So, the boys are on their way, but we can head down to the basement. I’ll leave the door open for them.”
“The boys?”
She gives me this painfully knowing smile. “Will and Max.”
“Oh.” I blush.
We follow Mina downstairs. The basement is enormous. I don’t think Takoma Park has basements like this. She walks us through it, and it’s a whole other floor of the house. There’s a bedroom with its own bathroom, a little mini-kitchen, and an actual sauna. But the main room of the basement is a TV room with a giant flat screen and the mushiest denim couches I’ve ever encountered. As soon as I sit down, I can actually feel my butt leaving an imprint. I never want to stand up.
“Can I get you guys something to drink?” Mina tucks back a strand of hair and adjusts her glasses, and she honestly seems kind of jittery. Maybe it’s weird for her, having us here.
We both say no, so Mina ends up perching on the armrest of the love seat, next to Cassie. And there’s this extra-drawn-out pause.
I take one of those deep cleansing yoga breaths Patty is so obsessed with: slow inhale through the nose, controlled exhale through the mouth. I think it’s supposed to help with childbirth, but it actually helps me now.
Goal: don’t be weird and awkward.
“So, how do you know Will and Max?” Cassie asks. “Are they exes, or . . . ?”
“Oh, God, no. Not like that. I’ve known them both forever.”
“That’s like us and Olivia,” I say.
“Oh yeah! She’s the tall girl with the blue hair, right? Cute, kind of curvy?”
“Yup,” Cassie says, but I can’t help but wince. Like, yes, Olivia is kind of curvy, and Mina didn’t say it like an insult. I know it’s not an insult. But I just hate when people talk about bodies. Because if Mina thinks Olivia’s body is noticeably curvy, I’d like to know what she thinks about mine.
No. Actually, I would not like to know.
“Oh!” Cassie says. “Olivia wanted me to tell you she’s really sorry she can’t make it. She’s working.”
“Aww. Where does she work?”