“Sorry I took so long,” she says, bunching up her shoulders with guilt as we get closer.
“So many fans,” I say, prompting her to roll her eyes.
I came prepared today, and though I don’t own a Badger sweatshirt, Eleanor will look very nice in my Harvard Math Club hoodie. I hold it open at the bottom for her to crawl inside, and she slips her head and arms in quickly after dropping her gym bag to the ground. I pick that up to carry for her and grasp her hand at my side on our way back to the Bronco.
Every bit of her and me feels right. She belongs at my side; her hand fits perfectly. It’s as though our arms are made to work in sync, the lengths lining up to meet at their ends, her fingers the perfect width for the spaces between mine. None of that can be a coincidence. It may sound corny to believe two people are made for each other, and I’m not normally naïve enough to believe in anything beyond the moment I’m in, but Eleanor makes me stretch the boundaries of what I think is possible. She makes taking risks feel wise.
“I’m in love with you,” I blurt out before the feeling passes.
Her body pauses, dragging a step behind me as her hand tightens in mine. I still know this isn’t a mistake to say right now. Now is the perfect time to say these words. I turn to face her, her eyes wide but her mouth not bent in regret. I think there is a smile hiding in there.
“I just had to say it. I, boy, oof.” I adjust the weight of her bag over my shoulder and run that hand through my hair, feeling the tension. I glance to the side for a beat and blow out a heavy breath before coming back to meet her perfect green eyes. That hint of a smile has grown.
“I love you, to put it more clearly. I love you, Elle.” I’m too far gone to stop now.
She inches closer to me, bringing my hand up to her mouth and kissing the back of my palm before rising on her toes and kissing my mouth.
“I love you, too,” she whispers. My heart cracks open, releasing hundreds, maybe thousands of butterflies that bounce off the walls of my body and set my skin ablaze.
“Yeah?” I laugh through a broad smile that pushes my cheeks up into my eyes.
She nods, but I ask again. I think I have to convince myself I’m not dreaming. By the third time I decide that this is all real and that I am very much awake. I also decide that a cheap college sweatshirt is probably not enough to keep a girl in a super short cheer skirt warm, so I urge Eleanor to follow me back to the Bronco so we can fire it up and get the heat working as well as possible.
“Did you catch my Jake Ryan? The car lean?” I ask when we get buckled up inside.
Eleanor holds her hands out in front of the vents, then rubs them together to generate more heat.
“Uh, sure. Who’s Jake Ryan?” She gives me a sideways look that I can’t read at first, but after a few seconds, I gather she’s serious. My mom is full of crap.
“He’s nobody.” I smile, shaking my head. “Never mind.”
Almost everyone at the game tonight is headed in the other direction, toward the Molinas’ house. It’s rare for them to have two parties in the same month, given how much work they have to do to clean up after each one, but it’s near the end of the year, so their parents are traveling even more than normal.
I asked Elle a dozen times to confirm she didn’t want to go, and I ask again as I pull up to the last light between the highway and our street. I point to the on-ramp and she shakes her head, taking my hand and pointing my finger toward home.
“Thank God,” I breathe out, turning to the right instead.
Eleanor sinks back into her seat but keeps my hand in hers, shaking it to the rhythm of the song playing on the radio. I actually know this one; it’s a hit. I fake my way through most of the lyrics, but Eleanor sings them all, even hitting the high notes that I don’t even attempt. We roll down our street, blissfully ignorant and lost in our own high school clichés, neither of us noticing the pile of cars and media vans camped out in front of both of our houses until it’s way too late to flip the truck around and dart away.
“Jonah,” she breathes out my name, letting go of my hand and covering her mouth with cupped hands.
Lead weighs in my belly and fire burns through my chest. It’s been a month, almost to the day. It’s as if our lives are on rewind, forced to relive something absolutely awful. Only, this is nothing like the first time.
No. This . . . it has to be worse.
Eleanor opens the door before I come to a complete stop, jerking her arm free from her seat belt as she sprints through the neighbor’s yard toward her sister and her parents. I watch, pinned to my seat, as Morgan backs her away from their crying parents and delivers news that cripples the girl who owns my heart and drops her to her knees.
Breathing becomes hard, and I lean forward, hugging my steering wheel as I pull the key from the ignition and flip off the lights, removing a spotlight that the Trombleys
