Meet Me at Midnight - Jessica Pennington Page 0,124

forward, my voice in a panic. “Because I was never all in.” My voice is frantic, like I’m racing something. I think I am. “I give a hundred and ten percent to everything I do, and with you, I just gave up.” Asher turns his face toward me, and it’s hard to keep going but I do. “You, Asher Marin, are scarier than swinging on a giant wrecking ball of doom, or cracking my head open on the bottom of a pool. And I was so scared of losing you, that I lost you anyway.” His eyes are locked with mine, and I can’t remember what I was saying. I look back toward the lake to try to clear my head.

“What’s in the box?”

I had forgotten the box was on my lap, clasped between my hands now. The lid slides off with a breathy sucking sound, and I place it on the dock between us. “You showed me how much you liked me.” I turn to look at him, just for a second. “And now I’m going to show you.”

I take a piece of plastic out of the box and hold it up between two fingers. It glows bright in the darkness. “From my ceiling that first summer.”

“Your crab.”

I nod, and Asher holds his hand out. He smooths a thumb over the glowing surface.

“Your meet me at midnight note.” I pull the bright white paper out of the box and wave it in the air. “And this is my contraband picture of us.” I pull it out of the box and hand it to Asher. “Your mom sent it to me.”

“Hm.” Asher lets out a pleased grunt. It’s the same photo he had tacked to his wall.

“Mine was in my locker,” I say, my voice a little embarrassed.

I pull out the weathered paperback of Asher’s favorite book from a few summers ago. “I’ve read this four times.”

Asher takes it from my hand. “Did you love it?”

“I hated it. But you loved it—you were obsessed with it—and I wanted to know why.” I pluck the book out of Asher’s hands and put it back in the box.

I pull a concert stub from the box. “I went to a Greta Van Fleet concert last fall.” Asher’s hands are clenching either side of the dock, so I don’t hand it to him, I just let it flutter back into the box. “I told myself I was going because you played that stupid song so many times that it ruined my brain, but I think maybe I hoped you’d be there. That I could see you out in the world, being normal. Not like you are with me—the way you are with your friends.”

There are other things in the box but I can’t bring myself to pull anything else out. Asher is quiet and motionless beside me, his face still hard. And I think the only thing I’ve accomplished with my box of Asher is to make myself look a tiny bit psychotic.

“What is all this?” Asher’s voice is cautious when it finally breaks through the cold silence.

“This”—How do I even explain this to him?—“this is proof. Proof to myself, that I had hope at one point. Hope that the second summer, or third, or fourth, I’d finally work up the courage to do something.” That lump is back in my throat. “I was braver when I was fourteen, I guess.”

Asher looks at me, and his face is unreadable. “You scare me, too.”

“I’m still scared. But I’ve seen the worst-case scenario now, and … I’m ready to give a hundred and ten percent. I’m ready for morning swims, and twice-a-day training, and whatever lists and spreadsheets and goal planners it takes to make this work.”

“Spreadsheets, huh?” There’s amusement in Asher’s voice. I really do suck at the romantic stuff.

“Metaphorical spreadsheets,” I clarify. “I told you, you’re the romantic marshmallow one.” I raise my eyebrows at him and muster up a nervous smile.

His hands are still resting on top of his knees, and I put one of mine on top of his. “I like who I am with you. I like who we are together. And I’m not scared anymore, because there’s nothing worse than this.”

Asher

“How long have you been planning this?” When I smile at her, I can see the anxiety drain out of her face. “The rocks, and scamming my mom into getting me here … this is the ultimate anti-prank. How many checklists did this take you?”

She scowls at me, but it’s the good kind. The kind that tells me she still thinks I’m funny. “One.”

We sit in silence, and it’s freezing, but I’m afraid to move. If this is all some sort of weird cafeteria-food-induced dream, then I’m not ready for it to be over.

“Hey, Sidney?”

“Yeah?”

“I really really don’t hate you.”

“No?” She leans into me, presses her lips to mine, and pulls away far too quickly. “That’s good, because I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you.”

Sidney

There are at least five seconds of silence after I say it, and I’m half committed to plunging myself into the icy lake and waiting for unconsciousness, when Asher turns his head to me.

“Finally.” The smile he gives me feels like it could stop wars. Maybe it has. “I was running out of pranks. That’s the real reason I had to call the truce.”

“No more pranks.” Even as I say it, I’m not sure if it’s true. “Well, only the good kind.”

“No Kool-Aid showers?”

“And no lemonade bedsheets.” I smile, remembering one of my favorite pranks of all time.

“That’s one of the few times I was actually pissed at you. No pun intended. But that was truly twisted.”

I smile. “Yeah, but you love how twisted I am.”

“I think it’s more like I love you, and you just happen to be twisted.”

I lay my hand in the space between us on the dock. “Cease-fire?”

Asher laces his fingers through mine, and twists toward me, his face so close I know he’s going to kiss me. So close I can feel his warm breath on my cheek when he says, “Truce.”

EPILOGUE

THE NEXT SUMMER

Sidney

“How much do you hate me right now?”

Asher shakes his head against the blanket, and I don’t have to see his face to know he’s annoyed. He hates when I ask him that, when I tease him about how horrible we used to be to each other. I poke him in the side with my elbow and then prop myself up on it so I can look at him. He’s wearing an OAKWOOD SWIMMING T-shirt and his pajama pants. Even in the middle of summer it’s a little chilly at 4 a.m., so the blanket laid out under us also wraps up around our legs. Overhead, the Perseids rain down in tiny bursts of light. This is the most we’ve ever seen, the latest we’ve ever been out. It’s the peak of the shower and our last count was one hundred and four. Of course, we can never know if we’re seeing the same meteor at the same time, so we won’t be turning our numbers in to NASA or anything.

“Okay, how much do you like me right now?”

He raises his eyebrows at me and I know what he wants.

I smile, and lean down to his ear, resting my face there when I do. “How much do you love me right now?” I don’t mean for it to be a whisper, but out in the dark it’s hard to do anything but.

He looks at me and smiles. “It’s hard to quantify.”

“Try.”

He turns his face from the sky to me. “More than all of the stars…” His lips touch mine, gently and quickly; it’s not our first kiss or our hundredth, and it’s certainly not our last. “And then some.”