Never Always Sometimes - Adi Alsaid Page 0,11
looked beautiful. Julia’s arms were crossed in front of her chest, her jaw tense. He tried to read her silence, just how angry she was at
him. But the booze was interfering, making his mind return to the
wonders of street lighting at three A.M. Feeling guilty, Dave cast his
eyes down at his shoes.
DAVE 43
“Well, don’t look so freakin’ glum,” Julia said, rolling her eyes when
he looked up. “Come on, let’s go have coffee at the diner.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Julia said. “If you buy me a slice of pie, all is forgiven. We
still have to exchange stories from the night.”
Dave thought of Gretchen, the strange appeal of those crooked
teeth. It felt weird to bring her up, though; he’d never talked to Julia about girls. She’d talked to him about the few guys she’d fleetingly
dated, and had on occasion tried to pry out from him some admittance
of a crush on anyone. But for obvious reasons he’d always said there
was no one he was interested in. Bringing it up now felt somehow
wrong. Plus “a girl and I talked for a while” was not much of a story,
so the next thing that came to mind was the flip-cup tournament.
He chuckled to himself, though a distinct feeling of shame goose-
bumped up his arms. “Embarrassing is good, right? We were here to
fit in in an almost gross way?”
“Oh God, what’d you do?”
“Let’s say I really embraced the spirit of the Kapoor party.”
“Eww, Dave, did you buy a polo shirt? I’m going to have to cut you
out of my life, aren’t I?”
Dave put his hands in his pockets, turning the corner toward
the street where the diner stood, lit up against all the darkened
storefronts. “I don’t think I’m ready for that,” Dave said, adding a
chuckle.
44 NEVER ALWAYS SOMETIMES
HOMEROOM
& HAPPY HOUR
THERE WAS NO greater proof of an underlying human connection
than the universal hatred of Monday mornings. Everyone wore it
on their faces: students with hair sticking out in every direction, as
if trying to get away. Teachers sat at their desks scowling at their
lesson plans. The principal looked as if he was suffering a nervous
breakdown. The halls were practically an obstacle course with people
lying down with their legs sprawled out, backpacks tossed in front of
their lockers as pillows.
Dave had slept in most of the day Saturday and then stayed up
on Sunday night supposedly trying to do homework, but really just
rebelling against the thought that they were still assigning homework
to seniors in March. He’d gotten into college—couldn’t they just
accept that he’d succeeded at this whole high school thing and leave
him alone?
He’d slept less than four hours, and when Ms. Romero took
attendance in homeroom, saying “here” physically hurt. Julia arrived
a couple of minutes late, her earphones still in, a yellow tardy sheet
from the office in hand. She hadn’t bothered to change out of her
pajama pants, and her hastily combed hair made Dave think of what
it would be like to wake up next to her. She gave the tardy slip to Ms.
Romero wordlessly and then plopped down next to Dave, pulling one
of the earphones out and handing it over, as per tradition.
Julia hated talking in the mornings, and so Dave knew to listen to
the music until she was ready. Neko Case crooned beautifully for a
while as Ms. Romero struggled to put the morning’s announcements
up on the projector. This was how to combat the awfulness of Monday
mornings. The PA went off, but no one cared to listen. A succession
of yawns made its way across the room, knocking a couple of heads
down to rest on their desks.
“I’ll be right back,” Ms. Romero said, at which point the silence
in the room started coming apart. Bouts of isolated whispering grew
into all-out conversations that filled the room.
Neko Case’s voice stopped abruptly, and Dave heard Julia’s sandals
fall to the floor. He kept the muted earphone in, always happy to be
tied together to her.
“How was Carmel?” Dave asked. She’d left early Saturday morning
with her dads to go visit her grandparents, returning on Sunday when
Dave was knee-deep in unjust homework assignments.
“Pretty. It’s always pretty.” She put her arms on her desk and
lowered her head down, looking up at Dave with tired eyes. “I was
thinking more about the party.”
Dave raised an eyebrow at her. At the diner after the party, Julia
had told him about her misadventures while they were split: a couple
of guys’ awful attempts to make out with her, their worse attempts
46 NEVER ALWAYS SOMETIMES
at interesting conversation. She’d ended up playing video games in
the basement with a group of juniors—stoner clichés that she hadn’t
expected to run into at the party, but clichés nonetheless. They’d
joked about