Never Always Sometimes - Adi Alsaid Page 0,22
parties.” She reached out her hand and brushed
DAVE 77
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.”
78 NEVER ALWAYS SOMETIMES
“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.
DAVE 79
VIRAL
“IN ALL THE years you’ve known me, have I ever even hinted at the
possibility that I could perform a double backflip off the roof and
land safely on my feet?”
“There’ve been some hints.”
“No, Julia.”
“Well, I don’t hear you coming up with any ideas, baldy. All we
have right now is ‘Hi, I’m Dave Gutierrez,’ which isn’t even your real
name. If we don’t add some excitement, this promotional video is only
going to promote how uninteresting you are.”
“That hurt,” Dave said, plopping down on his bed. “Why don’t we
just make some really badass posters?”
“You know I didn’t mean it like that. And there’s no such thing as
badass posters. A poster’s not gonna win you the crown. The people
want sexy viral videos, and sexy viral videos we will give them.”
Dave picked up a little stuffed soccer ball that he’d had since he
was little and had never thrown away because his mom had gotten
it for him. He tossed it up a few times, trying to get it to graze the
ceiling. “Why don’t we switch? You run for prom queen and I’ll try to
seduce a teacher.”
“You’re not stealing Marroney away from me.” Julia took a
seat at Dave’s desk and searched the Internet for some more prom
king campaign videos. “So far, the basic trend I’m seeing here is a
halfhearted attempt at being funny and low production value. Pop
culture references, pop music, friends that are really bad actors. The
occasional ‘cool’ teacher cameo and school inside