Never Always Sometimes - Adi Alsaid Page 0,25
he’d considered himself a romantic, an advocate of love, of
people getting tangled up in each other. He liked hearing about
people hooking up because it was just more evidence of human
chemistry, that sparks occurred and brought two people together, if
only for a moment. But because he’d only ever loved Julia, and only
ever in that particular way that he loved her, he’d never experienced
getting tangled up firsthand.
He’d kissed exactly one girl in his life: his cousin’s friend sophomore
year when he’d gone to Fresno for a family reunion. That kiss had
happened only because the girl was deceptively quick and, despite her
awkwardness, had aimed really well when she’d nosedived at Dave’s
lips. It’d been a strange first kiss for someone who’d romanticized them for so long, and Dave had fled as soon as he could. Since then there’d
only been the constant longing for Julia. He’d never pursued anyone
else because there wasn’t anyone who could ever pull his interest away
from her. In the process, he’d missed out on a lot of normal high
school experiences, clichés that even Julia hadn’t avoided: crushes;
first kisses; the slow, stumbling, eager approach to sex, with various
successes or failures. He’d reserved all of it for Julia, never admitting to himself that it might not come. Rather, never admitting to himself
that it wouldn’t, that Julia loved him in a completely different, yet
faultless, way. That she loved him, she always had, just in a way that
shouldn’t be interfered with.
Maybe, finally, it was time to pursue. He pulled his phone out and
went to his contact list. At the Kapoor party, Gretchen had grabbed
his phone and entered her name as Section 16520 of the Family Code.
He clicked on her name and went to the message screen. Nothing had
been said yet between them, and it was a little intimidating to know
where to start. Just hi? Ask her out? A knock-knock joke? He held
his thumbs over the keyboard, waiting for something to sound right
in his head. Then he realized he’d been ignoring Brett and Julia for a
long time and resolved to text Gretchen later that night.
“Look, I’m all for blowing shit up,” Brett was saying, sprinkling, as
usual, way too much Parmesan cheese on another slice of pepperoni-
and-mushroom pizza, “and to be honest I didn’t think an artsy girl
like you would have such a badass idea. But the prom committee
would probably disqualify you for it.”
“There’s a prom committee? People care that much?”
“Says the girl who’s buying me pizza in order to get her friend
voted onto the ballot.”
88 NEVER ALWAYS SOMETIMES
“Oh, I’m sorry, did I offend the Man Formerly Known as Prom
King by implying that prom is not important enough to necessitate a
committee? And I can repeat all of that in monosyllables, if you like.”
“Don’t use a five-dollar when a fifty-cent word will do. Your boy
Mark Twain said that.” Brett was only a couple of years older than
Dave, and though he sometimes acted like he was still twelve, he
looked much more grown-up, his features aged by all the time he
spent in the sun during his construction jobs, by losing his mom at
eleven and having to look after his little brother.
“Shit, that was actually a good one.” Julia tossed her napkin at
Brett.
“What ballot?” Dave asked.
“Welcome to the conversation,” Julia said, breaking off a piece
of crust and dipping it in her side order of marinara sauce. “The
campaign isn’t actually for prom king; it’s just to get voted onto the
ballot. That vote is in April. Then people vote for prom king from the
four or five people on the ballot at the prom.”
“If you wanted Dave to be prom king, you should have tried talking
to other people for the last four years. People vote their friends onto
the ballot, so the people with the most friends get on. Dave has one
friend.”
“But she’s such a great friend!” Julia cried out.
“Hey, I have more than one friend.”
“Like who?” They both said at the same time.
“Jinx!” Julia cried out.
DAVE 89
“No one plays jinx anymore,” Brett scoffed. Julia stuck her tongue
at him. “You owe me a bibliography citing your sources. People
definitely still play jinx. Oh, and by the way, no one ‘plays’ jinx. They adhere to the unmalleable rules of jinx, much like they do gravity.”
Brett rolled his eyes, though a smile remained. Sometimes, he and
Julia joked around as easily as she and Dave did, though mostly they
were the butt of each other’s jokes. “The point is, if you guys really
want this to happen—and I’m still having trouble understanding
why you’re all of a sudden interested in prom—you have to either
make a ton of friends, or do something memorable that’ll