Never Always Sometimes - Adi Alsaid Page 0,29
with your dads, I’d come hang out for a week or so.
Near the end of the school year.”
“Ooh! Are you going to be my prom date?”
“Easy tiger.” Julia’s mom laughed again. “I was thinking sometime
around graduation. I have no interest in going to the event itself,
because commencement speeches are the worst thing in the world.
But maybe the after-party. Do your dads let you party?”
“I let myself party.”
“How Beastie Boys of you. Good. E-mail me about dates and stuff
so I don’t forget, and I’ll keep in touch. Again, no promises. But I do
wanna see you. I gotta run, kiddo.”
“Okay,” Julia said. “Talk to you later.”
“Bye. Oh, and, Jules? That Nevers list? Awesome idea. Keep doing
that. No point in living a life less ordinary if you don’t know what the other side looks like.” With a flair for the dramatic, Julia’s mom cut
the call off. Julia shut her computer calmly, beaming.
DAVE 99
She was so excited they’d stayed up talking until two in the
morning, even though they had school the next day. The kind of
conversation that quickly deteriorated into laughter, conversation
that wasn’t really about anything other than the desire to not fall
asleep. Finally, during a lull in laughter, Dave had looked up and seen
Julia asleep peacefully.
He was sprawled out on the floor between Julia’s bed and her
window, barely covering himself up in the ratty sleeping bag that he
always used on their sleepovers. He was giving himself goose bumps
thinking about Gretchen, looking at her name on his phone. Behind
him, Julia was curled up near the edge of the bed, her face tucked
beneath the covers, one bare knee poking out from the sheets. She
was a sound sleeper, breathing so imperceptibly that after all these
years Dave still sometimes sat up, checking to make sure she was okay.
Debbie was curled up at Dave’s feet, and a sliver of the moon was
visible through a crack in the blinds. There was a stale smell to the
sleeping bag, a smell that had always been comforting because there
was only one place he ever smelled it. He used to fall asleep in this
spot on the floor fantasizing chastely that Julia would simply climb
off the bed and lay next to him, their noses and foreheads touching,
hands clasped together.
Now, free of those daydreams, Dave looked at his phone. The
message history between Dave and Gretchen was still completely
blank, but he finally knew what he wanted to say.
Hi, Gretchen. It’s Dave. I think you’re great, too.
100 NEVER ALWAYS SOMETIMES
TREE HOUSE
THE IDEA TO do another Never came to Dave one morning at the
same moment as he took his first bite of sugary breakfast cereal. He
hadn’t outgrown kids’ cereals, or the simple pleasure of playing the
games on the back of the box. It reminded him of his mom, truth
be told, the way she’d let him pick out which cereal he wanted when
they’d go grocery shopping together, the way she’d scowl as he slurped
the leftover milk and its swirls of artificial coloring. Some days were
like that still, everything a reminder. That no one ever brought her up
in his house didn’t mean she was absent. It was actually in the silences that he remembered her most often, and today his dad hadn’t spoken
a word, just poured himself a bowl of the same cereal.
Dave skipped the bus that morning and decided to walk to school,
and to do it slowly. It was a cool morning, and Dave had not brought
a sweater with him. But the cold felt good against his skin, maybe
because he felt liberated. Liberated to enjoy his best friend’s company, to enjoy the rest of the school year without having to always fret
about what to do with that love that had been festering for so long.
Gretchen had texted him back the next morning, and they’d been
talking ever since.
Before the Nevers, summer had felt like a far-off place, surrounded
by swamps of boredom that he’d have to lug his way through. But
now it felt more like a pleasant hike, with plenty of pretty views and
maybe some hot springs along the way. Okay, it was a little early
in the morning for similes, but Dave was now looking forward to
the last couple months of high school. The Nevers would be fun to
complete, especially if he didn’t have to worry about how things went
with Julia. Who knew how things would play out with Gretchen,
but there were possibilities there, more than he’d ever really had.
In the fall he’d be at UCLA and Julia would be nearby in Santa
Barbara and maybe by then his life would be entirely different.
He’d be dating Gretchen, or would have at least