Never Always Sometimes - Adi Alsaid Page 0,32

chips in his hand. The tree house was packed, people on

every stool and sprawled out on the floor, making use of the pillows.

Underclassmen gazed up with wonder, peering like tourists drawn in

by a crowd, wondering what they were missing out on.

As it turned out, Gretchen and Vince were friends, and when

Dave took the seat that Vince had reserved for him, Gretchen was

only two stools away. Vince and a few others kept talking about what

a cool thing Dave and Julia had done, but Dave could barely focus on

what they were saying. He and Gretchen kept exchanging looks so

obviously that it was a shock no one called them out on it.

He chatted amicably with everyone around, even laughed a little

with Vince, who was all the time proving himself to be nicer than

Dave had ever given him credit for. That other clichéd football-player

108 NEVER ALWAYS SOMETIMES

side of him that Dave assumed existed never made an appearance. But

at one point he decided there was only one person he really wanted

to talk to, and when the girl sitting next to Gretchen stood up, he

immediately moved over.

“How was your weekend?”

“Not quite as constructive as yours,” Gretchen said, plopping a

piece of papaya into her mouth with a smile.

“I see what you did there.”

“I’ve been thinking of it for, like, six whole minutes.”

Dave laughed, leaning into her shoulder with a nudge. “Come on,

how was your weekend?”

Gretchen chewed thoughtfully for a while. “Not too shabby. I

think some weekends feel wasted if you don’t have a ton of fun, and

some feel wasted if you don’t have a ton of sleep, and I did a solid

amount of both.”

“What did you do for fun?”

“I slept,” Gretchen said, picking out another piece of fruit from her

Tupperware.

“You are on a roll today.”

“I think you bring it out of me,” Gretchen said with a shrug,

pushing the Tupperware in his direction to offer him a piece. He

reached his fingers in for a piece of pineapple, feeling a little cheesy in longing for their hands to brush against each other.

When the bell rang and lunch was over, Dave and Gretchen

separated themselves from the group. It happened almost

DAVE 109

magnetically, the two of them drifting off from the rest, keeping pace

only with each other.

“So,” Gretchen said, hoisting a binder to her chest the way nerdy

kids in movies did, “you built a tree house.”

“I had some help.” Dave shrugged.

“Still, pretty cool. Was it your idea?”

“Inspired by a desire for us to have our own lunch spot,” he said,

aware that he’d purposely avoided saying Julia’s name but not sure

why. “But yes, my idea.”

“I wonder what your grandkids will feel when they read about you

in history books.”

“An immense and prideful love, obviously.”

They walked down the tree house stairs slowly, in no rush to make it

to class before the bell rang. Other kids gathered their belongings and

prepared for that last, brutal stretch of classes before the day broke

free. Some were looking in Dave’s direction, smiling, or whispering,

or just staring for a moment before walking away. Dave wasn’t sure

he’d ever get used to eyes turning to look at him, but it no longer felt like it had never happened before.

When they reached the building, Dave put his hand on the door to

open it for Gretchen, but hesitated for a second. He met her eyes and

the words simply escaped him in a way he didn’t fully understand,

like the drops of rain suddenly becoming too heavy and breaking free

from a cloud after staying together for so long. “Do you want to see

my favorite bench in the world?”

110 NEVER ALWAYS SOMETIMES

Gretchen smiled but said nothing for a second, as if she wanted the

words to soak in. Nicky Marquez passed between the two of them,

looking at his phone and unaware of what he was stepping through.

When he opened the door, Dave’s eyes glanced into the hallway, and

he saw Julia rubbing the sleep from her eyes, walking his direction.

“Let’s go, David Bro Bronofsky. Two more classes and then we’re free.”

“Friday,” Dave added quietly. “We’ll have some coffee on my

favorite bench in the world.”

“Yes,” Gretchen said, nodding. “I’d like that.”

DAVE 111

DATE

DAVE CHECKED HIS phone and slid it back in his pocket for the

tenth time in the last thirty seconds or so. He was sitting on his

bench at Morro Bay, trying to avoid looking around frantically for

any sight of Gretchen. When she showed up, he wanted her to see

him first, sitting calmly with his legs stretched out in front of him, his hands folded on his stomach, a content smile on his face that showed

he saw joy in the world, even