Never Always Sometimes - Adi Alsaid Page 0,42

matter how much

time you spent with it, it was not enough. An hour passed by without

Dave really noticing. The fog reached across the highway like arms

looking for an embrace, then it would slowly pull away and reveal the

glimmer of the ocean, the brown-green facade of the cliffs. Just as the

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air was turning colder, Julia turned down the music, looking over at

Dave with a raised eyebrow.

“What do you say about crossing another Never off the list?” She

looked ahead at the curving highway.

She was talking about number nine, the epic road trip. He pictured

them skipping class the rest of the week, going up as far as Seattle,

returning down the coastline slowly, sleeping on the beach, hiking

through Big Sur, roaming the streets of San Francisco and Portland,

enjoying the many aesthetic beauties of their part of the world while

everyone else was stuck at school. He thought about Gretchen ringing

the doorbell at his house and his dad telling her that Dave wasn’t home.

“Not yet,” he said. “This chemistry project is pretty important and

it’s not the best week for a life-changing road trip.”

“I like how you said, ‘yet.’ But I wasn’t thinking road trip. I was

thinking I’ll host a ‘BEER’ party in celebration of your prom king

campaign success. The dads are out of town next weekend and I feel

like being irresponsible. What do you say?”

Dave stuck his hand out the window, making waves in the air,

pretending to think it over. “I don’t know, maybe. I am a prom king candidate now; I’ve got a lot on my plate. Press junkets, galas, charity balls.”

Julia reached over and poked him in the stomach. “Goof.”

They drove on for another half hour before turning back around.

Julia turned down the music for their return journey as they planned

out the party, most of it jokingly, lots of talk of explosions and celebrity 140 NEVER ALWAYS SOMETIMES

DJs. The closer they got to San Luis Obispo, the more butterflies Dave

was feeling in his stomach. He kept looking at his cell phone for the

time, calculating how long it would take them to get back.

Julia dropped him off at home at a quarter to seven. Dave thought

he might take a shower, then worried Gretchen would show up as

he was in the bathroom, or that it would seem too obvious that he

showered just for her arrival. Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing, showering

specifically for her. It pointed to a certain thoughtfulness. Or maybe it showed he was trying too hard. Or maybe it would just point to him

being insecure about his body odor, which wasn’t attractive. Or maybe

it implied he thought she would get close enough to smell him, and

what if she didn’t actually want to get close to him at all? In the end, Dave stood by his bathroom door, lost in thought, vacillating between

lines of reasoning until the moment the doorbell put an end to the

debate in his head.

He yelled out, “I’ve got it!” then ran down the stairs, taking a deep

breath at the foot of the stairs to settle his breathing, simultaneously realizing that he’d just lived out the girl-coming-over-to-study cliché

he’d seen in countless sitcoms. He laughed, caught his breath again,

then opened the door.

“Oh, you look nice,” were the first words out of his mouth. He

hadn’t planned for that, not this time. They’d just kind of slipped out, like a liquid spilling out of a bottle.

Gretchen blushed and turned her eyes down, smiling. “Hi,” she said

after a while.

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“Sorry,” Dave said. “I just . . . sorry.” He opened the door and stepped aside to let her in. “Hi.”

She entered the house, her backpack slung over her shoulder, the

smell of honey in her wake. “It’s okay,” she said. “I haven’t showered

today, so the compliment feels especially good.” She took a quick look

around, poking her head into the living room, where Dave’s dad was

watching a basketball game. “Hi,” she called out. “I’m Gretchen.”

Dave’s dad looked away from the TV and then stood up quickly,

surprised by Gretchen’s presence. Dave expected him to shake her

hand and mumble a hello before returning to his spot on the couch,

but instead he introduced himself warmly, lingering by the entrance

to the living room, not looking like he wanted to escape back to the

TV. He was polite and smiley, just like Dave remembered him being

years ago. Dave had thought that part of his dad had disappeared. But

maybe he was different when he wasn’t around Dave and Brett. Maybe

at work, with friends, he’d gone back to being himself, able to escape

the quiet grief he couldn’t seem to shake around his sons.

“Well, I’ll