Never Always Sometimes - Adi Alsaid Page 0,85

between them. She thought of his hands,

thought of Gretchen. Then Marroney spoke. “Human beings are

more or less formulas. Pun intended. We are not any one thing that

is mathematically provable. We are more more or less than we are anything.” He massaged his mustache for a second. “We are more or

less kind, or more or less not. More or less selfish, happy, wise, lonely.

Just like things are rarely always true or never true, we aren’t ever

exactly one thing or another. We are more or less.

“It’s like that in our love lives, too. We like to think we’re formulas

that even out exactly, that we are perfect matches with each other. But

we’re not. We match up with lots of people, more or less.”

Julia groaned. “That’s deep, but how is that helpful?”

Marroney laughed, just as the bell rang, the sound muted by the tree

house walls but still an insistent cue to leave. Julia stood up, brushed herself off as Marroney uncapped his pen. “The equation might not

balance out, even if you and Dave are more or less a match.” He gave

her a smile, then turned back to his papers. “Think about it.”

School let out and Julia had not listened to music since the morning.

All day long, she’d been turning over Marroney’s words. She’d written

DAVE & JULIA 285

down formulas in her notebook that made no sense, even to herself.

She’d crossed out her writing and torn the pages out and then gone

searching for the crumpled sheets in her classroom’s trash bins, only

to toss them again. By lunch, though she kept trying to organize her

thoughts, she knew exactly what she was going to do.

She gave herself the last two periods of the day to think it over. She

repeated the phrase “more or less” so many times to herself that the

meaning attached to the sounds was starting to fall apart. She read her

mom’s e-mail fully, then deleted it without a response.

When school let out, she searched the crowd for a blond ponytail.

She spotted Gretchen headed toward the exit, a black backpack

bouncing on her shoulders. Julia squeezed past the crowd of slow

movers, saying, “Excuse me,” and immediately pushing through the

oblivious groupings of people blocking the hallways. Before she could

second-guess what she was doing, she found herself walking right

behind Gretchen. She needed to say what she had to say before she

lost her conviction to do what was right.

When Gretchen turned around, Julia knew right away that she was

getting exactly as much (or as little) sleep as Julia was.

“He’s yours,” Julia said, unable to stop herself. Despite the pain at

the sound of the words, there was an enormous relief. “I don’t want to

give him up. But I know him better than anyone else. I could have had

him, once. I almost did for a little while. But you have him now. No

matter how I feel, he wants you.”

Gretchen’s mouth opened slightly. Dozens of people passed by

286 NEVER ALWAYS SOMETIMES

them, oblivious to the conversation. Julia wondered where Dave was,

what he was thinking or doing or hoping. She missed the sound of his

laugh, though it’d only been a few days since she’d felt him do it right against the side of her neck, the warm exhalations turning into a series of kisses that had seemed endless at the time. “You two are the better

equation.”

DAVE & JULIA 287

CEILINGS

IT WAS THURSDAY evening, and Dave was watching the typical

crowd at the harbor. Road trippers on their way to San Francisco or

L.A. stopping for some pictures of the bay, twentysomething couples

sitting at the coffee shop, families taking strolls. Some surfers were

getting changed out of their wet suits, their boards, gleaming with salt water and wax, propped up against the sides of their cars. Dave could

barely people-watch without thinking of how often he’d done this

with Julia, how many hours they’d spent on the bench just watching

the crowds pass by. He’d pretend to look at something happening in

her direction so that she’d be in his sight. Sometimes he’d count to see how long he could go without looking at her, the game always losing

steam after about fifteen seconds, when he couldn’t keep himself from

it any longer.

He couldn’t remember the exact moment he’d fallen in love with

Julia, but it had probably happened on that bench. It would have been

easier if he had chosen to go somewhere else, somewhere that wasn’t

dripping with memories. Except San Luis Obispo was small and if

he and Julia hadn’t been to a place a thousand times throughout the

last five years, then he and Gretchen had passed by it in her car while

GPS-drawing in the past couple of