more alive than I ever expected to feel with a boy who was just a friend, only a friend.
Dean reaches out toward my underwear and I pull away from him.
“Let me get a condom.” I sit up, feeling light-headed at the rush of it, and bend over to find my purse.
“You brought a condom?” he asks.
I reach into my purse and rummage around, cursing myself for not cleaning the junk out of it before I took it to prom. It’s still littered with old tissues, gum wrappers, and ticket stubs from movies I went to see months ago, and somehow the condom has gotten lost in the mess.
“If you can’t find it, no biggie,” Dean says. “I’ve got a bunch.”
“I’ve got it.” I dump the purse upside down onto the bed, and everything tumbles out, a tube of lipstick that my mom made me bring, my phone, a cracked pair of sunglasses, and the little square wrapper. I reach out for it but my hand stops on something else—a white cardboard square, rough around the edges. I flip it over and my breath hitches. It’s a card, one I don’t remember getting, one I must have been carrying around in my bag and never noticed. It has a Ninja Turtle drawn on it in Sharpie, a bunch of silly cartoon hearts. And then, in Andrew’s scratchy writing: Happy Birthday. I love you more than pizza.
It’s just like the valentine he sent to Danielle so many years ago, back in middle school. The one she didn’t understand. What is this doing here? When did he slip it into my bag? Why hasn’t he said anything? Did he make this for me?
“Did you find it?” Dean asks, coming up behind me and resting his head on my shoulder. “What are you looking at?”
“It’s nothing,” I say, closing my hand around the card. I don’t want him to see it, because even if I don’t understand it, it’s wonderful and private and mine.
I love you more than pizza.
It doesn’t add up—none of it makes sense. Danielle doesn’t like Ninja Turtles, or pizza, or climbing trees, or riding her bike. She doesn’t like skating on the lake in the winter, sledding down the big hill at turbo speed. She’s not the one Andrew calls when he’s upset, not the one he lies with in the hammock in his backyard, looking up at the stars. Maybe she’s the one he kissed at a New Year’s party, but she’s not the one he made sure to spend the night with, not the one whose room he ended up in. The pieces don’t fit. I can’t forget the way he looked at me when he told me he was in love, the way he held my hand, how I thought for that brief moment that maybe he was going to say my name.
“I have to go,” I say, stuffing everything back into my bag. I stand up and step into the circle that my dress has made on the floor, pulling it up and over me so quickly that I’m already dressed before Dean makes a move to stop me. If there’s a chance—if there’s one small chance Andrew could love me back, how can I possibly go through tonight without finding out?
“What the fuck?” Dean says, springing off the bed.
“I have to go,” I repeat, heading toward the door.
“You can’t just leave,” he says. “You promised.”
“Well, I changed my mind,” I say.
“You can’t do that,” he says.
“Actually,” I say, hand on the doorknob, “I can do whatever the hell I want.”
“That’s bullshit,” he says.
“This whole thing is bullshit,” I say, the truth of it making me laugh. “You and your pretentious shirts, and your motorcycle, and your movie references. It’s like you’re not even a real person. You’re just trying so hard to be this cool guy. Well, I don’t want someone cool! I want . . .” I think back to what Hannah said to me in the dressing room. “I want someone whose weirdness matches my weirdness!” I throw open the door and then stop suddenly, filled with the need to tell him the