jumps off her spot on the couch and runs to the door, so I know I’m not imagining it. The bell rings again. And again. And again.
“Answer the door, Hal,” Ollie says, elbows currently deep in dirty dishwater. “Please make it stop.”
My phone vibrates in my pocket.
Nash Kim
Open the door, Upstate
9:01 PM
I stare at the text, processing.
Nash is here? But we’re still stewing in our awkward. I can’t answer the door. I don’t know how to be around him. I don’t know how to think around him. Especially now that he’s been texting Kels not just check-ins but actual worries about me, asking if I’m mad at him—for going to the dance with me? Almost as if I’m—Kels—is jealous? And I hate that. I hate that he thinks I’m mad at him about myself. I hate that this has all spiraled so far.
Mostly, I hate that he wants me—Kels—to be jealous.
The doorbell keeps ringing.
“Hal!” Gramps yells from upstairs. “Nash’s car is in the driveway.”
“Ollie’s getting it!” I yell up to Gramps.
“No, I’m not,” Ollie says, drying his hands with a paper towel.
“Can you tell him I’m not home?” I ask.
Ollie shakes his head. “It’s Chanukah, Hal. Absolutely not.”
I inhale a nervous breath. “Okay. I’ll get it. Can you, like, stay out of sight?”
“Ouch.” He clutches his hand to his heart.
“If you’re going to eavesdrop, at least be stealth about it.”
“You got it,” Ollie says.
I exit the kitchen and walk through the living room to the front door. I reread the text five times before I’m brave enough to open it.
“Hi,” Nash says, holding out a small gift bag. “Happy Chanukah.”
“Hey,” I say.
I don’t know what else to say, so I take the bag and hold the door open for Nash to come inside. Less because I want him to, and more because it’s too cold outside to join him. Nash follows me into the living room, and we sit in on the couch. Neither one of us knows what to say.
“Are you going to open it?” he asks.
“Oh. Right.”
I remove the tissue paper to uncover a wrapped box sitting at the bottom of the bag.
“You are not that guy,” I say.
“Oh, I am totally that guy.”
Inside the box is, oh wow—an embroidery hoop. I live for this crafty stuff. Grams tried to teach me embroidery when I was younger, but she just ended up finishing all of my hoops for me. In the center of this hoop—it’s a Nash original drawing. There’s no mistaking it. It’s a girl with long hair, her face hidden by the book she is reading. The muslin fabric is tie-dyed purple around the Book Girl, only she is not colored in.
It’s beautiful.
“I saw that you had a few when we were painting your room. I drew it—and sent the sketch to one of my blog friends who has an Etsy. I know things have been weird since, well—”
“I love it,” I say. “Thank you.”
Nash relaxes. “Really? Cool.”
“Really,” I say.
It’s such a small detail in my life, such a Grams detail. I can’t believe he noticed. I can’t believe he drew something for me. It’s another complication, another check in the Nash is wonderful box and an X in the Halle is trash one.
I have no clue what this means.
“Can we talk?” Nash asks. “I’m really sorry—”
I cut Nash off. “I don’t want to be awkward anymore.”
Kels is on hiatus, while I am processing the reality that IRL, Nash and me are temporary. That’s the truth, isn’t it? I’m frozen in type because there is no way to spin this story where Nash won’t see me as a huge liar. If I can’t talk to him as Kels and things are going to blow up anyway, I think I’d rather enjoy these next few months being not awkward with Nash, as Halle, before we go down in flames.
“Me either,” Nash says, relieved.
“Let’s stop being awkward,” I say.
“Yes. Okay. Good plan,” Nash says.
We shake on it. To not being awkward anymore. I mean, awkward is an inherent part of the Halle genome. I will never be Not Awkward—only incremental amounts of Less Awkward. And before I went off in Book Land, romanticizing sunrises and creating A Thing out of nothing, I was at my Least Awkward around Nash.
Even if it’s temporary, I want to get back to that.
Since we’re now officially Not Awkward, I pop open a bag of Smartfood and we catch up. Scout is curled up in ball on the couch cushion between us.