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lan exactly when we’ll get there. I just need to know it’s there for us to get to.
“How many days do you think we could skip school before we’d get in trouble?” I ask. “I mean, if we’re there in the morning, do you think they’d really notice if we’re gone in the afternoon?”
“I think they’d catch us,” he says.
“Maybe once a week? Once a month? Starting tomorrow?”
I figure he’ll laugh at that, but instead he looks bothered. Not by me, but by the fact that he can’t say yes. A lot of the time I take his sadness in a bad way. Now I almost take it in a good way, a sign that the day has meant as much to him as it has for me.
“Even if we can’t do this, I’ll see you at lunch?” I ask.
He nods.
“And maybe we can do something after school?”
“I think so,” he says. “I mean, I’m not sure what else is going on. My mind isn’t really there right now.”
Plans. Maybe he’s right—maybe I always try to tie him up instead of letting things happen. “Fair enough,” I say. “Tomorrow is tomorrow. Let’s end today on a nice note.”
One last song. One last turn. One last street. No matter how hard you try to keep hold of a day, it’s going to leave you.
“Here we are,” I say when we get to my house.
Let’s make it always like this, I want to say to him.
He pulls the car over. He unlocks the doors.
End it on a nice note, I think, as much to myself as to him. It’s so natural to drag a good thing down. It takes a lot of control to let it be what it is.
I kiss him goodbye. I kiss him with everything, and he responds with everything. The day surrounds us. It passes through us, between us.
“That’s the nice note,” I tell him when it’s through. And before we can say anything else, I leave.
—
Later that night, right before sleep, he calls me. I never get calls from him—he always texts. If he wants to let me know something, he lets me know, but he rarely wants to talk about it.
“Hey!” I answer, a little sleepy but mostly happy.
“Hey,” he says.
“Thank you again for today,” I tell him immediately.
“Yeah,” he says. Something’s a little bit off in his voice. Something has slipped. “But about today?”
Now I’m not happy or sleepy. I’m wide awake. I decide to make a joke.
I say, “Are you going to tell me that we can’t cut class every day? That’s not like you.”
“Yeah,” he replies, “but, you know, I don’t want you to think every day is going to be like today. Because they’re not going to be, alright? They can’t be.”
It’s almost like he’s talking to himself.
“I know that,” I tell him. “But maybe things can still be better. I know they can be.”
“I don’t know. That’s all I wanted to say. I don’t know. Today was something, but it’s not, like, everything.”
“I know that.”
