“I’m better now,” I said. And I was. Mostly.
But that evening, as I did my hair, and put on mascara, and stepped gingerly into the dress, Cooper paced around, refusing to get dressed.
“I’m not sure this is a great idea,” Cooper said, while I was putting on my lipstick.
“What?”
“I kind of think maybe you need to take one more night to recover.”
“Are you kidding?” I said. “Ashley would never stand for that.”
“You still look pretty pink,” Cooper said.
“It’s fine,” I said. “The lights’ll be dimmed.”
“I’m not worried about what other people will see. I’m worried about how you’ll feel.”
I stepped out of the bathroom to frown at myself in the mirror.
“I’m serious,” Cooper said then.
“About what?” I asked, rotating to get a look at my profile.
“About how you should stay in tonight.”
I looked over. “I’m not staying in, Cooper. I wasted too much time today already.”
But I guess he was a little touchy. “You think today was a waste of time?”
“No,” I said. “But you have to admit I didn’t make any progress.”
Cooper was studying me. “I don’t know if you know this about yourself, but sometimes you get so focused on a goal that you kind of lose perspective on everything else.”
I did know that—but I hadn’t known thatCooperknew that.
“Like the time,” Cooper went on, “that you decided to paint your high school car hot pink—but you had the wrong kind of paint, and it wasn’t sticking, and it kept peeling off as it dried, but you just kept painting and painting and stayed up all night and then slept through your geometry test the next day?”
“Yeah, that… wasn’t great.”
“It was a disaster. And it was a disaster from five minutes in, by the way. But you just kept painting. It was like you’d decided you were paintingthatcarthatnight withthatpaint, and so you were locked in.”
He wasn’t wrong. This was kind of a thing with me.
“You have to be able to shift direction sometimes. It’s okay to change your mind.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to work in one of my earrings. “Great life advice. Thank you.”
“Are you listening?” Cooper asked.
“Of course,” I answered. I wasn’t, really.
“Then what am I saying?” Cooper asked.
“You’re saying,” I repeated back, “that if I’m too sunburned, I don’t have to go to this thing tonight.”
“Okay,” Cooper said.
“And also that it’s okay to change direction in life. And I don’t disagree.”
