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She laughed wildly. I could tell she was shocked and frightfully pleased that I even got the reference.
“It suddenly doesn’t sound as romantic as I meant it to sound but it would explain the lightning bolt feeling.”
“You’re ridiculous," I teased.
“I’m only kidding, but still, it can be our own private joke," she said, beaming.
“Already we’ve got an inside joke? Don’t you think that’s a big step? Aren’t inside jokes for people with labels? We’re not even friends.”
I had only said that because of what she had said at lunch.
“We aren’t?” She asked pleadingly.
I didn’t know what I was doing. I had forgotten how to be a man.
Forget parameters, I thought to myself. Forget lunch. Tell her what you want.
“No Jules. We aren’t friends but that’s going to change, because we’re going to start dating.”
A little too forceful.
“If that’s okay with you?” I amended.
She looked pleased, but I couldn’t tell for sure.
“Elliott Gray. I’ve never met anyone like you. You’re nothing like I’d thought you’d be. How you appear to others is not what I see in your heart. You’re well liked at school, but you don’t seem to care. You’re the starting quarterback, and from what I’ve heard your phenomenal, but you don’t seem to be bothered to even talk about it. You’re an enigma.”
“Oh that,” I said, clearing my throat. “I do that for my pop. Don’t get me wrong, I like playing. I mean, it’s fun and all, but he wants me to play college and frankly I haven’t figured out a way to break it to him that I won’t be doing that.”
At that moment, Thatcher’s door opened up and let a tiny gust of wind in. The wind carried itself throughout the diner, caught Julia’s perfume and sent it through my nostrils. It assaulted me, and again, I forgot what we had been talking about. It tasted of honeysuckle and citrus and it was intoxicating. I almost shot up, snatched her hand, and dragged her from that booth. I didn’t know what I was going to do then, but I can tell you this, if the food hadn’t come to free me from the thought I would have seized her with everything I had in front of Thatcher and the whole inane town.
Thatcher tossed everything down and slumped away. It was hot so we let it cool for a moment or maybe we were just too excited to eat.
“Let me try something,” she said.
She reached out her hand, her palm facing me and waited for mine. I reached up my own hand and met it with hers. The voltaic strike punched through us but neither of us pulled away, darkening the diner around our booth. A hot heat built between our palms and our breathing got heavier and deeper as the charge trembled through us. I had to pull my hand away just to keep my sanity about me.
“That’s an amazing feeling, isn’t it?" She asked.
“It’s unfathomable,” I said.
“What is it?” She asked bluntly.
Asking the very question I had wanted answered since day one.
“I’m not sure and to be honest with you, I’m starting to think I don’t care.”
That surprised even me.
“You don’t?”
“Nope,” I realized, “It doesn’t matter to me. It’s ours and that’s all that concerns me. I don’t want to have to find an explanation for it. I sort of like that it’s beyond our comprehension, like it’s not meant to be defined.”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” she teased.
We ate our food and pushed our plates to the side. We drank about seven Dr. Peppers a piece, just to have an excuse to talk, until Thatcher’s closed. He had to kick us out. We hadn’t even noticed that everyone else had left, probably hours before. I decided to drive Julia to her house down the street because I didn’t feel right having her drive her own car from the school at nine o’clock at night by herself. Her dad would have killed me. Also, I had an ulterior motive, I wanted to be with her as long as possible the next day and I promised to pick her up for school the next morning.
“So, you think you’re going to London for spring break this year? With Mr. Cray’s English class?”
