Page 190

“But you’ll be there in the spring,” I say fast before I think.

“Yeah. Spring’s paid for.”

Spring. Okay. Spring is January through May. Spring is three doors down for five more months. I can breathe in spring.

It’s the fall that sits there, after it.

“Your mom’s amazing,” she says. “She told me what you guys do for Christmas. Church on Christmas Eve, and the party at the Fishers’, and cinnamon rolls in the morning and nobody’s allowed to open anything until your dad’s had his coffee.” She almost smiles. “It sounds fun.”

“She always has a plan,” I say.

She looks at me for a second. Still against the door.

“Did something happen at Palinski’s?”

“Yeah.”

“What?”

“You weren’t there.”

She goes still. And I stand there with it out. It sounds like a fact. It’s a confession.

“Palinski asked where you were,” I say, too fast, like that’s going to cover it.

“What’d you say?”

“That you were home.”

“Did you tell him I’m staying here?”

“No.”

She nods. Something in her shoulders comes down an inch.

“I’ll come next time,” she says.

“You don’t have to.”

And I mean it. I don’t want her coming to a frozen lake because she thinks I want her there. I want her there because she wants to be there. That’s different.

“I know,” she says.

We stand there. Her against the door. Me in the middle of my room, still half out of my hoodie, with the cold coming off me and my hair wet and my heart going like I’m still out on the ice. And if I stand here much longer, with her this close and the door closed, I’m going to do something.

“I have a question,” I say.

She waits.

“You can say no.”

Her eyebrows come together a little. She’s heard me say that once before. In a text, at seven in the morning, the day before Thanksgiving.

“Do you want to go get dinner tonight?” I ask.

She blinks. “Dinner?”

I nod. “Before everything closes for Christmas.”