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“It’s never too late. If the kids who don’t have enough make you sad, give more. It’s not like you’ll miss a few million, right?”
Slowly, he nods, pondering my words as our feet crunch over the gravel. The end of the park is approaching fast and I don’t want our moment to stop, to go back to bantering and being distant. I liked who we were in the park.
“If it’s never too late, why are you so sad too?”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Whatever’s going on with you. You can make it change too. If you believe I can change, you must believe anything can.”
That look is back on his face, the one where he’s studying me. I’m not sure that it’s in fascination though, not in the way I first thought. I think he might actually find me interesting, like for real.
I take a breath to try and make my leaping heart calm down.
“I wish more people could see you like this,” I say, deflecting. I know he’s just been so open with me, but Mariana is still such an open wound that I don’t even know the words to explain it.
“What, fully clothed?”
He grins and I bump him with my elbow. “No, idiot. I mean, I wish they could see that you aren’t the dumb jock you pretend to be. That you’re kind, and kind of funny.”
“You can’t say something like that when I’m not prepared with a joke, it’s ruining my reputation.” He shakes his head dramatically, pretending to be wounded. Maybe it’s my imagination, but I think I can see his eyes shining like he’s on the verge of tears.
Someone needs to say nice things to this boy more often.
We stop three paces from the edge of the park, neither of us quite ready to step back into the city beyond.
“Where to next?” he asks.
“You’re not ready to go home yet?”
“Are you?”
“No.”
“Good. Me neither.” He throws me that bright, bleached grin again and I mirror it, conscious of my own wonky teeth. No braces could ever fully align them and I wore those things for years.
He sets back off and I have to do a half run to catch up with him before he merges back onto the sidewalk and disappears into the crowd. Even though the hat isn’t subtle, there are enough people out that I could lose him in a hurry. “Hey, wait. Where are we going?”
“You hungry again yet?”
“Not really…?” I say, confused. We literally just ate. How can he want to eat more?
“Great!”
I throw him a raised eyebrow. “You did hear me, right?”
He shrugs. “I know a really great bakery, it’s kind of out of the way and they might know me in there but it’s not a big deal. It’s not popular enough that anyone important will be there.”
“We’ve really got to work on the way you talk about other people.” I raise my eyebrow even higher.
To his credit, Joel nods. I don’t think he does it deliberately, but it makes me wince when he talks aboutnormalpeople like he’s above them. It makes me wonder how he truly feels about me.
“No journalists or bloggers will be there. But a handful of other lovely people will be.” As he says this, he looks at me as if for approval. I dip my head slightly in return. “And it’s really good so people should be there.”
“I was sold the second I thought about pastries.”
His whole being lights up again, all the weight of our park conversation blowing away on the breeze. He really is like a puppy. Unfortunately, it’s kind of cute.
“That’s because pastries are the best. Which ones do you like?”
