Midnight Sun(15)

“I’m a good kid. You know I’m not gonna do anything crazy,” I continue, more gently this time. “But if I stay here for one more night listening to everyone else living their life outside my window, I might go crazy.”

My voice cracks and I have to pinch myself so I don’t start crying. I normally work very hard at not feeling sorry for myself and being grateful for what I have, but now that I’ve gotten the teensiest, tiniest taste of “normal,” it’s like there’s no turning back. I need more than just the four walls of my bedroom and my guitar to be happy. I need an actual life.

“Please, please, let me feel normal.” I’m not above begging to get what I want, which is to spend more time with Charlie Reed. “I’ll text you every hour. And tomorrow we can order too much lo mein and have a movie marathon.”

My dad sighs and opens his mouth. I’m sure there’s some other lame but well-meaning excuse on the tip of his tongue about why I shouldn’t go. I preempt it by throwing my arms around him and giving him a huge bear hug.

“Thank you! Thank you! You’re the best dad in the world!”

“If you’re saying that, then I’m definitely making the wrong decision,” he mutters.

Still, he doesn’t say no. So I grab Morgan’s hand and we run up to my room before he can change his mind. My phone buzzes along the way.

“Okay, Charlie says he’ll meet us at Garver’s at eight,” I tell Morgan.

She gasps. “We gotta get ready!”

I check my watch. “We have three hours.”

“Oh my GOD, we’re already behind!”

This is a weird turn of events, since Morgan is about the lowest-maintenance person in the world. Normally, she wears jeans and a casual T-shirt, then slaps a knit beanie on her head and voilà! She’s out the door.

“Who are you and what have you done with my best friend?”

“Dude. You are meeting up with the guy you’ve lusted after for a decade—”

I raise my eyebrows. “I hardly think I was lusting after him when I was eight years old; that’s not even a thought eight-year-olds have—”

“Semantics,” she says with a wave of her hand. “You are hooking up with a guy you’ve loved for more than ten years—”

“Who said anything about hooking up? I literally have zero experience in that department. And it’s not like I’m going to go from absolutely nothing to positively everything just because my dad is finally letting me go to a party!”

“I wasn’t implying you have to do anything you don’t want to do,” Morgan says. “Though I do think it would be a total waste for a gorgeous girl like you to have to die a virgin—”

“OH MY GOD, MORGAN!” I whisper-scream. “I am not losing my virginity to a guy I’ve talked to exactly twice in my life. And thanks for the vote of confidence, but I’m not planning on dying anytime soon either.”

An awkward moment passes. We have these a lot because even though we basically tell each other everything, we leave a lot unsaid.

“Look, all I’m saying is tonight is a big deal,” she tells me. “This is, like, what you’ve always dreamed of. You just said it to your dad—you get to be normal for once. But I happen to think you’ve waited too long to settle for just normal. Tonight is going to be fan-fucking-tastic, and so are you.”

“It is? I am?”

She nods. “Yup. No doubt.”

Morgan walks over to my closet and starts rifling through it. She doesn’t have a lot to work with. Honestly, most days I sit around in leggings and a sweatshirt, because why not be comfy if you’re not going anywhere?

“Is this the sum total of your clothing?” she calls from inside, her voice echoing against the walls.

“Yeah, unless you count the two dresses I ordered when I thought my dad was going to let me go to that concert with you in Seattle, but then he said no because we’d have to leave before the sun went down,” I tell her. “I keep forgetting to ask him to send them back. Probably wishful thinking that he was going to change his mind.”

Morgan pops her head back out of the closet. “Where are they?” she demands. “And why did you need two? Planning a wardrobe change so the paparazzi wouldn’t catch you wearing the same thing for more than an hour at your Seattle debut?”

I laugh. “I was going to pick the one that looked best and return the other one. But then I didn’t have to pick either, and I forgot to return both.”

I grab the box from under my bed and hand it to her. She first pulls out a super body-con black romper with a strappy back. I don’t know how I ever thought my dad would let me out of the house wearing it, so good thing it became a moot point. Next, she holds up a sweet ivory lace dress. It’s still short and sexy, but in a much more ladylike and classy way.

Morgan tosses me the sweet outfit. “If you’re so desperate to hold on to your virginity, I’d go with this one.”

Truth: It’s a great choice for what I have planned, which is making Charlie Reed fall madly in love with me. I head into the bathroom. Stripping off my usual leggings-and-T-shirt combo, I shimmy into the dress and zip it up.

I check myself out in the mirror, hoping I’ve somehow turned into a ravishing supermodel. Nope. I look pretty much the same as always, only with a beautiful outfit on. Awkward.