Shuffle, Repeat(35)

I’m startled. No, more than startled. I’m shocked. And also…pleased.

I’m inordinately pleased that Oliver has extended an invitation to his house. Except: “I’m snowed in, remember? We’re all snowed in.”

“Hold on.” I hear some bustling around and then Oliver’s voice again. “The snowplow’s been by. Walk over.”

“Walk? Seriously?”

“It’s less than a mile. I’ll meet you in the middle.”

I hesitate.

And then I assess my reason for hesitating.

It’s not that I don’t want to hang out with Oliver. It’s that I do want to, which is exactly why I’m not sure if I should do it. We finally have this friendship thing down. It’s easy. It’s not awkward anymore. I get him and I think he gets me. Yes, his music and philosophy are still cheesy, but they’re not unbearable.

All that being said, it’s a friendship that lies squarely within a set of very specific parameters. We are friends in the car. We are friends in school hallways. Occasionally, we’re friends at lunch. Yes, there was that one time Oliver had dinner at my house, but Mom and Cash were right there, which meant that it was safe.

“Hello? Did you hang up?” Oliver asks into my ear.

“No, I’m here. I’m just…” I stop, because I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m inexplicably nervous about being alone with Oliver, which is silly, which is crazy, which is—

“My parents are here,” he says, like he can hear my thoughts. It works, because I feel myself nodding even though he can’t see me.

“Okay. I’ll come over.”

“Give me half an hour before you leave.”

? ? ?

Exactly thirty minutes later, after trying on several combos of clothing and settling on faded jeans with a slouchy cable-knit sweater, I assure Mom I will be careful and step outside. I pause on the porch to look around, and I realize that maybe I didn’t need quite as much bundling up as I thought. The day is cold, but not bitterly so. In fact, it feels refreshing after having been stuck in the house for so long (with lovebirds). The sky is bright blue, scattered with big, fluffy clouds, and sunlight bounces off the white ground.

Floundering down off the porch and across the driveway takes a while, because the snow comes up to my knees, but once I’ve struggled over the big drift to reach the road, it’s smooth sailing. The plow has packed the snow hard and my boots have good treads, so walking is easy. I peer down Callaway Lane, trying to guess where I will meet up with Oliver.

But Oliver is already in sight. Only a few houses away, he’s trudging in my direction, and when he sees me, he waves an arm in greeting. He’s wearing a twill hooded jacket, plus dark cherry mittens and a scarf that stand out against the white of the road. My heart swells in my chest and I cannot deny that I am happy to see him.

Really happy.

“How’d you get here so fast?” I ask him. “Did you run?”

He grins down at me, and his teeth are the same white as the snow. I want to touch them with the tip of my finger, to stroke their shiny surface, but of course that would be shockingly strange and I do not. “I left when we hung up.”

“But you told me—”

“I may have bent the truth. I didn’t think your mom would like it if you walked all that way alone.”

There’s my heart again.

“Besides,” says Oliver, “if I waited, I wouldn’t have the entire walk back to do this.” He bends over and scoops up a handful of snow. It takes several seconds longer than it should for me to understand that he’s packing a snowball.

“Don’t even think about it.”

“Or what?”

“Or…I’ll be forced to retaliate.”

Oliver gives me a look of wide-eyed terror. Or rather a look of mock wide-eyed terror. “I’m supposed to be scared of a person who thinks climbing into my car is a great and challenging task?”

“Your car is ridiculous.” I reach down to grab my own handful of snow.

“You don’t think so when it’s transporting you to school.”

“No, I think so then, too.” I’m having trouble being intimidating, because I’m smiling so hard. My face feels like it’s been taken over by one of those little wooden hoops that Mom’s friends use to stretch canvas when they’re embroidering.

Maybe it’s the reprieve from classes and schoolwork. Maybe it’s that I’ve been cooped up with Mom and Cash for too long. Maybe it’s Itch’s departure. Whatever the reason, being with Oliver today is filling me with radiant joy—

—even when his snowball whaps me in the abdomen. I squawk and Oliver throws his hands up over his head. “Retreat! Retreat!” he yells, springing backward. I wind up to throw my ball but of course I miss him by miles, so I take off running after him instead. Or at least what counts as running when I’m wearing all this clothing and heavy boots.

Oliver bolts away (or what counts as bolting) and starts climbing one of the drifts that the plow has kicked up by the side of the road. It’s taller than Oliver and he’s only halfway to the top when I finally reach the drift. I grab him by the ankle and pull. He fumbles forward and falls, sliding back down to catch me. I squeal and flail as we roll into the drift, but he’s holding me down by the shoulders and my heels are on a slippery patch, so I can’t get any traction to push back.