99 Days(76)

“Molly?”

“Yes?”

“It’s Roisin,” an unfamiliar girl’s voice says, pronouncing it RO-sheen, and it’s only after she adds, “Your roommate?” before I put things together.

“Oh my God, Roisin!” I exclaim. Then, not wanting to explain I’ve been pronouncing your name like Raisin in my head all summer: “Sorry. I had, like, a brain fart there, I don’t know.”

“The name thing?” she guesses, laughing a little. “You’re . . . definitely not the only one. I couldn’t spell it until I was in, like, seventh grade.”

We spend a few minutes small-talking about our parents and if we have any brothers and sisters, the logistics of who’s going to bring a TV (me) and mini fridge (her). “Do you know what you’re going to major in?” she asks me.

“Business, I think.” It’s the first time that anyone’s asked me that question and I’ve had a answer ready. “I think business.”

“Yeah?” Roisin asks. “I always think that’s so neat, when people can just answer that question. I have no freaking idea what I want to do with my life, so those emails the dean was sending out every three seconds about declaring a major were, like, super appreciated.”

“Ugh, I know,” I say, laughing. She has a Southern accent, Roisin from Georgia. It’s nice. “He’s eager, for sure.”

“I told myself I was going to figure it out this summer,” she continues, “but instead I got bogged down in all this drama with my boyfriend. I’ll bore you with the details of that mess during orientation, I guess, but basically it’s just really hard to remember your hometown isn’t the only place in the world, you know?”

That lands for me, sharp and sudden. I look at the lush green trees outside. In five days I’ll be in Boston, someplace where I’ve got no reputation. Where everyone, not just me, will be fresh and clean and new. “Yeah,” I say slowly, pressing my forehead against the cool glass of the windowpane. “Yeah, I know.”





Day 97


I stay way past the end of my shift putting paperwork together, a bible for whoever comes next. The sun’s already setting, and Penn and the kids are long gone by the time I head out to the lot and realize with a sharp, fast intake of breath that there’s somebody sitting on the hood of my car, waiting.

Gabe.

“Hi,” I say, my eyes filling up unexpectedly at the sight of him, how every day this summer his face has been my good, good thing. I want to hug him, want to hold tight and keep on holding. I wrap my arms around myself instead. “What are you doing here?”

“I don’t know.” Gabe shakes his head, crossing his own arms and looking annoyed at himself, or maybe at me. He’s got his baseball cap on, that handsome face shaded in the gold-purple light. “I wanted to see you. I’m an idiot, but I did.”


“You’re not an idiot,” I say, my voice breaking a little. There’s a cut at the corner of his mouth, his lip a little swollen, the physical damage right there for all the world to see. Something sharp and painful twists inside my chest. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I messed up.”

Gabe shrugs. “You could have told me,” he says, and, God, he sounds so disappointed. “All summer, we’ve been—you could have—I said I loved you, Molly.” He huffs out a frustrated laugh. “And, like, I’m not a lunatic, I know how fast that was, but—”

“Did you, though?” I interrupt suddenly. “I mean, did you actually love me? Or did you just need to beat Patrick at this, too?”

“Molly.” Gabe touches his tongue to the split place on his mouth, looks at something over my shoulder. “Maybe it started that way.”

“That’s gross,” I say immediately, stepping backward, feeling my face go hot and prickly with building tears. “That’s gross, Gabe.”

“You don’t think I know that?” Gabe asks me. “Walking around with a bunch of feelings for my little brother’s girlfriend, like he had one thing I didn’t and I—”

“I’m not a thing!” I burst out, shocked at the unfairness of it. “For f*ck’s sake, Gabe, I’m a person, and there were these huge consequences for me, and you just—”

“I know you are,” Gabe interrupts. “Of course I know that. And it might have been about my brother in the beginning, in a way. But the fact is I did, I spent this whole summer falling in love with you, and if you knew this whole time you were never gonna love me back, then—”

“I do love you, though,” I tell him. “That’s the worst part, don’t you get that? I do.” I climb up onto the hood beside him then, the metal warm from sitting in the sun all day. I take a deep breath. “Patrick was the first person I ever loved, but you . . . I’ve spent this summer wondering what it would have been like if I’d been with you from the very beginning,” I tell him honestly.

Gabe sighs. “Me too,” is all he says.

We sit there for a while, watching the sunset. I can hear the crickets beeping in the trees. It’s the end of August now, the world gone heavy and expectant. It doesn’t feel as awkward as it should. “When do you leave?” I ask him finally. “For Indiana?”