Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee(62)

“I like you.”

“I’m glad you came.”

“I’m glad you came.”

“Stop copying me,” I say, resting my head on his chest.

“Stop copying me.” He interlaces his fingers on my lower back.

“My name is Lawson Vargas, and I believe that changing your underwear gives you the flu.”

“My name is Lawson Vargas, and I believe that changing your underwear gives you the flu.”

“I have a hot, genius girlfriend,” I murmur.

“I have a hot, genius girlfriend,” he says. I can sense his face opening into a radiant, triumphant grin. “I love it when you call yourself my girlfriend.”

“You lose.”

“Do I? Oh no. I hate losing.” He puts two fingers under my chin and gently lifts my head, and we kiss for a couple of seconds.

I rest my head back on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. It’s strong and a little faster than I would have expected. His T-shirt smells like dryer sheets. It’s a welcome, comfortable, and safe smell. For the last few hours, I’ve felt like my future is a tiny, hard planet deep in my chest, its gravity pulling every thought into its orbit.

Lawson reads my mind. “I really hope this trip is a success for you guys,” he murmurs into the crown of my head.

“Me too.” You have no idea how much I hope that, you beautiful new complication, you.

He rests his lips in my hair, and we listen to the summer night’s symphony until Delia finally returns.





Hour Eight

“Why did I not listen to Arliss?” I moan.

“How did drinking something called Cobra Venomm Energy Infuzion—spelled with two ms and a z—seem like a wise plan?” Josie asks.

“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. I can feel my hair. Like each individual hair, I can feel. This is meth in a little plastic bottle.” I drum my feet on the floorboards, pound on the steering wheel, and throw my head back and howl, “Wooooooooo!”

“We should pull over and get her a branch or something to chew on,” Lawson says.

“Let’s talk about something. Anything. My brain is going bananas,” I say.

“Uh,” Josie says.

“Uh,” Lawson says.

“Come on,” I say.

“It’s hard to think of something to talk about on the spot! And also, it’s like four a.m. and none of us have had more than an hour of sleep.”

“Let’s list words we hate!” My mind feels like it’s in a blender. “Puberty! Fungus! Gumption!”

Josie fumbles around. “Uh…squish, mucus, spork.”

“Go, Lawson!” I shout.

“Uh.”

“Okay, new game. I’m tired of this one,” I say. “What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done? Josie, go!”

“DeeDee, my brain is moving at like one-eighth the pace of yours right now. I gotta think. Come back to me.”

“Lawson! Go!”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know.” But it’s an I don’t know if I should say, not an I don’t know what to say.

“Come on, Lawson.”

“Do it,” Josie says.

“Maybe another time.”

“No time like the present!” I say. I start chanting, “Lawson, Lawson, Lawson.” Josie joins me.

“It’ll sound stupid.”

“No, it won’t,” Josie says.

Lawson doesn’t say anything for a couple of seconds, and then gives a rueful-sounding laugh. A surrender. “Y’all really wanna hear this?”

“Yes!” we shout in unison.

He turns down the music. “Um. Okay. I guess I was eight or nine. My mom had this, like, porcelain cat. She got it from her dad. I guess it had gotten passed down, like an heirloom or something. Anyway, I liked it because it was old and kinda cool and special. So I ask my mom if I can take it to show-and-tell at school. She doesn’t want to let me, but I beg and beg and finally she says okay. I take it to show-and-tell, and I’m super excited.

“School lets out and I’m walking home. I have the cat in my backpack, and I run into this group of sixth graders who loved to pick on me. I mean, they picked on everyone smaller than them, but I guess I was convenient. Anyway, they chase me and catch me and push me down and pull off my backpack and start kicking it like a soccer ball. I’m crying and screaming and telling them not to because they’ll break the cat. They don’t care. They open the backpack and sure enough, it’s busted up. They laugh and start meowing.

“I pick up the pieces and put them back in my bag and walk home. When I get there—”

Lawson pauses for a second. It’s silent in the car. He clears his throat and again laughs a little. Like he’s covering something. “When I get there, I pull the broken pieces of the cat out of my backpack and show my mom. All my brothers were there. Asking me why I didn’t fight back better or run faster. My mom tried to act like it was okay, but I could see it wasn’t. Her face. Anyway. That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Telling my mom I’d let her down. In the exact way she was afraid of.”

You know how they say something is a buzzkill? This story was that in the most real sense. But it was exactly what I needed. “Wow.”