2. Sunny #2
Dex shakes his head. “I’m kicking myself for not applying to Northwestern.
” He winks at me, which makes me think he’s kidding…
but I’m not entirely sure. Then he looks down at his lap.
“It’ll be okay. We’ll talk every day, and we’ll see each other over breaks.
And before we know it, it’ll be summer again. ”
“Do you promise?” I ask, my words emerging as a near- whisper. “That we’ll talk every day?”
Dex holds out his hand. “Pinky swear.”
We hook our fingers and swing back and forth together.
“Will you promise me something?” he asks after a minute of silence. “Don’t stop writing. I know you want to go to law school, but there’s nothing stopping you from being a lawyer who writes romance novels.”
I laugh. “All I write are poems. Writing a novel is a pipe dream, Dex.” I pull my pinky away from his.
“Not for you, Sunny. You have the talent and the passion to make it happen. I just don’t want you to give up on your dream.”
“Okay,” is all I say. He has no idea I gave up all my dreams when I declined my offer from UCLA.
“Good,” he says, though he seems dissatisfied. He knows me better than to believe me.
“Dex…I’m scared,” I say so quietly I wonder if he can hear me.
He looks at me, his eyebrows knit together. “Scared of what?”
I bite my lower lip. “What if I don’t make friends at school?”
Dex scoffs. “Are you kidding me? Everyone loves you.”
I roll my eyes, but mostly to keep more tears from falling. “I think it’s you they love. And they’re only friends with me…by association.”
Dex digs his shoes into the woodchips to stop his swing and gently grabs hold of my chain, turning me toward him. “Sunny, you don’t really think that, do you?”
I don’t know what to think. It’s not always easy being the leading man’s sidekick.
It’s not that people don’t like me—quite the contrary.
Pretty much everyone likes me, because I’m nice, and quiet, and unassuming.
But does anyone really want to be the nice, quiet, unassuming girl?
Not me. I don’t necessarily crave being the center of attention either—but maybe somewhere in between.
I attempt a deep breath, but my chest only tightens. “It’s just a fear of mine, I guess.”
Dex looks crestfallen. “It kills me that you don’t know how amazing you are.”
The intensity of his gaze causes my heart to beat so quickly that I have to turn away. When I do, he lets go of my chain, and I start swinging slowly again.
“You are so smart, and thoughtful, and generous, and kind. You’re going to have more friends at Northwestern than you’ll know what to do with,” he continues.
“They’ll be lining up—taking numbers—to hang out with you.
” I chuckle as Dex looks down at his lap pensively and his half-smile goes flat. “Not to mention, the guys…”
I snort. “The guys ? Dex, in case you haven’t noticed, there are zero guys lining up to date me.”
Which is why I ended up going to prom with a group of my girlfriends—while Dex went with Jenna.
I know he’s only trying to be nice, but I can’t help but feel ashamed of my non-existent love life.
I want to get asked out on dates. To get noticed by boys.
Well, one boy, in particular. But mostly, I feel invisible.
There was one time I thought my luck might change.
It was at Laura Levine’s bat mitzvah party, after Asher Abadie had outed me.
I was at the refreshment table, feeding my misery with Cheez Balls, when the DJ announced the final song—“Save the Best for Last,” by Vanessa Williams. I made a beeline for the door to spare myself the heartache of having to watch Dex dance with yet another girl.
That’s when I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder. It was him .
I tried to play it cool, but my heart threatened to leap from my chest. Dex had saved his last dance for me .
Just like the song, he’d “Saved the Best for Last.” I laid my head on his shoulder as we swayed from side to side.
From across the room, an amused Asher winked at me, then smiled as he shook his head.
I was sure Dex would kiss me again that night.
But he didn’t.
“Just wait and you’ll see,” Dex says from his swing, his eyes still shifted away from me. “You’re going to have your pick of boyfriends soon.”
I shake my head. “I really don’t think that’s true, judging by my experience in high school.”
“Sunny, most guys in high school just wanna fuck around,” Dex tells me. “And honestly?” I look over at him. “I think they know better than to waste your time. You’re too mature for them now but trust me—you’re the type of girl they want to marry one day.”
I search Dex’s face for any hint of levity but there is absolutely nothing light-hearted about the way his eyes are fixed on me right now. He looks dead serious.
And I’m speechless.
My mind is racing, trying to come up with some sort of response, when the first few droplets of rain fall from the billowy clouds overhead. I look up. “Oh no, I think it’s about to?—”
I’m cut off by an earsplitting crack of thunder that parts the heavens and unleashes a spectacular, unexpected summer storm.
Whatever moment we were beginning to find ourselves in is immediately washed away. Dex and I look up at the sky, then turn to look at each other through dripping wet eyelashes, the corners of our mouths upturned in stunned amusement as we get more and more drenched with each passing second.
“Race you back to the car!” Dex yells with a grin as he starts jogging backward. When I’m about to catch up to him, he picks up speed and starts to turn around.
“Oh no you don’t!” I shout over another earth-shattering clap of thunder.
I reach out and grab his shirt to turn him back toward me, but he hooks his arms around my waist, and we end up in a heap on the wet grass, with me on top of him.
We’re laughing so hard there are tears streaming down our cheeks—or maybe raindrops, it’s hard to tell.
“All those times we raced to the swings when we were kids…you were letting me win, weren’t you?” I ask between giggles.
Dex grins. “A gentleman never tells.”
As our laughter dies down and we begin to catch our breath, I become more aware of the rhythm of his heart beating against mine, of our chests rising and falling at the exact same time. Of the closeness of our lips—the closest our lips have been since our first and only kiss.
Dex tucks a strand of wet hair behind my ear. “I’m gonna miss you so damn much, Sunny.”
“Me too,” I answer back instantly.
As the rain continues to crash down on us, Dex looks at me in a way he’s never looked at me before and, for the first time, the possibility of something new hangs in the electric air between us.
And it doesn’t feel awkward at all, even for the several seconds we’re both silent and gazing into each other’s eyes.
It feels so normal, in fact, that it takes an actual effort to keep my lips from landing on his—like I’m resisting a magnetic pull—and I wonder if I should even bother trying to fight it.
But before I get the chance to decide, a bolt of lightning illuminates the sky, accompanied by another roar of thunder so loud it sets off a nearby car alarm.
“We should get home,” Dex says as he rolls us over. He pulls me up and keeps my hand in his as we run the rest of the short distance to his dad’s car.
Shivering in my soaking wet tank top and shorts, I crank up the heat and turn to face Dex as soon as he slides into the passenger seat. “Maybe you should drive back,” I yell over the heavy splats of rain pounding on the car so loudly, you’d swear it was raining pennies.
Dex considers, but shakes his head. “You’re going to have to drive in weather like this at some point anyway, and I’m right here, so don’t worry. Just drive more slowly than you normally would, and give yourself extra room to stop in case the roads are slick.”
I nod and start driving us back to my house.
If it weren’t for the weather and having to concentrate so hard on what I’m doing, I’m sure my mind would be going a hundred miles an hour, desperately trying to make sense of what just happened.
But right now, my singular focus is getting us home safely. And thankfully, I do.
“Well played,” Dex says when I pull over. As usual, I park a block away from my house, and Dex and I switch seats on the off-chance my mom is home from work and waiting up for me .
“Are you ever going to tell your mom you started driving again? You can’t keep it a secret forever,” he says as he adjusts the rear-view mirror and starts rolling forward.
I shake my head vehemently. “Not unless she has a lobotomy. You know how much she worries. I mean, you have to admit…she is a little nuts.”
Dex laughs as he pulls into my driveway. The lights are off, which means she’s still at work. “Your mom isn’t nuts,” he says. Then his smile fades as he reaches for my hand. “She just loves you, Sunny.”
I glance down at our interlaced fingers and, without warning, tears start to fall from my eyes, like the sudden summer rain that has us both sopping wet.
“I don’t wanna say goodbye, Dex.”
There’s so much more I want to say…but it feels like the timing isn’t right. So I settle for only that.
“Good,” he says quietly. “Because neither do I.” His eyes are glistening. “This is a night like any other, remember?”
I nod, and we wrap our arms around each other like we always do and, before I get out of the car, he says, “I’ll call you tomorrow,” like he always does, and we pretend that tomorrow is an ordinary day—and that, when he calls me, he’ll be calling from the house we both grew up in.
Not from a dorm room halfway across the country.