Chapter 22
EVERETT
I ’d been trying for months but could never seem to get it. I was about ready to throw that little bottle out the window. Everyone online could do it, why couldn’t I? How did people paint their nails so perfectly?
The last chip of nail polish had finally fallen off my pinkie and it was finally time to repaint my nails again. So, I grabbed the little bottle of cheap black nail polish that I had in my backpack and set it on my dash.
The aggressive crunching next to me stopped.
Jahnvi looked over at me with a mouth full of chips. She was still sitting in the driver’s seat, her legs folded and the bag of chips resting on her lap.
She was like a four-year-old. Once I gave her the bag of chips, all her attention was focused on it.
Just as I opened the nail polish bottle and was about to make the first brush on my thumb , she exhaled sharply. I raised my eyebrows, pausing the nail polish brush right above my thumb. “Is something wrong?”
Now this ? This was the ultimate test.
What was she going to say when she saw me painting my nails?
I could always guess a person’s character by how they reacted when I pulled out a bottle of nail polish.
And, when someone made a face or downright told me that what I was doing was wrong because I’m a dude, I would know to avoid them as much as possible.
Under her gaze, I suddenly felt my heart thud against my chest painfully.
I suddenly realized that I wouldn’t know what to do if she told me that I was gross for painting my nails.
Even though I’d lived next to her my entire life, she’s always been just Jahnvi .
The clumsy girl next door who broke my grandma’s plants or my window that one time.
She was someone who was always weirdly competitive and goaded me into fights and competitions in school and speech.
I never hated her, sure. But she’s always been someone I just tolerated.
But she isn’t just Jahnvi anymore.
No, it felt like she was more now. Sure, I’d kissed her before.
But that was just one moment of emotion that we never brought up again.
Recently though, we’ve become more like friends.
Suddenly, I realized how much trust I had in her.
I mean, enough to get in a car with her on a random school night to help her learn how to drive.
What was happening to my emotions? What was she doing to me?
“Yoo dhou i’ wong!”
“Huh?”
Jahnvi rolled her eyes and took a big swallow, wiping potato chip dust off her mouth with her sleeve. “You’re doing it wrong. You need nice, long strokes or you’re gonna see brush marks.”
She was trying to correct me.
She wasn’t looking at me weirdly at all, she was trying to help me.
My heart couldn’t help but soar and I broke out into a huge smile. I knew Jahnvi understood the big deal behind everything because she smiled at me too, warmly.
A completely new emotion bloomed in my chest.
“Um, I could show you if you’d like,” she offered hesitantly.
I wouldn’t pass it up for anything.
I silently handed her the tiny nail polish bottle and shuffled forward in my seat so that we were closer. She mirrored me, looking down at my hands the whole time. Once she’d found a steady place to put the nail polish, she reached out and took my right hand first.
I wasn’t even going to deny it. Something in my heart leaped up and started dancing when she held my hand. My mouth curved into a smile, and I suddenly found myself not being able to look at her anymore.
I watched her slender hands move my hand so my thumb was in view.
Her own nails were sloppily painted yellow.
She brought my arm closer so my elbow rested on her ankle and she started painting.
I understood what she meant about the big strokes.
She only took two swipes of the brush for every nail and it made it so that the fine little lines of the brush were minimal.
Not that I was actually paying attention to how she was painting my nails.
My mind could only focus on her hands and how they felt on mine. How soft they were as they gripped and released my wrist to turn it certain angles. I couldn’t help but notice how warm they were. I wanted to engulf her hand with my much bigger one, to feel all that warmth she had in my hand.
But she let go of my hand before I got the chance to.
I looked back up to see her face scrunched up in absolute concentration.
It was the face she’d make when she took tests in Lit or when she was trying to solve a math problem.
Math was never her thing, and she despised it with all her heart, but she always put all of her focus in and a little more to get better scores than I did.
She bit her lip in utter focus and I was, in that moment, very much glad that she couldn’t see my face. I was also grateful that there wasn’t a mirror anywhere around and that I couldn’t see my own face. My expression would’ve scared the absolute shit out of me, guaranteed.
“Look, done.” She let go of my hand and smiled up at me, looking at me to see how I reacted. She misinterpreted my slow reaction. “Oh, well, I mean it could be better—”
“No, no, no Jahnvi. It looks amazing.” I waved my hand in front of my face, not lying one bit. “Better than anything I’ve painted before...indeed.”
“ Indeed. ” She rolled her eyes and used a throaty voice to mock me.
“You’re so strange. It would look better if you had better nail polish.
You know, like the ones with the wide brush.
Do two coatings of that stuff and it would be strong enough to survive nuclear bombs and not a single brush stroke would show. ”
“Eh, this will suffice.”
She capped the bottle and handed it to me, reading the label as I grabbed it from her hands. “I have no clue where you got this but it looks like it would peel right off if you shook your hands a little too much.”
“I mean, it does the job right? Plus, it saves me money.”
“Right.” She laughed. “How much, two or three dollars? What are you going to do with that money, Everett?”
“Hey, I could buy you another bag of chips with that,” I joked and grabbed the empty chip bag in her lap to crumple up and throw away in my makeshift trash can (a plastic grocery bag).
Her tone suddenly got serious. “This is the only brand of nail polish you’ve used? Ever?”
My eyebrows tightened, trying to figure out the sudden shift in tone. “Um, yeah. Nothing wrong with using some crappier nail polish.”
“There is something. You...deserve better things.”
And, just when I was stunned by her sudden words, she fulfilled the wish I’d had a minute before and grabbed my hand. She waited until I looked back up at her before she repeated herself. “You deserve nice things, Everett.”
“What did I do to deserve them?” I found myself whispering after a moment of silence.
“You don’t need to do anything.”
“But why do I deserve nice things, Jahnvi?”
She gently squeezed my hand again and smiled softly.
“You have good intentions. That’s what matters.”
“How are you so sure?”
“Because I know you, and I know your beliefs and your intentions and your values. You’re a good person. And you deserve nice things. Indeed .” She smiled as she mocked me again.
My emotions went haywire.
And, at that moment all I could do was nod with her. “Indeed?”
“Indeed.”