Chapter 17
In All My Dreams, I Have Already Kissed You
Aria
It’s one of the colder November days. No blue whatsoever left in the sky; everything is gray. For the first time this year I had to dig out a scarf, hat, and gloves.
Harper is waiting for me downstairs. She’s talking to Mom, who’s holding her pumpkin soup under her arm. I take the last few of the creaky steps, swing myself over the railing, and land in front of them.
“I’m ready.”
Harper grows wide-eyed when she sees how I’m dressed, and Mom stops mid-sentence.
“What?”
Harper points at me. “What is that?”
“My face.”
“Aria,” Mom says, her voice stunned. “When did you start wearing so much makeup?”
“What do you mean?” My heart skips a beat. “Too much?”
“That all depends,” Harper mutters. “Are we going to an audition for America’s Next Top Model? Then no. If we are, then I’ll have to go back and change my clothes because I thought we were just going across the street to the cook-off.”
I groan. “So it is too much.”
“No,” Mom replies. “It’s just… You look so different. Your eyes look like, I don’t know, a cat’s, like Hershey’s, and your cheeks…Suddenly they’re just so lively.”
Relieved, I exhale. “I looked in the mirror, you know.”
“Oh, wow, breaking news.” Harper tugs at my elbow and points to the door. We go out. It won’t be long until the first snow. We go to the right, toward the bell tower.
“Funny, Harp. So, I looked in the mirror, and all of a sudden it seemed to me that my skin was gray somehow and that it looked unhealthy. Don’t you think so? There were those deep shadows beneath my eyes and…”
Mom turns to look at me. “And you just noticed that now?”
Harper nods. “That’s been your face for two years, A.”
“How lovely of you two to tell me.”
“We thought you knew,” Harper says.
To be honest, there was no reason for me to think about it.
I spent most of my free time on my concrete-like dorm bed, in intimate togetherness with the smiley on the wall, and I didn’t let anyone see me.
I thought I only looked foggy and gloomy on the inside, but apparently my grief had also spread to the outside.
“Whatever,” I say as we cross the street. “In any event, I don’t want that anymore. I think that, if I’m starting over, especially if I want to give Paxton a chance, then I’ve got to fight these gray clouds inside me.”
Mom looks confused. “Paxton?”
“The Hilcons’ son,” Harper says, while rubbing her hands together before burying them in her pockets. “Man, is it cold.”
“I didn’t know that you and the Hilcon boy were going out.” There’s disappointment in her voice. “How long has that been going on?”
“We’re not going out. He was at the Halloween party, and maybe we’ll get to know each other. Maybe. If he texts back.”
That’s not enough for my mother. I can see it in her eyes, a curious gleam that tells me she wants to know every last detail because that’s how me and Mom are; we’re like the Gilmore Girls, we tell each other everything.
But now is not the time; we’ve reached the square.
Aspen’s residents are bustling around the large meadow surrounding the tall bell tower.
Some of them have gathered in a cluster to huddle around William, each with a large pot in their arms. I give my mother a look that’s supposed to express something like, Later, Mom.
She raises an eyebrow in return, which says as much as, You’ll tell me every little detail later, by the fire, with hot chocolate in our hands and cozy socks on our feet, right?
I nod. But then I notice Wyatt’s eyes are resting on me as well, and I have to concentrate so that I don’t screw up.
Don’t trip, Aria. Chin up. He’s just some dude who stole your heart, but that’s okay. It doesn’t matter; just keep on walking.
“I’ve got to go see Will.” Mom briefly lifts her pot. “Register my soup.”
“Good luck,” I reply. “Don’t disappoint Daniel.”
“Never.” She sticks out her tongue and walks off.
Harper looks amused. “You all are never going to give up this Daniel thing, are you?”
“Nope. He is so cool.” I point to a beer table where, aside from Spirit Susan and Vaughn, no one else is sitting. “Should we go sit with them?”
“Okay.”
As soon as we sit down, my phone starts to vibrate in my pocket. I pull it out and feel my heart grow wild, bounce against my ribs, and fall before getting up again. I push Harper and whisper, “Paxton answered.”
“What’d he say?” She tries to snatch my phone out of my hands, but I’m quicker and pull it away. In so doing, however, I manage to elbow Susan in the shoulder.
I spin around. “Sorry, Sue.”
She waves it off but snags her oversized carnelian ring in her orange-colored stole. She’s a bit spiritual, Aspen’s Susan. “Girl, please. My bones aren’t going to break with any old bump.”
“That’d make a good song,” Vaughn says, then grabs his guitar and begins to strum. “Oh, please, my dear, what ya think ‘bout me? My bones can’t break, can’t break, oh, but what about my heart?”
Susan bobs to the beat. “Bongos would fit, Vaughn.”
“No one has bongos anymore,” Harper says.
Susan sits up straight. “Wanna bet? I’ve got some in my trunk. Hold on a sec.”
“You’ve got some in your trunk?” I ask. “Why?”
But Susan doesn’t respond. She’s already off, her orange-colored stole fluttering behind her.
Vaughn takes off, too, his new song upon his lips.
For a moment I just sit and watch how happy everyone seems, how happy they seem to be listening to Vaughn and standing around on the meadow during the cook-off, when Harper’s voice comes through.
“He’s gold, Aria.”
I turn around again and see her staring at the screen of my phone, which is in her hands.
“Hey!” Annoyed, I grab it back. “Klepto!”
“Kleptomania would mean that I steal all the time.”
“Yeah.” I unblock my phone and glare at her. “You stole my colored marker in third grade and ten Nintendogs.”
“I gave that back to you.”
“Oh, and admit that it was you who stole all the doubles of my Twilight stickers!”
“Man, come on, you had doubles, you freak! When are you going to let it go?”
I point at her. “Ha! So, it was you!”
“Great. Yeah, it was me. And you remember that Edward sticker of yours, the glittery one that suddenly disappeared? I STOLE THAT ONE, TOO!”
“You monster!”
“Now, would you finally read the message, A.?”
With a gnashing of teeth and narrowed eyes, I turn away from Harper and look at the display.
aria—write me at two forty-one in the morning, write me at three-o-six, write me a second later or a second before, it doesn’t matter, and maybe this’ll sound corny, maybe a bit weird, but once you decide to get to know me, i promise you that you’ll only fall into my arms once, because afterward, i’m never going to let you go again, long text, no periods, just commas, because this thing between us is going to be a story with no end
“Harp.” My phone is trembling in my hand. “Harp, how can he write something like that?”
“What do you mean?”
“I totally suck compared to that, no matter how I respond.”
Buttoning up her cashmere coat, my best friend frowns. “What do you mean?”
“Because I’m a Gollum. There are cans of baked beans up to the ceiling of my room. I had lemon cake for breakfast, and for days I’ve been running around with the same old bun on my head. How on earth is my brain going to come up with words to compete with this?”
“It doesn’t have to do with competing with him, A. The dude is clearly into you and wants to make that clear as best he can. That’s beautiful. Not a lot of guys would do that so openly. It’s not a contest, okay? Just be yourself.”
I think for a moment, then respond. That sounds like a marriage proposal.
The answer comes immediately.
Maybe it was.
Stop or I’ll start being happy.
Happy because of me?
Yeah.
He’s online. Typing. It says so right there, right beneath his name. Paxton typing…
And then nothing. Suddenly he’s offline. This is so frustrating! I want to throw my phone into one of the nearby fire bowls that William set up for the event.
“Was that weird of me?” I ask Harper, who, naturally, has been looking over my shoulder the whole time. “I mean, could I have scared him off? He’s probably thinking, Oh God, the freak. She doesn’t even know me, and she’s writing about me making her happy.”
Harper blinks. Then blinks again. Then she takes my phone out of my hand, scrolls through the chat, puts the phone back into my hand, and points at his first text. “Read that again and tell me he thinks you’re weird.”
“Hmm. Good point.”
“He was a lobster, A., and you’re totally into him. You both are totally wacko. I can hardly believe how much of a fit it is. He’ll probably be living with you in your Gollum cave by next week, and you’ll both be sharing a can of baked beans with a single spoon.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice?”
Her expression softens. “Put your phone away, A. He’ll respond.”
“Okay.” I tuck it into my parka. “We want to try some soup?”
“Yep. Off to battle.” With an elegant movement, Harper swings her legs over the bench and stands up. “And I’m all set should we get food poisoning.” She counts her fingers. “Pepto for my stomach along with drops—natural and non—for nausea, ginger candy, fennel tea…”
“We’re not going to be eating anything that just looks wrong.”
“Looks wrong?”
“You know, lumpy, bad color, filled with strange pieces of who-knows-what…”
“Right. You remember when we were twelve? There was that really yummy soup, the one that looked really normal, and then we were in bed for almost a whole week because…”
“It turned out to be frog spawn soup. God, yeah, I remember. Who made that?”
Harp sucks in her lower lip and thinks. “Vaughn, I think.”
We stroll past Costume James, who is deep in conversation with Kate. “Kate, you need to rename your nut cake if all it’s made out of is almonds.”
“Uh huh. And why is that?”
“Well, almonds aren’t actually nuts; they’re stone-fruit seeds. I renamed my Cookie Monster outfit when I learned that his name was really Sid, by the way.”