Chapter 6
Halloween—Albion College
Nora had a very clear vision of how this outfit was supposed to look. The idea was something like Sandy at the end of “Grease” with a little more skin. Something that would make Daniel completely lose his mind.
Not that he didn’t already, every time she came back to his room with him after a date, but tonight she wanted to really up her game. Halloween was her favorite holiday, she loved getting into a costume, and she’d never had a boyfriend who was worth getting dressed up for.
Unfortunately, her closet wasn’t cooperating with her. She’d thought she had everything she needed to make the outfit work, but—well, this is what she got for assuming. The girl looking back at her in the mirror wasn’t Sandy at the end of “Grease.”
Maybe Sandy at the beginning of “Grease” trying to go all sexy without the help of the Pink Ladies.
No, it wasn’t even that good. Olivia Newton-John on her worst day wouldn’t be caught dead wearing what Nora had on now. But there was nothing for it. She didn’t have any other costume ideas, and it was too late to shop for anything. Not that she knew where to go even if she did have more time.
So, that was that. She’d just have to go over to Daniel exactly as she was, and hope for the best.
Daniel , ten minutes later
Daniel wasn’t wearing a Halloween costume. He wouldn’t have known where to start; there was nothing he owned that could even remotely be turned into one.
He hadn’t dressed up for Halloween since fifth grade, and only then because he’d have been the only one in his class without a costume if he hadn’t.
He had given it some thought last year, for the dorm party, but he couldn’t stop thinking about how ridiculous he’d feel.
Then he’d berated himself because it was ridiculous to feel ridiculous when everyone would be in costume, and even if anyone did laugh at him, being laughed at was hardly the end of the world.
And then he’d missed the party anyway, consoling his cousin on the phone for three hours.
It didn’t bother him when Nora laughed at him, but it was different when she did it. Because she never meant it hurtfully. And because—although he hadn’t yet, and couldn’t picture any occasion where he might—he knew he could laugh at her, too.
He should have planned ahead, come up with a costume and dressed up for her. She deserved it. She deserved anything and everything he could think of. But it was too late now, so all he could do was do his best to make sure she had a great time, whatever it was that she had planned.
He wondered what exactly she did have planned.
There was a party here at West Hall. He assumed there’d be a party at Morris Hall.
There was a big bonfire out in the parking lot off of the main quad.
She might want to go to any of those, or there might be something else she’d heard about.
Whatever it was, he’d be happy to be there with her next to him.
At eight-thirty, there was a knock at his door. “It’s open, come in!”
There she was. Nora.
His Nora, and wasn’t it amazing that he could say that?
His Nora, and—what on Earth was she wearing?
He could see what she was trying for. God, it was unbelievable that this beautiful girl would want to dress up in a sexy outfit for him.
But he was biting his lip to keep from laughing.
The leather jacket smelled exactly like his father’s old high school letterman jacket when Dad took it out of storage last year.
The miniskirt was too tight, and in all the wrong ways.
The black leggings were torn, and he’d bet everything he owned that had happened when she put them on tonight.
And her makeup was running, probably from her tearing up on the way over. With her own laughter, he was sure.
Put it all together, and his girlfriend— was she his girlfriend? He hadn’t called her that yet, but they’d been dating for two weeks, they’d slept together on two different occasions, why shouldn’t he call her that? She’d want him to, probably.
His girlfriend looked like—oh, God, he knew exactly who she looked like. The image and the name came to Daniel’s mind, and he wished more than anything in the world that he could forget both right now, because it was an image and a name he never wanted to associate with Nora.
Nora , that exact same moment
Nora figured he’d probably laugh. She’d laughed herself on the way over here. She did look ridiculous, there was no way to sugarcoat it. She had hoped that, maybe, he would be so overcome by the effort she’d made that he would overlook… well, everything.
But if he’d showed up at her door in some ridiculous attempt at a hot beefcake guy? She’d be rolling on the floor in laughter herself.
So she could accept his laughter—and he was trying to hold it in.
She appreciated that. It was the face he was making now—something like a frown, but more serious.
A lot more serious. Darker, even. She hadn’t expected that.
And it hurt to see it on her boyfriend’s face— was he her boyfriend?
She hadn’t called him that, not even to herself, but he was, wasn’t he?
Suddenly she wasn’t sure. She didn’t want somebody who could look at her like that, when she’d gone to all this trouble and embarrassed herself just to give him a fun surprise.
She stepped into his room and pulled the door shut behind her. If they were going to have their first fight, or maybe their last one, she at least owed it to him not to do it with the door open for everyone else on the floor to hear it.
Her anger must have been showing, because his frown—or whatever it was—disappeared, and he ran to her. Hugged her, and—against her better judgment—she let him. “I—I know I look silly. But I didn’t think you’d hate it.” She tried to keep her voice level, and almost succeeded.
“I don’t! I… it’s—I love that you wanted…
I just—it just reminded me…” He pulled back from her, took her hands, squeezed them hard.
She could hear him trying to calm his breathing.
“Let me try again. I really do love that you got dressed up for me. And it’s great, you look—you look incredible.
” Well, incredible—not credible—not to be believed, that was an accurate word for sure.
“But seeing it all together, it made me think of someone. And please don’t ask me who. ”
What the hell did that mean? “I thought we had—well, I thought we were working on something real. Where we actually talk to each other, and we don’t lie to each other. I really liked that, Daniel.”
It came out a little sharper than she meant, although she had meant it to be kind of sharp. He definitely heard it, and she could see the conflict behind his eyes. She had no idea what was the conflict was, though.
“It’s not a secret or anything. It’s just—I don’t want to say it out loud. You’d probably laugh about it but I just—I can’t say it.”
Nora wasn’t angry anymore; she was totally confused.
She had no idea what Daniel was talking about; she couldn’t even think of a question to ask to try and make sense of his words.
“Hey. It’s okay. I know it’s only been two weeks.
Well, more like six if you count all the times we kept missing each other.
But we’ve both told each other some really personal things.
Really hard things. You can tell me anything. I hope you know that.”
“I know. But I just told you. It’s not you I don’t want to tell.”
He’d said that twice now, and it was just as incomprehensible the second time. “I don’t understand.” He didn’t answer for a moment. She let him hold her hands, gave his a squeeze, kept looking into his pretty eyes, and finally, he let go of what he was holding in.
“Because If I say out loud that looking at you right now reminds me of my sister and her jackass of a boyfriend, I’ll always have that picture of her in my head when I’m with you.
” He looked away from her, glancing back towards his bed for a moment, then he turned to her again.
“How can I ever be with you the way I want to be—the way you deserve—if I’m thinking about that? ”
Daniel , one moment later
He was being irrational. Ridiculous. Crazy. Pick any word out of the thesaurus—not that he owned one, but Nora probably did—and it would fit.
The problem was, just because something was irrational didn’t mean you could just switch it off like a computer and it would be gone when you rebooted yourself.
Besides, now that he’d said it, he needed to tell the story, so Nora would understand. And, despite his ridiculousness, she wanted to hear it. She was sitting on his bed, gesturing for him to join her.
“It can’t be that bad,” she said.
And it wasn’t, except in his mind. “I know. I just need to get my head straight. You’ll understand when you hear the story.
So this was two years ago, a couple of weeks before Christmas.
Lisa—my sister, obviously—she wanted to do something really big for her boyfriend.
He was home from college, and his birthday was right around then, and she got the idea… ”
He’d always assumed it was her idea, but now that he thought about it, he wondered if someone else had put the idea in her head.
“Daniel?”
“Sorry, I was just thinking about it. So Lisa—if you think I get lost in my own head, I’ve got nothing on her. I don’t think it was her idea. I think somebody put her up to it.”
“To what?” Her arm was around him. Whatever anger she’d been feeling towards him was definitely gone now. “She decided to surprise him. Like I said, she wanted to go really big, and make a show of it. You know how in the movies, you see somebody jump out of one of those huge birthday cakes?”
She snorted. “No way!” Daniel couldn’t laugh with her. Even two years later, it hurt thinking about how Lisa had felt.