Chapter 26 Isn’t It Obvious?
Isn’t It Obvious?
I can leap through the cosmos, but I cannot for the life of me parallel park a car.
“Okay, now all the way to the left,” Penn says, directing me from the passenger seat.
“I did go left.”
“Not far enough.”
Groaning, I follow his instructions—or, at least, I think I do.
“No, keep braking!” he shouts. “First, you spin. Then let up on the brake.”
I slam on the brake, both of us jolting in our seats. “I give up,” I say, letting go of the wheel. “There’s a line behind me, Penn. This is a scene. I’m officially making a scene.”
“You’re good,” he tells me, his arm behind my seat as he glances out the back window. “They can wait.”
I gesture to the slush-covered street in front of me, snowflakes falling across the windshield. “What if somebody’s headed to the hospital? What if they’re about to miss a flight?”
Penn shrugs. “Maybe they’ll assume you’re a student driver.”
I shoot him a look.
He grins and sets his hand on my arm, and the one-two punch of his dimple plus his touch is enough to shock me into paying attention. “Take your time, Wynne. It’s fine.”
The cool winter light brings out the silver-gray in Penn’s eyes. He’s in his green coat, the collar of his blue plaid flannel showing at his neck, and what I’d really like to do is bury my face right in that nook, against his skin.
“I’m not good at this,” I say on a sigh.
Meaning: Parallel parking. Patience. Pretending.
Penn’s head lolls back against the seat as he pins me with a steady, twinkling gaze. “That’s why you’ve got me.”
My heart skips, my insides fizzing with just how much I want that to be true. It’s been a week since he left me swooning at the train station, and the holiday decorations covering downtown Lakeville have me all too aware of time passing.
I’m ready to crack down some of the walls between us. Because while I’m grateful for every second we’re together, it’s like I told him that last night at The Disco Diner: There’s never a right time, or a right place. Just a right person.
I take a breath, grip the wheel, and pull back into the road. We’re supposed to pick up the custom napkins I ordered for the PennPals launch party, but branded party goods can wait.
And I can’t. Not anymore.
“What are you doing?” Penn asks, glancing behind us. “We have to pick up our order by end of day. We’ve got things to do. Where are you taking me?”
“Why? Don’t you trust me?”
“Not when you’re behind the wheel.”
I roll my eyes.
“Seriously, Wynne. Where are we going?”
At the stop sign, I turn and tell him, “We’re going to our spot.”
Penn’s brows lift in surprise. “Right now?”
I nod. “Right now.”
—
Our boots crunch in the snow, golden-hour sunlight shining through the tall, ice-glistening oak trees overhead. A green light above the boathouse means that the lake is frozen. After an even chillier fall than usual, it’s been a particularly frigid first two weeks of December.
With his hands shoved into his pockets, Penn walks backward in front of me, grinning.
“What?” I say, suspicious. “I don’t like that look.”
He laughs and stoops forward, doing exactly what I knew he would.
Seconds later, a snowball crushes against my leg.
“I can’t help it,” Penn says, raising both hands. “Perfect packing snow cannot be wasted. It’s a crime not to have a snowball fight in these conditions.”
Taking the bait, I reach into the cold snow, my fingers freezing as I ball it up and aim at Penn. I miss, and before I can register what’s happening, another snowball hits me square in the chest. A big white spot on my coat.
You don’t need me. But you want me. Don’t you?
Penn’s jingly laugh rings out over the quiet park. “Well,” he calls out. “Looks like your aim is just about as good as your parallel parking.”
I try to smile, swallowing hard, still a bit lost in time. It happens often—me mixing up who we are here and who we were there. But the gap between the two is closing.
Penn’s still grinning when he approaches, hands tucked into his pockets. My breath hitches as I stare up at him. Sparkly snow falls all around us. Into Penn’s hair. His long eyelashes. “I’ve been thinking,” he says. “And I think you’re secretly the fun friend, too.”
I crack a smile. “Even though I pack electrolytes for everyone when we go out? And set an alarm for the responsible time to leave?”
He nods. “Even though.” Something stutters in my chest as he eyes my yellow beanie and adds, “I like your hat, by the way.”
“I’ve been told it’s a superpower, looking good in hats. You have it, too.”
His mouth slants as he adjusts his baseball hat.
“Good to know.” After he slides a look at the ice, he turns back, eyebrow raised.
“Let me guess. This little detour was all a ploy to get me out there, wasn’t it?
You want to humiliate me. You want to make up for the time you took a bite of a Pop-Tart and gave yourself a concussion. ”
I laugh, shoving into him, and he grabs my hands. I look to where his fingers wrap around mine, then glance up at him again. My pulse quickens as we stand there, our cold hands clasped together.
Finally, Penn nods toward the lake. “C’mon. Time for you to show off your moves and make me feel bad about myself.”
I breathe out a laugh as he leads me across the snow, both of us quiet, the moment as delicate as the icicles hanging along the eaves of the boathouse.
I feel all of thirteen, my thoughts on a loop.
Penn’s holding my hand.
Although it’s not quite dusk, the string lights on the boathouse are glowing, their reflections shimmering across the ice. Penn stops when we reach the edge of the lake.
“I’m not built for slippery surfaces,” he says. “Like, at all. Not even in sneakers.”
I give him a look. “That’s why you’ve got me.”
He smiles, surprised, and the embers of hope I’ve been clinging to for weeks start to flicker into a small, bright flame.
I take Penn’s hand and guide him onto the ice. He shuffle-steps so slowly, we’re barely moving, but still, he wears a proud smile that tugs at my most fragile heartstrings.
“You’re very skilled at dragging dead weight,” he tells me.
“Oh, I’m just waiting until we’re in the middle to let go and watch you fend for yourself.”
He grins. “I knew there was a catch.”
We circle once, and we fall only three times in twenty minutes, which is frankly a better ratio than I’d hoped.
Afterward, though, we’re freezing. The obvious choice would be to get out of here and warm up elsewhere, but I don’t want to leave.
Penn must not, either, because as we step off the ice, he offers to grab coffee from the boathouse.
“Isn’t it locked?” I ask. “It’s only open on weekdays.”
“True,” Penn says. “But there’s a passcode. And I know a guy.”
I shake my head. Of course he does.
The coffee is abysmal—more like dirt floating in hot water—but it helps to keep our hands warm, at least, while we sit on a snowy bench tucked against the boathouse.
“So, are you going to tell me why we’re here?” Penn asks, eyeing me over his foam cup. “Or was this all just a chance to humiliate me?”
I tuck my hair behind my ear, thrown off by the direct question.
Shrugging, I meet his eyes. “Isn’t it obvious?”
For a moment, Penn stays silent. Then he looks down at his hands and says, “You think about that night a lot, too. Don’t you?”
It’s what he said in the game.
I nod, my throat thick with emotion as I look out at the frozen lake.
It’s easier to be here in the wintertime, when the landscape looks different than it did that night.
Or maybe it’s easier today because I’ve learned how to separate that memory from the shame.
Because, like another Penn in another universe once told me, I’ve remembered I’m human.
“I had a crush on you,” I say quietly. “That’s why I wanted to go that night.”
Penn turns. “What?”
I shake my head, unable to look at him. “Everything changed that summer. I thought I couldn’t stand you, but then suddenly, I couldn’t stand not being around you.
I just—I liked you so much. Too much. And then everything went wrong.
” I glance up, tears in my eyes. “It was an accident. I know that. But we could’ve lost him, and I did nothing.
You took care of everything, Penn, and then I—I pushed you away.
I punished you, just like I punished myself, because I felt guilty. It was my fault.”
His eyes soften. “Ruby…”
“We were kids,” I continue, “and it was a long time ago. But I’m so sorry for how I acted. I was angry, and I was scared, but it wasn’t about you. It was about me.”
Penn nods, thoughtful, and then he glances at me sideways. “You liked me so much?”
I huff out a laugh, swatting at him. “Shut up.”
Still grinning, he brings a hand to his chest. “I’m just saying, that feels like the pertinent information from your monologue—that you always had a crush on me.”
“Whoa, whoa. I didn’t always have a crush. A minor lapse in my otherwise perfect judgment.”
“Mm-hmm.” He winks. “Noted.”
“This,” I say, pointing at him. “This is why I couldn’t stand you.”
Penn sits back with a triumphant sigh. “Hey, you weren’t the only one rooting for us. Nanna had high hopes for you and me, too. She always said she’d bet on us.”
“Really?” I laugh. “Well, she did love to gamble.”
“And she was good at it, too,” Penn says, shooting me a loaded look.
“I miss her,” I tell him.
He nods. “Me, too.”
“She’d be so proud of you. Everything with PennPals—Nanna would find it really special. And she’d love the name. She loved you so much.”
“You trying to make me cry, Wynne?”
“No. I’m trying to tell you that it’s impressive. How you’ve kept looking out for people, just like you looked after her. You’ve taken risks, again and again, and you’ve stayed true to yourself the whole time.” I shrug. “I really admire it. I admire you.”
He looks at me, his eyes shining and resplendent, and I don’t take it for granted. Every glance from him is a prize. A small, precious stone for me to turn over in my pocket.
“Thank you,” he says thickly.
I nod. “You’re welcome.”