Chapter 23
INDIA
It should not take this much time or effort to set up a simple dating profile.
To be fair, the version I’m using is the free trial version, which is probably not as user-friendly as the pro version. The free trial will last for one month; after that I’ll be suckered into paying for a subscription.
But I spent last night researching which sites are best for online dating, and so far, this one has the best reviews. The best dating site in the world couldn’t save me from myself, though, and right now, that’s what I need help with.
“A short biography,” I mutter, adjusting the pillows behind me so I’m more upright. It may be ten in the morning, but it’s also a Saturday, so yes—I’m still in bed. Or, rather, I’m back in bed. I’ve gotten up and brushed my teeth and whatnot; I just haven’t put on real clothes yet, and I climbed right back under my covers when I decided to set up this stupid profile.
May as well be comfortable.
What exactly do they mean by a short biography? Something enticing? A background history? Something clever and funny?
I sigh, letting my head flop back against my headboard.
“What’s all this noise you’re making?” Juliet says as she waltzes into the room. She flits over to her side and sits on her bed—pink comforter, fuzzy throw pillows, pink-and-white-striped sheets.
“I’m trying to fill out my dating profile,” I say. “And then I’ll need to get ready to go. I’m going to the movies with Felix in…” I glance at the clock at the top of my screen. “In an hour.”
Juliet’s skeptical gaze travels over me. “Is that what you’re wearing?”
“Obviously not,” I say, rolling my eyes. “These are pajamas.”
Her nose wrinkles. “But are you going to wear a t-shirt and shorts?” she says, as though the very thought is distasteful.
“Maybe,” I say, my voice defensive. In truth, yes. That’s exactly what I plan on wearing. “There’s nothing wrong with a t-shirt and shorts.”
“There’s not,” she says with a sigh, “but isn’t this your last outing with him? For his article thing?”
I pick at a loose thread on my blue comforter. “So?”
“ So ,” she says, more exasperated still, “you like him.”
My eyes drop to the computer screen in front of me, where the cursor is blinking menacingly at the top of a very empty biography field. “Only a little.”
“So don’t you think it would be fun to make this excursion actually romantic?” she says, and when I glance up at her, her eyes are sparkling.
Oh, no. I know that look.
Juliet wants to play dress-up. Some girls grow out of it; she never has.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “Nope.”
“Come on, Indy,” she says. She hops off her bed and comes over to mine, sitting next to me, her expression hopeful. “This could be your last chance!”
“My last chance to do what, exactly?” I say with a snort.
“To woo him!” she says. “To seduce him with your feminine wiles!” She grabs me by the arm and gives me a little shake. “Just let me pick your outfit. Please?”
“Nope.” I shake my head again, harder this time. “Absolutely not.”
“It won’t be bad!” she says quickly. “You’ll just be a little more put together, that’s all! Spritz some perfume, do a bit of mascara, I’ll do your hair—please? Please? ”
I hate that part of me is tempted.
“I’m not going to change the way I look just to get the interest of a man?—”
“Oh, stop it,” Juliet says, scoffing. “Dressing up occasionally is not changing the way you look. No one wears the same thing all the time, no matter the situation. People dress up to go to church. They dress up to go on dates. They dress up to go to weddings?—”
“I get it,” I say. “I get it. But Jules—” I sigh. “There’s no point. Felix isn’t interested in me.”
“You don’t know that. The two of you had a moment!” she cries. “You had a moment, and that means it’s possible. Come on.”
I think back to the way he so casually shrugged off the idea of us dating. “I do know?—”
She stands up and tugs on my arm, cutting me off. “Get up. We don’t have much time.”
“It’s not for another hour.”
“I need all of that hour,” she says. “Give it this one last try, Indy. If nothing happens today, if you don’t think he’s interested at all, then fine. But at least try! Make yourself look nice. Flirt with the boy. See what happens.”
She looks so excited, so enthusiastic, that I find myself wavering. There’s an idiotic little part of me that still wants to hope, too, instead of shutting all my feelings down.
And, maybe more than either of those things—I think I might regret not trying. In fact, on a list of things I would regret if I died tomorrow, not telling Felix how I feel would be pretty close to the top.
“I—fine. Fine,” I say with a sigh. “ But, ” I go on as she squeals, “later tonight, you are going to help me with this dating profile. Okay?”
Her squeals give way to a little pout. “Boo,” she says, her brow puckering as she frowns. “Fine. I’ll help you if you still need help.” Then she flaps her hand at me. “Come on, get up. Let’s go. There is work to be done!”
I just sigh and resign myself to my fate.
If we were in a movie montage, the music playing in the background would be “Dancing Queen.” There would be footage of Juliet dragging me out of our room, down the hallway, and into Aurora’s room. There would be more footage of Juliet on her knees, begging Aurora to pretty please let us borrow her closet. We would see a dramatized Aurora as a judge in her chambers, deliberating carefully before finally determining that yes, she will allow me to borrow something of hers to wear.
“But you owe me,” Aurora says grumpily to me. She folds her arms where she’s seated at her desk. “You never let me wear anything out of your closet.”
“Because your chest is too big,” I say. “You’ll stretch my tops out.”
She doesn’t respond to this, because she knows I’m right.
Juliet smiles at Aurora. “You can borrow anything from me,” she chirps, like all three of us don’t know that there’s very little overlap between Juliet’s style and Aurora’s.
Juliet is ruffly and lacy and pink and sweet and soft. Aurora is boss-lady business attire unless she’s at home, in which case she’s jeans and a t-shirt. They don’t even wear the same size shoes. There are maybe three tops they share, and that’s it.
But now Juliet flings Aurora’s closet doors open like she’s been doing it her whole life. “All right,” she says, tapping her finger against her chin. “Let’s see…”
“What’s this for?” Aurora says, her attention back on her laptop. “Why can’t she wear her own clothes? Or yours, Jules?”
“She’s going on a date with Felix,” Juliet says. She just throws the words out casually, like they aren’t absurd, like they don’t make my pulse jump into double-time.
Aurora’s lips curl into a frown of distaste. “Ew,” she says. “Like an actual date?”
“No,” I say with a sigh. “She’s exaggerating.”
“It’s not technically a date,” Juliet concedes, “but she does like him, so be nice.”
Aurora turns to me in surprise, her fingers pausing on the keyboard. “Do you?” she says. “I wondered after that thing at the bookstore you told us about.”
“Their moment,” Juliet says with a nod, her eyes still scanning Aurora’s closet.
“I guess I kind of do,” I say.
“So she’s going to treat this as a possibly romantic situation and see how it goes.”
“Juliet is making me,” I say, slouching over to Aurora’s spartan bed and flopping down.
To my surprise, though, Aurora looks thoughtful. “It’s not a bad idea,” she says. “Just to test the waters. You guys have been hanging out a decent amount, but you’ve never treated him as anything but a friend, have you? And you’ve never given him any signals you’re interested?”
“No,” I say, “but the one thing I did throw out there, he volleyed right back in a firm rejection.”
This manages to pull Juliet’s gaze away from the closet; her hands pause in the middle of riffling through clothes. “Really?” she says, her eyes wide. “When? What happened?”
“I was trying to tell you earlier,” I say, shooting her a look —under which she wisely recoils. “I told him I might join a dating site, and he basically thought it was a bad idea, and so then I said what, should I date you, then?” I clear my throat. “And he said obviously not. So.”
“Hmm,” Juliet says, her eyes narrowing. “He thought it was a bad idea?”
“I kind of do too,” Aurora says with a shrug.
“We were both in weird moods,” I say. “We apologized later.”
“You apologized,” Juliet repeats cryptically, her expression still intent, thoughtful. “Interesting.”
I blink at her. “It’s not interesting. It’s just…an apology. It was nothing. It is nothing.”
“Or,” Jules says, “maybe it was something. Maybe he thought it was a bad idea because he’s jealous. Did you ever think of that?”
“Of course I didn’t,” I say. “It’s absurd.”
“Mark my words, Indy,” Juliet says as Aurora turns back to her laptop. “This is the moment you’ll regret not listening to me. You and Felix could happen. I really think it’s possible.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” I grumble. “And I’m letting myself hope just the tiniest little bit, because I’m emotionally tired and have no self-control.”
“There’s no point in hoping for a good answer if you’re not willing to ask the question,” Juliet says primly, returning to the closet. “And I think you should wear this.” With the click-clack of hangers rustling, she pulls out a dress. “Wear this. Look him in the eye and tell him you like him. See what he says.”
“That’s a little direct,” I say as I inspect the dress. It’s made of soft cotton in a deep forest green, knee-length, completely unadorned. It’s cut like a fitted t-shirt, just longer.
“I could wear this,” I concede. I was worried about what Juliet would choose, but this isn’t bad.
“You look so relieved,” she says, shooting me a disapproving look. “Like you didn’t trust me at all.”
“It’s not that I didn’t trust you,” I say, my voice evasive. “I just wasn’t sure our tastes would align.”
“Get dressed,” Jules says, waving her hand. “We still need to do your hair.”
Thirty minutes later, I have shot down multiple proposed hairstyles and watched Juliet grow more and more grumpy—which, for her, means her face scrunches up and her nose wrinkles and she stomps her foot a lot. Finally, though, my hair is long and gently curled down my back, my lashes are dark with mascara, and there’s actual blush on my cheeks.
I don’t have a problem with dressing up if I need to. I just rarely feel like I need to. So this is a little strange for me. A little strange, and a little…something.
There’s excitement buzzing in the pit of my stomach, bees in my lungs, making it hard to draw a full breath. I hate being so nervous —but my sisters are right. It’s probably worth it to find out once and for all how Felix feels, directly, to my face. I can’t get Juliet’s words out of my head— maybe he was jealous —and I can’t get rid of the way he looked, either, the little twitch in his jaw or his irritable expression.
I don’t know how he feels. But I don’t have the patience to read his mind and figure it out.
So when he calls me fifteen minutes later, I answer with steady words. “Hey,” I say—does my voice sound weird to him, too, or is it just me?
“Hey,” he says. “I’m on my way.”
“I’m ready,” I say. “Just pull up in the front and I’ll come out.”
As soon as he hangs up, I turn to my sisters. Juliet is lounging on Aurora’s bed, reading a magazine now that her makeover is complete, and Aurora is still focusing on her computer at her desk.
“What do I say if he asks why I’m dressed up?” I say.
“That depends on how he asks,” Juliet says promptly, while Aurora offers a shrug and a noise that I take to mean I don’t know.
“More details, please,” I say, because neither of their responses are helpful.
Juliet nods and sits up. “If he asks flirtatiously, you answer flirtatiously. Tell him you dressed up just for him.” She eyes me, suddenly skeptical. “Can you do that?”
“Of course I can,” I say. In truth, I have no idea, but I’ll figure it out. “What about if he asks not flirtatiously?” I swallow. “Like, what if he’s serious?”
Juliet shrugs and reclines against Aurora’s pillows once more, picking her magazine back up. “Then tell him the truth. Throw me under the bus if you need to. Say your sister wanted to give you a makeover.”
“Oh,” I say as relief trickles over me. “Yeah. I can do that.”
“You can tell him you’re trying to win him over, if you want,” Jules goes on, “but I’d be careful about that tactic if I were you?—”
“No need for that,” I say quickly, and Juliet nods.
“Good call,” she says. “I don’t think you’re quite at that level yet.”
I’d argue with her, but she’s not wrong. So I do a twirl for her and say, “Am I good?”
“You’re good,” she says with a satisfied nod. “Wear your white shoes, please.”
“I’ll have you know those are the ones I’d already planned on,” I say, and Juliet claps her hands.
“Look at you,” she says, beaming at me. “Our little fashionista.”
I hurry downstairs and put my shoes on, after which I stand with my nose pressed to the front window like a kid waiting for the ice cream truck. And when my phone buzzes with Felix’s text that he’s out front, I text him a thumbs up—like I haven’t been watching the whole time, like I didn’t see him narrowly miss our mailbox because it’s leaning wonky again.
It’s a perfect day, but I’m too nervous to pay much attention; I make my way down to the street where Felix is parked, taking a second to set the mailbox upright first and then opening the car door. I have to climb inside a bit more carefully so I don’t flash the entire street—or is it moon the entire street? Is there a difference?—but I make it all right, pulling the door shut behind me.
“Hey, Sunshine,” Felix says, shooting me a brief glance as he digs for something in the middle compartment. He returns his attention to whatever he’s digging for?—
Until his hand freezes. His entire body freezes, actually, and his head jerks back up toward me, his eyes widening as they drink me in.
And look. I’m not particularly vain. But that double take?
It feels good.
His gaze skates over me, starting at the top of my head and darting this way and that—from my hair to my face to my dress and occasionally back again.
Finally a faint laugh leaves his lips, and the hand that was searching for something comes up to pinch the bridge of his nose instead.
“You’re not making this easy on me, you know?” he mutters.
I blink at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He exhales long and slow, his gaze darting toward me and away again. “Good question,” he says with another little laugh. Then, sounding disconcerted, he goes on, “I…don’t even know.” He clears his throat and jerks his chin at my seat belt. “Shall we?”
“Oh,” I say, turning my head so he won’t see the flush that’s risen to my cheeks on top of the blush I’m already wearing. “Yeah. Let’s go.” I buckle in and then ask, “What movie are we seeing?”
When he names the action movie I already saw with Jules and Aurora, I just nod. It’s an older one anyway, and I don’t think this outing is as much about the movie as it is about the theater.
“I want to ask you a few questions about the other places we’ve been, too,” he says. “Which was your favorite?”
“As far as a romantic spot?” I say. My mind flashes back to the moment we had in the bookshop. “Probably Pretty Page, because I’m a bookworm. But Crow Point was really beautiful.” I hesitate and then add, “I’m not sure I’m a movie theater gal, to be honest. This will probably be my least favorite. I do think it’s a cool place to visit, though, and especially to highlight.”
“That’s fair,” he says. “Let’s see what we think, Sunshine.”
And I turn out to be right. The movie is fine; the theater is lovely and historical but still just a theater. My mind pays almost no attention to the actual screen. It’s too focused on the man next to me, and more specifically on what I’m going to tell him later.
I don’t remember the last time I confessed my feelings for a guy. I’m not particularly excited—except I know it needs to happen in order for me to move forward.
No matter how much I build myself up, though, part of me is still stuck on the way he laughs, on the twinkle of his eyes in the light of the movie. How stupid is that? I really and truly like him, and I have no idea how it happened.
“You idiot,” I mutter to myself as a car explodes on the screen.
“Huh?” Felix says, turning to look at me.
“Nothing,” I say with a sigh. “It’s—nothing.”
He shrugs and gives his attention back to the movie, and I don’t speak for the rest of the film. I barely speak when Felix asks me what I thought, in fact, and I nod when he asks if I’m ready to go home. My nerves seem to have rendered me temporarily mute.
“You’re being weird,” he says, shooting a glance at me as we pull out of the parking lot and onto the main road. “Why aren’t you talking? You’ve said almost nothing for the last twenty minutes.”
“Ah,” I say as I rub my queasy stomach. “Did you notice that?”
“Of course I did,” he says with a snort. “So out with it. What’s up, Sunshine?”
“Not much,” I lie. “Just—yeah. Tired, I guess?”
The look he shoots me is skeptical, but he doesn’t press the issue. He just glances over at me every now and then, all the way back to my house, and when I unbuckle, it’s with shaking fingers.
“Go in and get some sleep,” he says, his expression faintly concerned. “Call me tomorrow with proof of life and return to normalcy.”
“Wait. I—wait.” Forget about the bees buzzing in my lungs from earlier; I don’t think I have lungs anymore. They’re gone, and I’m left trying desperately to suck in air that won’t come. “Wait,” I say again.
I guess I’m doing this.
He raises his eyebrows at me, waiting obediently, possibly the first time he’s ever done what I asked so easily. That just figures.
But I swallow my fear, my hesitation, and then I spit the words out, before they can dissolve on my tongue. “I like you.”
I say them just like that: I like you.
And for a brief moment, there’s nothing but silence in the car. Felix’s eyes widen, frozen, and his jaw gapes. We spend a good five seconds like that, staring at each other in an endless chasm of awkwardness.
Gradually, it seems, he returns to himself. He turns to face forward, running one hand through his hair, then over the back of his neck, and it could not be clearer that he’s trying to figure out what to say, what to do. He stares out the front window like he might find the secrets to the cosmos, and for all I know, he might. In this very minute, I could believe anything.
“You said—” he finally begins, looking at me. He breaks off and then tries again. “You said you wouldn’t fall in love with me.”
Someone says the same thing in A Walk to Remember, I think, either the book or the movie—I’m vaguely aware of this, maybe because my mind is searching frantically for something to hold onto.
“I’m not in love with you,” I say, and the words sound like they’re coming from someone else, someone calm and normal and collected. “But I do like you.” I force a smile. “I broke that promise, anyhow. Sorry. That one’s on me.”
This is all going very well, I note from that same place outside of myself. It hurts more than I thought it would, but overall, it’s going smoothly. I wait for him to speak, patiently, so that this can all be over and done and I can mourn in peace and then move the heck on.
It takes him forever, or maybe it just feels like forever. His hands grip the steering wheel, a life raft in the flood I’ve unleashed, until finally I sigh.
“Felix,” I say, and he jumps. “This isn’t rocket science. Just answer. You’re not going to hurt my feelings. I know you’re a people-pleaser, but dragging it out or saying it flatteringly is worse.” I hesitate. “It’s okay if I’m not the one , or whatever. It’s okay if I’m the same to you as other girls or other friends. You haven’t led me on or promised me anything.”
He slumps backward, finally letting go of the steering wheel as his head comes to rest against his seat. Then he runs one hand down his face and looks at me. “I don’t know how I feel, India.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.” I just nod. “It’s okay. If you don’t know, you probably don’t feel the same.” I take a deep breath, and with every bit of willpower I possess, I force my stinging eyes to stay dry—at least until I get inside. “You’ve been an awesome friend,” I say. “Truly. I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”
Felix shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “You sound like you’re saying goodbye,” he says with a weak laugh.
I smile but don’t answer. “Your article will be great. I’ll read it when it comes out.” Then, because I can no longer stop the trickle of tears trying to escape, I open the door. “Good luck getting everything written!” I call over my shoulder.
I don’t let him respond; I can’t. I need to cry now, and I won’t let him see. So I wave as I’m turning around, and then I hurry up the driveway and into the garage.
By the time I’m stepping into the laundry room, I still haven’t heard his car pull away. And when I find Jules and Aurora in the kitchen—sitting on the countertop, eating leftover Chinese takeout, and looking so much like home that I could cry—all I can do is shuffle toward them, my head hanging.
“How was it?” Aurora says, her voice unsure.
But Juliet knows. “Oh, Indy,” she says in a sad little voice. She hops off the counter and sets her lo mein aside, fork poking out of the container because despite being the most dextrous of us all she still can’t use chopsticks. Then she wraps me in a giant bear hug, her graceful arms tight around me. Aurora joins only a second later.
“Do you want us to egg his house?” Aurora murmurs, and I know if I said yes we’d be out the door with a carton in a heartbeat.
But I just give a watery laugh and shake my head. “No,” I say, sniffling as I let my sisters piece me back together. “Are there any dumplings left?” My stomach growls. “I’m hungry.”