Текст книги "Lola and the Boy Next Door"

Автор книги: Stephaie Perkns

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

It’s in the fierceness of her eyes and the strength of her posture as she waits for her music to begin. Her skin is pale, her lips are red, and her dark hair is pulled into a sleek twist. She’s stunning and ferocious. The music starts, and she melts into the romance of it, and she

is

the song. Calliope

is

Juliet.

“Opening with a triple lutz/double toe,” the female says. “She fell on this at World’s last year . . .”

She lands it.

“And the triple salchow . . . watch how she leans, let’s see if she can get enough height to finish the rotation . . .”

She lands it.

The commentators drift into a mesmerized hush. Calliope isn’t just landing the jumps, she’s performing them. Her body ripples with intensity and emotion. I imagine young girls across America dreaming of becoming her someday like I once did. A gorgeous spiral sequence leads into a dazzling combination spin. And soon Calliope is punching her arms in triumph, and it’s over.

A flawless long program.

The camera pans across the celebrating crowd. It cuts to her family. The Bell parents are hugging and laughing and crying. And beside them, Calliope’s crazy-haired twin is whooping at the top of his lungs. My heart sings. The camera returns to Calliope, who hollers and fist-pumps the air.

No! Go back to her brother!

The commentators laugh. “Exquisite,” the man says. “Her positions, her extensions. There’s no one like Calliope Bell when she’s on fire.”

“Yes, but will this be enough to overcome her disastrous short program?”

“Well, the curse remains,” he replies. “She couldn’t pull off two clean programs, but talk about redemption. Calliope can hold her head high. This was the best performance of her career.”

She puts on her skate guards and walks to the kiss-and-cry, the appropriately nicknamed area where scores are announced. People are throwing flowers and teddy bears, and she high-fives several people’s hands. Petro puts his arm around her shoulders, and they laugh happily and nervously as they wait for her scores.

They’re announced, and Calliope’s eyes grow as large as saucers.

Calliope Bell is in second place.

And she’s ecstatic to be there.

chapter thirty-three

The wig comes on, and I’m . . . almost happy.

There’s something wrong with my reflection.

It’s not my costume, which would make Marie Antoinette proud. The pale blue gown is girly and outrageous and gigantic. There are skirts and overskirts, ribbons and trim, beads and lace. The bodice is lovely, and the stays fit snugly underneath, giving me a flattering figure—the correct body parts are either more slender or more round. My neck is draped in a crystalline necklace like diamonds, and my ears in shimmery earrings like chandeliers. I sparkle with reflected light.

Is it the makeup?

I’m wearing white face powder, red blush, and clear red lip gloss. Marie Antoinette didn’t have mascara, so I felt compelled to cheat there. I’ve brushed on quite a bit over a pair of false eyelashes. My gaze travels upward. The white wig towers at two feet tall, and it’s adorned with blue ribbons and pink roses and pink feathers and a single blue songbird. It’s beautiful. A work of art. I spent a

really long time

making it.

And . . . it’s not right.

“I don’t see me,” I say. “I’m gone.”

Andy is unlacing my buckled platform combat boots, preparing to help me step inside of them. He gestures in a wide circle. “What do you mean? ALL I can see is you.”

“No.” I swallow. “There’s too much Marie, not enough Lola.”

His brow furrows. “I thought that was the point.”

“I thought so, too, but . . . I’m lost. I’m hidden. I look like a Halloween costume.”

“When

don’t

you look like a Halloween costume?”

“Dad! I’m serious.” My panic rapidly intensifies. “I can’t go to the dance like this, it’s too much. Way too much.”

“Honey,” he shouts to Nathan. “You’d better get in here. Lola is using new words.”

Nathan appears in my doorway, and he grins when he sees me.

“Our daughter said”—Andy pauses for dramatic effect—

“it’s too much.”

They burst into laughter.

“IT’S NOT FUNNY.” And then I gasp. My stays crush my rib cage, making the outburst labored and painful.

“Whoa.” Nathan is suddenly beside me, his hand on my back. “Breathe. Breathe.”

I was already nervous about going to the dance and seeing my classmates. At least I won’t be alone—I’m meeting Lindsey and Charlie there—but I can’t go like this. It’d be humiliating. I need Lindsey here; she’d take control. But she’s in the middle of a murder-mystery dinner party, and Charlie has wagered a month of school lunches that he’ll solve the mystery before she does. It’s important to Lindsey that she wins.

“Phone,” I pant. “Give me my phone.”

Andy hands it to me, and I dial Cricket instead. I’m sent directly to his voice mail, like I have been all afternoon. He called this morning to make sure I was going to the dance, but we haven’t talked since. I keep fantasizing that we can’t get in touch because he’s on an airplane, planning to surprise me by magically appearing at my school during the first slow song, but it’s most likely a snowstorm wreaking havoc with his connection. Tonight is the Exhibition of Champions, and Calliope is performing in it. He has to be there.

But tomorrow . . . he’ll be home.

The thought temporarily calms me. And then I see my reflection again, and I realize that tomorrow helps nothing about

tonight.

“O-kaaaay.” Andy pries the phone from my death grip. “We need a plan.”

“I have a plan.” I tear at the pins holding the wig to my head. “I’ll take it apart. I’ll do a modern reinterpretation of it in my own hair.” I’m flinging the pins to the floor like darts, and my parents step back nervously.

“That sounds . . .” Nathan says.

“Complicated,” Andy says.

I rip off the wig and throw it onto my desk.

“Are you sure you want to—” Nathan’s words die as I wrench the pink roses from the wig. Half of them tear, and Andy clamps a hand over his mouth. The songbird is yanked off next. “It’s fine,” I say. “I’ll put them in my own hair, it’ll be fine.” I push the rest of the wig to the floor, look up, and cry out. My hair is matted and tangled, bushy and flattened. It’s every bad thing that can happen to someone’s head, all at once.

Andy gingerly removes another stray pin as I try to tug a brush through the disaster. “Careful!” he says.

“I’M BEING CAREFUL.” The brush snags in my hair, and I explode into tears.

Andy spins around to Nathan. “Who do we call? Who do we know who does hair?”

“I don’t know!” Nathan looks blindsided. “That queen with the big order last week?”

“No, she’d be working. What about Luis?”

“You hate Luis. What about—”

“I’ll wear the wig! I’ll just wear the wig, forget it!” I feel my black mascara trailing through my white face powder as I trip backward, and my right foot lands on the wig. The chicken wire structure underneath it smashes flat.

My parents gasp. And the last remaining vision I had of entering my winter formal as Marie Antoinette disappears.

I pull at my stays, forcing room to get air inside my chest. “It’s over.”

There’s a

thud

beside my window as someone drops into the room. “Only the wig is over.”

I lunge toward him instinctively, but my dress is so heavy that I crumple face-first into my rug. My gown falls around me like a deflated accordion. I didn’t realize it was possible to die of embarrassment. But I think it might actually happen.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Cricket drops to his knees. His grip is strong as he helps me sit up. I want to collapse into his arms, but he carefully lets go of me.

“What . . . what are you . . . ?”

“I left Nationals early. I know how important the dance is to you, and I wanted to surprise you. I didn’t want you to have to walk in alone. Not that you couldn’t handle it,” he adds. Which is gracious of him, considering my current status. “But I wanted to be there, too. For your big entrance.”

I’m wiping rug burn and mascara from my cheeks. “My big entrance.”

My parents are frozen dumbstruck by the sudden appearance. Cricket turns to them apologetically. “I would have used the front door, but I didn’t think you’d hear me. And the window was open.”

“You’ve always been . . . full of surprises,” Andy says.

Cricket smiles at him before swiveling back around to me. “Come on. Let’s get you ready for the dance.”

I turn my head. “I’m not going.”

“You have to go.” He nudges my elbow. “I came back so that I could take you, remember?”

I can’t meet his eyes. “I look stupid.”

“Hey. No,” he says softly. “You look beautiful.”

“You’re lying.” I lift my gaze, but I have to bite my lip for a moment to keep it from quivering. “I have mascara clown face. My hair screams child-eating storybook witch.”

Cricket looks amused. “I’m not lying. But . . . we should clean you up,” he adds.

He takes my arms and begins to help me stand. Nathan steps forward, but Andy grabs one of his shoulders. My parents watch Cricket rearrange the skirt of my dress to get me safely to my feet. He leads me to the bathroom attached to my bedroom. Nathan and Andy follow at a careful distance. Cricket turns on the sink’s tap and searches the bottles and tubes on my countertop until he finds what he’s looking for. “Aha!”

It’s makeup remover.

“Calliope uses the same kind,” he explains. “She’s been known to need this after particularly brutal performances. For the, uh,”—he gestures in a general way toward my face—“same reason.”

“Oh God.” I blink at the mirror. “It looks like I’ve been vomited on by an inkwell.”

He grins. “A little bit. Come on, the water is warm.”

We scoot around awkwardly until I’m positioned in front of the sink, and then he drapes a towel over the front of my dress. I—very difficultly—lean over. His fingers slide through my hair and hold it back while I scrub. His physical presence against me is soothing. The face powder, mascara, false eyelashes, and blush disappear. I dry my face, and my eyes find his in the mirror. My skin is bare and pink.

He stares back with unguarded desire.

Nathan clears his throat from the doorway, and we startle. “So what are we going to do about your hair?” he asks.

My heart falls. “I guess I’ll wear a different wig. Something simple.”

“Maybe . . . maybe I can help,” Cricket says. “I do have some experience. With hair.”

I frown. “Cricket. You’ve had that same hair your entire life. Don’t tell me you style it that way yourself.”

“No, but . . .” He rubs the back of his neck. “Sometimes I help Cal with hers before competitions.”

My eyebrows raise.

“If you’d asked me yesterday, I would have said it was a seriously embarrassing skill for a straight guy.”

“You’re the

best,

” I say.

“Only you would think that.” But he looks pleased.

It’s in this moment that I finally register what he’s wearing. It’s a handsome skinny black suit with a shiny sheen. The pants are too short—on purpose, of course—exposing his usual pointy shoes and a pair of pale blue socks that match my dress

exactly.

And I totally want to jump him.

“Tick tock,” Nathan says.

I scooch past Cricket, back into my bedroom. He gestures to my desk chair, so I lift my skirts up and around the back, and I find a way to sit down. And then he finger-combs my hair. His hands are gentle and quick, the movements smooth and assured. I close my eyes. The room is silent as his fingertips untangle the strands from roots to tips and run loose throughout my hair. I lean back into him. It feels like my entire body is blossoming.

He leans over and whispers in my ear, “They’ve gone.”

I look up, and, sure enough, my parents have left the door ajar. But they’re gone. We smile. Cricket resumes his work, and I nestle into his hands. My eyes close again. After a few minutes, he clears his throat. “I, um, have something to tell you.”

My eyes remain shut, but my eyebrows lift in curiosity. “What kind of something?”

“A story,” he says.

His words become dreamlike, almost hypnotic, as if he’s told this to himself a hundred times before. “Once upon a time, there was a girl who talked to the moon. And she was mysterious and she was perfect, in that way that girls who talk to moons are. In the house next door, there lived a boy. And the boy watched the girl grow more and more perfect, more and more beautiful with each passing year. He watched her watch the moon. And he began to wonder if the moon would help him unravel the mystery of the beautiful girl. So the boy looked into the sky.

“But he couldn’t concentrate on the moon. He was too distracted by the stars.”

I hear Cricket remove a rubber band from his wrist, which he uses to hold a twist of my hair.

“Go on,” I say.

I hear the smile in his voice. “And it didn’t matter how many songs or poems had already been written about them, because whenever he thought about the girl,

the stars shone brighter.

As if she were the one keeping them illuminated.

“One day, the boy had to move away. He couldn’t bring the girl with him, so he brought the stars. When he’d look out his window at night, he would start with one. One star. And the boy would make a wish on it, and the wish would be her name.

“At the sound of her name, a second star would appear. And then he’d wish her name again, and the stars would double into four. And four became eight, and eight became sixteen, and so on, in the greatest mathematical equation the universe had ever seen. And by the time an hour had passed, the sky would be filled with so many stars that it would wake his neighbors. People wondered who’d turned on the floodlights.

“The boy did. By thinking about the girl.”

My eyes open, and my heart is in my throat. “Cricket . . . I’m not

that.

”

He stops pinning my hair. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve built up this idea about me, this

ideal,

but I’m not that person. I’m not perfect. I am far from perfect. I’m not worth such a beautiful story.”

“Lola. You are the story.”

“But a story is just that. It isn’t the truth.”

Cricket returns to his work. The pink roses are added. “I know you aren’t perfect. But it’s a person’s imperfections that make them perfect for someone else.”

Another pin slides into place as I catch sight of the back of his hand. A star. Every star he’s drawn onto his skin has been for

me.

I glance at my doorway to make sure it’s still empty, and I grab his hand.

He looks at it.

I trace my thumb around the star.

He looks at me. His eyes are so painfully, exquisitely blue.

And I pull him down into me, and I plant my lips against his, which are loose with surprise and shock. And I kiss Cricket Bell with everything that’s been building inside of me, everything since he moved back, everything since that summer, everything since our childhood. I kiss him like I’ve never kissed anyone before.

He doesn’t move.

His lips aren’t moving.

My head jerks back in alarm. I’ve acted rashly, I’ve pushed him too quickly—

He collapses to his knees and yanks me back to his lips.

His kiss isn’t even remotely innocent. There’s passion, but there’s also an urgency verging on panic. He pulls me closer, as close as my dress and my chair allow, and he’s gripping me so tightly that I feel his fingers press through the back of my stays.

I pull back, gasping for breath. Reeling. His breath is ragged, and I place my hands on his cheeks to steady him. “Is this okay?” I whisper. “Are you okay?”

His reply is anguished. Honest. “I love you.”

chapter thirty-four

Moonlight shines into my bedroom and reveals his fragile state. “I didn’t say it so you’d say it back,” he says. “Please don’t say it if you don’t mean it. I can wait.”

I rise and detach my gown from the chair. And then I help him stand, and I place his hands around my waist. I lean onto my tiptoes, rest my fingers against the back of his neck, and kiss him gently. Slowly. His tongue finds mine. Our hearts beat faster and faster, and our kisses grow hotter and hotter, until we burst apart from breathlessness.

I smile, dizzily, and touch my swollen lips. These are

not

the kisses of a sweet, wholesome boy next door. I draw him closer by his tie and whisper into his ear, “Cricket Bell, I have been in love with you for my entire life.”

He doesn’t say anything. But his fingers tighten against the back of my bodice. I ache to press my body into his, but my dress is making full contact impossible. I wiggle into a slightly better position. He glances down and notices that I’m still wearing a certain blue something, and, this time, it’s

his

index finger that wraps underneath

my

rubber band.

I shiver wonderfully. “I’m never taking it off.”

Cricket brushes the delicate skin of my wrist. “It’ll fall off.”

“I’ll ask you for another one.”

“I’ll give you another one.” He smiles and touches his nose to mine.

And then he spasms violently and pushes me away.

Someone is coming upstairs. Cricket grabs the songbird off my desk and shoves it into my hair as Andy pops his head in. My dad gives us a look. “Just making sure everything is okay. It’s getting late. You should get going.”

“We’ll be down in a minute,” I say.

“You’re not even wearing shoes. Or makeup.”

“Five minutes.”

“I’m timing it.” Andy disappears. “And it’ll be Nathan up here next,” he calls out.

“So what do you think?” Cricket asks.

“You’re good. Very, very good.” I poke his chest, giddy with the knowledge that I can touch him now whenever I want. “How did you get so good?”

“It’s safe to say that you’re the one who brings it out of me.” He pokes my stomach. “But I meant your hair.”

I’m beaming as I turn toward the mirror, and . . . “OH.”

The updo looks professional

.

It’s tall and splendid and elaborate, but it doesn’t overwhelm me. It complements me. “This is . . . it’s . . . perfect.”

“You will never tell anyone I did that on pain of death.” But he’s grinning.

“Thank you.” I pause, and then I look down at my pale blue fingernails. “You know that thing you said about someone being perfect for someone else?”

“Yeah?”

My eyes lift back to his. “I think you’re perfect, too. Perfect for me. And . . . you look amazing tonight.You always do.”

Cricket blinks. And then again. “Did I black out? Because I’ve daydreamed those words a thousand times, but I never thought you’d

actually

say them.”

“THREE MINUTES,” Andy calls from downstairs.

We break into nervous laughter. Cricket shakes his head to refocus. “Boots,” he says. “Socks.”

I point them out, and while he finishes prepping them, I mascara my lashes, powder my face, and gloss my lips. The makeup is dropped into my purse. I have a feeling I’ll need retouching before I come home. Cricket sweeps me up by my waist and carries me to the bed, and I’m lifting my skirts as he sets me down on the edge. His eyes widen, but it turns into more laughter when he sees how many layers are underneath.

I grin. “There’s more than panniers under here.”

“Just give me your foot.”

From downstairs: “ONE MINUTE.”

Cricket kneels and takes my left foot into his hands. The sock comes on too fast. My boot squeaks as he slides it over my leg. His careful, quick fingers lace it all the way up to my knee, where they linger ever so slightly. I close my eyes, praying for the clock to stop. He tugs and tightens the buckles. And then he repeats everything on the other side.

Somehow, this is the sexiest thing that has ever happened to me.

“I wish I had more feet,” I say.

“We can do this again.” He tightens the last buckle. “Anytime.”

There’s a knock against my door frame as Betsy eagerly bounds toward us. My parents are both here. Cricket helps me stand.

Nathan’s expression softens into astonishment. “Wow.”

I hesitate. “Good wow?”

“Standing ovation wow,” Cricket says.

The way everyone is staring makes me nervous again. I turn toward the mirror, and I see . . . a magnificent gown and beautiful hair and a glowing face. And the reflection smiling back at me is

Lola.

“One more,” Andy says. “From the side, so we can see the bird in your hair.”

I turn my head to pose for another picture. “This is the last one.”

“Did you get a shot with the boots?” Nathan asks. “Show us the boots.”

I lift my hem and smile. “Tick tock.”

“I am trying

really

hard not to use the word ‘fabulous’ right now,” Andy says.

But I feel fabulous. My parents take two more rounds of pictures—one with both of us and one with just Cricket—before we make our escape into the foggy night. Getting to the sidewalk requires folding the panniers, lifting my skirts, and stepping sideways down the stairs. We’re walking to my school, because it’s close.

Also, because I can’t fit into a car.

“Hey! There they are!”

Aleck appears on the porch next door. Abby is on his hip. I wave, and her eyes grow HUGE like when she saw the wild green parrots in the park. “Ohhhh,” she says.

“You guys look great,” Aleck calls down. “Crazy. But great.”

We grin our thanks and say goodbye. Unsurprisingly, the dress makes it difficult to maneuver down the sidewalk—I frequently have to turn to the side, and hand-holding is tricky—but we make our way down the first block.

“Are they still watching?” I ask.

Cricket looks back. “All four of them.”

My stomach is fluttering, but the butterflies are happy and anticipatory. We’re both waiting for the same moment. We finally turn a corner, and Cricket pulls me into the purple-black shadows of the first house. Our mouths crush against each other. My hands rake through his hair, tugging him closer. He tries to back me against the wall, but I bounce off it. Our lips are still touching as we laugh.

“Hold on.” I hoist up the structure of my dress, but I fold it the other way this time, so that the lifted, flat surface is in the back. “Okay. Try again.”

He does it slowly this time, pushing his entire figure against mine, using his hips to press me against the house. It doesn’t matter how much fabric is between us, the solid strength of his body against mine is electric. Charged. And then our arms are enveloping and our fingers are digging and our mouths are searching and our bodies find this

lock

.

And if I’m the stars, Cricket Bell is entire galaxies.

The winter wind spirals around us, cold and bitter, but the space between us is hot and sweet. His scent makes me ravenous. I kiss his neck in a downward trail, and I can’t hear it over the wind, but I feel him moan. His fingers easily, gracefully slide through the laces of my stays and work their way around the chemise underneath. They stroke only the smallest square of my back, but the tremor runs the full length of my spine.

Our mouths clasp again. We press against each other harder. His fingers slip out of my stays. They move from my back to my front, and for the first time ever, I wish this dress were less complicated. My next one will be much smaller, a single layer, with a thin silk that will allow me to feel

everything.

Cricket breaks away, his eyes wild. “We have to stop. If we don’t stop now . . .”

“I know.” Even though all I want to do is keep going.

But he wraps his arms around me, and he holds me as if I were about to fly away with the wind. He holds me until our hearts stop pounding so furiously. He holds me until we can breathe again.

The fog is still heavy, and the sidewalks are packed, but everyone sees us coming. They part aside with claps and cheers. Our smiles as are full as our hearts. As we promenade down the glittery sidewalks of the Castro, I feel as if we’re in a music video. A woman with a pompadour gives Cricket a fist pump, and the man with the Care Bears tattoo who owns the environmentally friendly dry cleaners gives us both wolf whistles.

Or maybe just Cricket. He

does

look hot.

We turn the last corner toward my school, and he pulls me into the privacy of another gap between houses. I look up at him teasingly through my eyelashes. “You know, I just reapplied my lip gloss.”

But Cricket is suddenly nervous. Very nervous.

His expression fills me with apprehension. “Is . . . everything okay?” I ask.

He places a hand inside the inner pocket of his suit jacket. “I wanted to give you this for Christmas, and then for New Year’s. But I couldn’t get it ready in time. And then I thought it’d make a better gift for tonight anyway, assuming, of course, that you’d come with me to the dance. But then I couldn’t give it to you in your bedroom, because it was too bright inside, so I had to wait until we were outside, because it’s dark outside—”

“Cricket! What is it?”

He swallows. “Sohereitis, Ihopeyoulikeit.”

And he removes his hand from his pocket and thrusts a slender golden object into my palm. The disk is warm from his body heat. It’s round like a makeup compact, and there’s a tiny button to open it, but it’s deeper than a compact.

And the metal has been etched with stars.

The sound of my heart is loud inside my ears. “I’m almost afraid to open it. It’s perfect as it is.”

Cricket takes it and holds it at my eye level. “Press the button.”

I extend a shaky index finger.

Click.

And then . . . the most wondrous thing appears. The lid pops back, and a miniature, luminous universe rises up and unfolds. A small round moon glows in the center, surrounded by tiny twinkling stars. I gasp. It’s intricate and alive. Cricket places the automaton back into my palm. I cradle it, enchanted, and the stars wink at me lazily.

“The moon is what took so long. I had trouble getting the cycle correct.”

I look up, mystified. “The cycle?”

He points to the real moon. She’s a waxing gibbous—a slice of her left side is dark. I look back down. The little moon is

almost

entirely illuminated. A slice of its left side is dark. I’m stunned into silence.

“So you won’t forget me when I’m gone,” he says.

I raise my eyes in alarm.

Cricket reacts quickly. “Not gone-gone. I meant during the week, when I’m at school. No more moving. I’m here. I’m wherever you are.”

I let out a relieved breath, one hand clutching my tight stays.

“You haven’t said anything.” He plucks at a rubber band. “Do you like it?”

“Cricket . . . this is the most extraordinary thing I’ve ever seen.”

His expression melts. He enfolds me into his arms, and I rise on my platform tiptoes to reach his lips again. I want to kiss him for the rest of the night, for the rest of our lives.

The one.

He tastes salty like sea fog. But he tastes sweet, too, like . . .

“Cherries,” he says.

Yes.

Wait. Was I talking out loud?

“You taste like cherries. Your hair smells like cherries. You’ve always smelled like cherries to me.” Cricket presses his nose against the top of my head and inhales. “I can’t believe I’m allowed to do that now. You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that.”

I bury my face against his chest and smile. Someday I’ll tell him about my teacup.

The sound of laughter and music floats through the night air, swirling and ephemeral. It’s beckoning us. I look up and deep into his eyes. “Are you sure you want to do this? A high school dance? You don’t think it’s . . . kind of lame?”

“Sure, but aren’t they supposed to be?” Cricket smiles. “I don’t know. I’ve never been to one. And I’m happy. I’m

really

hap—”

And I interrupt his words with another ecstatic kiss. “Thank you.”

“Are you ready?” he asks.

“I am.”

“Are you scared?”

“I’m not.”

He takes my hand and squeezes it. With my other, I hitch up the bottom of my dress. My platform combat boots lead the way. And I hold my head high toward my big entrance, hand in hand with the boy who gave me the moon and the stars.

acknowledgments

This novel should have two sets of acknowledgments: one for Kiersten White and one for everybody else.

Oh, Kiersten! Thank you for the backyard pirate games, the English seaside, the Gothic orchid mysteries, the Icelandic dancing, the French cafés, and for every other adventure we took while I was writing this book. Thank you for keeping me sane, despite the questionable sanity of that last sentence. Thank you for gently, persistently guiding me to The End. (Again and again and again.) And—most of all—thank you for being my friend. I am so grateful to have you in my life.

Kate Schafer Testerman: Remember that whole thing about you being my Dream Agent? I’m happy to announce that the reality is even sweeter. Thank you for being both kind and kick-ass.

Julie Strauss-Gabel: I want to draw glittery hearts around your name. My novels are so much better, so much stronger because of you. Thank you for your guidance, for your patience, and for uncovering the story that I’ve always wanted to tell. Working with you is a pleasure and an honor.

Further thanks to the entire Penguin Young Readers Group. Standing ovations for: Scottie Bowditch, Kristina Duewell, Ashley Fedor, Jeanine Henderson, Lauri Hornik, Anna Jarzab, Liza Kaplan, Doni Kay, Eileen Kreit, Katie Kurtzman, Rosanne Lauer, Linda McCarthy, Irene Vandervoort, and Lisa Yoskowitz.

Thank you to my family, my most enthusiastic cheerleaders: Mom, Dad, Kara, Chris, Beckham, J.D., Fay, and Roger. I am lucky to have you. I love you.

Thank you to the following authors for friendship, for critiquing drafts, and for understanding absolutely

everything

: Paula Davis, Gayle Forman, Lisa Madigan, Laini Taylor, Natalie Whipple, and Daisy Whitney. You are all goddesses.

Thank you to my amazing blog readers. Thank you to John Green, Nerdfighteria, and Wizard Rock for not forgetting to be awesome. Thank you to Lauren Biehl, Natalie Payne, Lisa Pressley, and Michelle Wolf for that crazy-good vegan brunch. Thank you to Manning Krull and Marjorie Mesnis for the transcontinental hospitality, terrible horror films, and exquisite wine. Thank you to Chris Lane for living on the right street in the right neighborhood in the right city, to Anna Pfaff for letting me borrow her future dog’s name, and to anyone working for LGBT equality.

Finally, thank you to Jarrod Perkins. Who recognized the importance of a high school dance. Who flew across the country, swept me off to prom, and wore the matching Chuck Taylors. Who always makes me feel beautiful.You are beautiful, too. Thank you for ten dazzling years of marriage and for many, many more to come. Let’s ask Elvis to renew our vows, okay? We’ll wear our Chucks.