Macy: “In Truth,” I said, “there are no rules other than you have to tell the truth.”
Wes: “How do you win?” he asked
Macy: “That,” I said, “is such a boy question.

How fast were you?" Wes asked me. I said, "Not that fast."
"You mean you couldn't... fly?" he said, smiling at me.

Okay," I said, "what's your biggest fear?"
As always, he took a second to think about the answer.
"Clowns," he said.
"Clowns."
"Yup."
I just looked at him.
"What?" he said, glancing over at me.
"That is not a real answer," I told him.
"Says who?"
"Says me. I meant a real fear, like of failure, of death, of regret. Like that. Something that keeps you awake nights, questioning your very existence."
He thought for a second. "Clowns.

You," I said, "have this whole tall, dark stranger thing going on. Not to mention the tortured artist bit."

"Bit?"

"You know what I mean."

He shook his head, clearly discounting this description. "And you," he said, "have that whole blonde, cool and collected, perfect smart girl thing going on."

"You're the boy all the girls want to rebel with," I said.

"You," he replied, "are the unattainable girl in the homeroom who never gives a guy the time of the day."

There was a blast of music from inside, a thump of bass beat, then quiet again.

"I'm not perfect," I said. "Not even close."

"I'm not tortured. Unless you count this conversation.

Isn't it weird," I said, "the way you remember things, when someone's gone?"
What do you mean?"
I ate another piece of waffle. "When my dad first died, all I could think about was that day. It's taken me so long to be able to think back to before that, to everything else."
Wes was nodding before I even finished. "It's even worse when someone's sick for a long time," he said. "You forget they were ever healthy, ever okay. It's like there was never a time when you weren't waiting for something awful to happen."
But there was," I said. "I mean, it's only been in the last few months that I've started remembering all this good stuff, funny stuff about my dad. I can't believe I ever forgot it in the first place."
You didn't forget," Wes said, taking a sip of his water. "You just couldn't remember right then. But now you're ready to, so you can."
I thought about this as I finished off my waffle.

If he'd been any other boy, and this was any other world, I would have kissed him. Nothing could have stopped me.