“Hey.”
It’s strange, staring at him like this after spending so long with him and only him.
It’s not like he’s a stranger.
It’s like my mind and body can’t figure out where he’s been for the past ten hours and why he’s not kissing me.
“Can I come in?” he asks.
“Fuck, yeah, you must be freezing. Come,” I ramble, moving to the side.
He smiles that smile I love most of all as he walks in. I close the door behind him and then shove my hands in my jacket, unsure of what to do with them.
I want to hug him.
I want to touch him.
But . . .
“What are you doing here?” I ask, staring at him.
“Can I ask you a question?” he says, and my heart might just explode at the reminder of familiar, sweet words. “A little late, but you took forever to come down.” There’s a smile on his lips.
“What?”
“A question. It’s past midnight, but . . .” His words trail off as he shrugs.
“What are you doing here?”
“Getting what’s mine.”
“What’s yours?”
“You, Zoe, if you didn’t understand. You’re what’s mine,” he says with a smile.
What in the fuck is going on?
“That doesn’t . . . It doesn’t make any sense.” I step to the side then toward the kitchen, where one dim light shines.
I want to see his face.
I also want space.
I lean my hips into the kitchen counter, facing Zander, my arms crossing on my chest.
“Why not? Because I’m telling you right now, all those crazy dreams you had as a little girl? I’m gonna make them happen for you.” He steps closer, but there are still a few feet between us.
It feels like an ocean.
An ocean I created with no idea how to drain it.
“That’s not how it works, Zander,” I say, reality choosing to be the bearer of bad news.
And then he does something I never in one million years would have seen coming.
He reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a folded piece of paper.
Paper with a heading that reads, My Love Story Bucket List.
A paper I started when I was ten and finished when I was nearly thirty.
A paper that I worked on two weeks ago, drunk at my best friend’s house and about to blow apart my entire, safe life.
A list that took all my favorite songs, pulled every romantic line I loved from them, and turned it into a checklist for what I wanted from whoever stole my heart.
“It does, Zo,” he says, handing it over to me.
I snatch it from his hands, and I know then that this whole week hasn’t just been a random mess of impulsive decisions.
Rocks at my window.
Star gazing.
Paper rings in the diner.
The sunrise.
The dress he’d want to take off me.
Dancing in the parking lot.
The A necklace.
Even the questions.
The questions.
He did it all to make this come true.
“Where did you get this?” I ask, my brow furrowed as I read the lines in the dim light of my parent’s living room at midnight.
“Lune.” My head snaps up to him.
“Luna?!”
“She gave it to me. Told me it would help my mission.” I don’t even have the mindset to ask about the mission because I’m so lost in the idea that Luna gave her brother the super-secret list I started when we were kids.
“I’m going to kill her,” I murmur under my breath, wondering if I went over there, could I jimmy her lock and open it to strangle her in her sleep?
“I knew about it already, though,” Zander says as if that changes anything. “Years ago, Tony and I found it in her room. You’ve added to it, but . . . it’s all there.” His hand moves toward the paper that I’m still reading, but any reply, any outrage that he had seen all of my girly dreams flies when I see different handwriting.
“What’s this?” I ask, pointing to the bottom.
“My additions.”
“‘New Year's Day.’ ‘The Very First Night.’” My mind moves through the lyrics of both songs—squeezing my hand three times. Riding in the car when we fell in love.
Jesus.
What is he saying right now?
Or more, what has he been saying all along?
“‘How You Get the Girl?’” I read off the paper, my bow furrowing.
That one I don’t quite get, can’t pin it into a part of our story.
“For better or for worse. Forever and ever.” I look back up at him, and he’s digging in his pocket.
I’m actually scared of what he might pull out this time, how it will either tear me apart or . . .
“Let me put you back together, Zoe. The old version, the good version.” My heart stops.
And because I’m me, I overthink, jumping to the worst conclusion.
“Are you saying you don’t like me?” I ask.
Because the reality is, I’ll never be the old Zoe ever again.
Not really.
I don’t think anyone can go back once they’ve changed. Even if they make every effort to return to who they once were, a small part of them is forever different, irreversible.
Is Zander saying that if I figure out a way to turn back time, he won’t like that tiny part of me? That there will always be something inside of me that he resents?
“You know I love you, Zoe.”
And then my heart stops full-out.
“I love this uptight version of you, and I love the version that used to play dress-up with my sister and tried to turn me into a toad. I love the version that agreed to go on a road trip with me and the version that started to let go of perfection after just a day or so. I love the version that played pretend with me, but I also love the version that won’t admit it was never pretend. Because it never was, pip. Not with us.”
“What do you mean you love me, Zander?” I ask because my world is toppling over, and maybe I was wrong.
Maybe you can feel pain in dreams and hallucinations. Maybe I am sleeping, living out a fantasy.
Maybe when I wake up, I’ll be hungover at Luna’s, Tony getting ready to take us to the diner and feed us grease and carbs.
The last two weeks will have been some dream I conjured up.
“Don’t play dumb, pip. I’ve loved you as long as I can remember.”
“I don’t—” He stops me, continuing to speak.
“You weren’t having a midlife crisis, Zoe. You just miss the old you. The fun, carefree girl who would come downstairs and tell me about her wild ideas in the middle of the night. The one who didn’t have expectations to live up to, the one who didn’t want valedictorian, the one who always saw the good in people. The one who wasn’t chasing some dream she thought someone else had for her.”
“Zander, I—” He cuts me off with familiar words.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“What?”
“Can I ask you a question, Zoe?” His hand is still in his pocket but no longer fumbling, like whatever he needed he found and it’s in hand.
“I don’t—”
And then it happens.
It fucking happens.
It’s then I wonder if I really am in some chaotic dream state.