Once they were out of sight, I walked home.
How many thousands of times over the years had I walked to Lee’s house? I could walk this route blindfolded.
I wondered when I’d walk it next.
Back at home, the house was empty. I went inside to find the keys for the garage and hauled the door open.
And right there, in the middle of the garage floor, taking up so much space and standing proudly, in all its bright pink-and-blue glory, speckled with rust and starting to fall apart, was our DDM machine from the arcade.
“He didn’t,” I whispered, stepping inside slowly, reverently. “Oh, Lee, you didn’t.”
A note was taped to the screen, and I pulled it off to read it.
Shelly—Until our next dance. Your best friend forever—Lee.
I clutched the note to my chest, tearing up all over again and running a hand over the old game.
Classic Lee.
Epilogue
Laughter filled the air and chatter bubbled all around us. Electronic dings and schwoops sounded every so often. A ball collided hard with a wooden target board, followed by a splash and a chorus of cheers as a teacher plummeted into a dunk tank. Grass was trampled into the mud by hundreds of feet and the sun beat down on us. Music was being pumped out of speakers nearby, but you could barely hear it over the sound of everything else.
A hand clutched my arm, turning me around, and a face I knew better than my own beamed at me. “There you are!”
“Hey, you guys!” I took turns hugging Lee and then Rachel, like I hadn’t just seen them a couple of days ago, or video-called them just last night to make sure we were still on for the day.
Rachel looked around, awestruck. “I can’t believe how…I thought it would’ve changed a lot more.”
“It has,” I told her. “They got a brand-new moonwalk this year.”
But I knew exactly what she meant. I’d felt it, too. Coming here today had been like stepping into a dream.
The annual Spring Carnival. Our school was still running it, after all these years. This year, they were raising money for a climate-change organization. A lot of the booths were the same ones we’d known; kids were still hooking the exact same rubber ducks from a pool that we had used.
It had been six years since we graduated high school. Six years since we’d all been back here together.
I’d been back a couple of times. Parent–teacher conferences for Brad that Dad and Linda couldn’t make it to that I’d filled in on. Those had been weird as hell—but being at the carnival today was something else entirely.
Six years, and Lee and Rachel had stuck it out together all this time. Rachel had moved back home after graduating from Brown. She and Lee had gotten an apartment together. He’d proposed at New Year’s.
I didn’t have an engagement ring (or a boyfriend at all, for that matter), but I did have an apartment of my own, just downtown from them. Near my family, not too far from Lee, and within walking distance of work.
“So where’s Brad?”
“Probably stuffing his face with cotton candy.” I rolled my eyes. “That kid’s a dentist’s dream. Or nightmare, depending on which way you look at it. He’s gotta get another filling, you know.”
“Living his best life,” Lee declared.
Rachel swatted a hand across his chest before I could do exactly that. “Don’t encourage it.”
“Good luck when you guys have kids,” I told her. “He’s going to be a handful. Especially on Halloween. Can you imagine? Although, that said, he’ll probably eat all their Halloween candy before they get a look at it. Oh my God, that’s weird, isn’t it? Kids. You guys might have kids one day. I swear we were just kids.”
“We were,” Lee told me in a flat voice. “So please don’t, because I came here to have fun and relive my childhood, not have an existential crisis.”
“You’re twenty-four,” Rachel scoffed.
“Exactly. I’m a grown-up now. And I can have an existential crisis any time I want, thank you very much.”
“Lee, you had cake for breakfast.”
“Well, you shouldn’t have bought a whole cake, then, should you? Then there wouldn’t have been cake for me to eat for breakfast.”
I laughed, looping my arm through Lee’s. Some things never changed.
The three of us set off to explore more of the carnival, and speaking of things that never changed…
“Oh my God,” I blurted, stopping in my tracks.
Lee stopped too. “No way.”
It couldn’t be.
Just as we’d turned a corner, we saw a crowd around one of the booths. One we recognized all too well. The paint was a little faded now. Looking at it, I could still feel the wet splash of paint on my skin when Lee had flicked some at me while we’d been working on the booth. I could hear his laughter from that afternoon ringing in my ears.
“Whoa,” he breathed, and clutched my arm. I grabbed him right back.
Because right there in front of us, seven years later, was the kissing booth.
As we watched, a guy walked up to the booth. He said something to the girl there and she blushed furiously, looking nervous before leaning in for a kiss.
My stomach swooped and, just for a second, it was me sitting in that booth, with Noah sliding across two dollar bills and my heart hammering in my chest as he told me, “I didn’t pay to talk to you, you know. I paid to get a kiss.”
I could feel my lips tingling.
The couple in the booth broke apart. The guy said something and the girl laughed, tucking her hair behind her ear and nodding at him. They kissed again, and the crowd cheered.
I’d never forgotten my first kiss. How could I? I could still remember the way Noah’s lips had felt against mine, the way he’d tasted.
Even after six years, it was impossible to forget Noah Flynn.
He didn’t come home that first Thanksgiving after we broke up: he spent it in Boston with Amanda. But he did bring her back for Christmas, because she was still having a hard time being around her parents while they fought out a bitter divorce. It had been weird, but not horrible.
We’d stayed friends. Maybe not good friends, but it wasn’t as though we could really stay out of each other’s lives. We were friendly, at the very least.
And I’d dated other guys since. I’d had other boyfriends. Just like Noah had had other girlfriends.