I’m about to make a joke out of it, scrambling for a way to play it off like it was just another thing I did to irk him. Then Oliver goes crimson, and my own cheeks are so hot that it feels like we caught each other’s fires. I can’t tell what it is, if we’re annoyed or confused or just stunned, but whatever it is, I know we’re feeling it exactly the same.
What else? I’m about to ask. But I don’t need to. The else is already there in between us. It’s loud and it’s steady, pulsing stubbornly between our fingers even before the thought can fully form in my head.
“Just … c’mon,” says Oliver, tugging for me to follow.
And I do. Our hands are still intertwined, and I don’t know if it’s because we want them to be or because we’re both too proud to be the one who pulls away first. But this much I do know: whatever it is Oliver’s about to say, I’m not ready to hear it. Not when I’ve already got one foot out of this city, far away from him or anything I can do about it.
Then he turns us down my street. “This isn’t the way to your place,” I say.
“Yeah, I … think I left my jacket at the Milkshake Club last night.”
“You didn’t have a jacket,” I say out loud, like an idiot.
Mercifully, he doesn’t notice, pressing on. “You mind if we just go in for a second to check the lost and found?”
I blow out a breath. There is no lost and found so much as a “This Is Carly’s Now,” and whether or not you get it back entirely depends on what direction the wind is blowing that day.
“Yeah, sure.” I swallow, my throat thick. “And then we’ll … talk about whatever it is you wanted to talk about?”
“Yeah,” says Oliver.
But he lets go of my hand. It takes another second for it to hit me: I was wrong.
It feels natural to be embarrassed. Is my ego really so swollen that I thought, even for five seconds, that Oliver might have feelings for me? He’d sooner make out with his Check List. And I’d sooner make out with a pole on the 1 train.
What doesn’t feel natural is the disappointment. It’s vague enough that I can’t pinpoint the root of it but heavy enough that I can’t ignore it, either. Which is stupid. It’s not like I have feelings for him. And even if I did—which again, I do not, could not, and will not, so long as I have any say in the matter—it’s not like I could do anything about it now. Not when two months from now I’ll be in California, and he’ll still be here.
So why am I feeling anything at all? And why does it feel like such a—
“SURPRISE!”
I gasp so sharply I choke on my own spit. Every human I’ve ever met is screaming at me, which is very alarming until I realize that the words they are screaming are, in fact, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” The second wave of it is somehow louder than the first, and just about knocks me right out of Heather’s boots.
I blink, staring out at the little crowd clustered at the front of the Milkshake Bar. Half the theater department is on one side, all of them blowing into colorful noisemakers. Next to them are Teddy and Chloe, both hollering and jumping up and down. Then there’s Teddy’s parents and some other neighbors from our building, wincing from the noise but smiling, and Heather with the confetti cannon she liberally abuses all summer between Pride and the Fourth of July. All these people I love beaming and shouting at me, but even in all the hullabaloo—even before it hits that I just walked into a legitimate surprise party celebrating me—there is a tinge of disappointment, knowing that my dad’s not here, too.
Except when I sweep my eyes to the corner of the room, there he is, beaming that close-lipped, bright-eyed Dad beam so familiar to me that for a moment I’m knocked back in time—back to when I was a little kid, and when my dad picked me up from kindergarten I’d be so overcome realizing how much I missed him that I’d burst into tears. How I’d cling to him all the way to the apartment, and if Heather was there I’d refuse to walk a single step if I wasn’t holding both of their hands. I’ve grown up in a city too big to measure with dreams too big to hold, but I’ve always had that tether keeping me safely on the ground.
He’s hovering a few feet away from the rest of the crowd, the way he always does. He hates attracting any kind of attention to himself. That’s too damn bad.
“DAD!”
I run at him so fast that my bag clatters to the floor, and he doesn’t brace himself because he knows by now there’s really no point. He lifts me up and squeezes me, and I get one whiff of his shaving cream and just like that I’m five years old again and trying not to cry.
Only this time it isn’t just because I missed him. This time it’s so many things that I don’t know how to feel them all at once. It’s the anger of what he did to me, the guilt of what I did to him, both of them raw and scratching just under the surface of the ridiculous, overwhelming relief that he’s home again.
“What are you doing here?” I exclaim. “What about the rest of your trip?”
“There is no rest of the trip.” He’s grinning harder than that time we got front-row tickets to see Infinity War in one of those movie theaters with the chairs that shake you around. “It wrapped up this morning.”
I whip my head over to find Heather, because as much as I love my dad, I know he barely had a hand in this. The words surprise and party would probably rub together and start a fire in his unsuspecting introvert brain. “How long have you been planning this?”
Heather smirks. “A few months.” Teddy knocks into her from behind in his excitement to get over to us. “With Teddy’s help.”
“Except I had one job,” says Teddy, breathless from all the shouting, “and that was to get you here. And apparently I had to recruit your archnemesis to drag you.”
Before I can get another word in edgewise with my dad, I get swarmed by our theater friends into a giant group hug, a sweaty jumble of Cornelia kids that reminds me of countless cast parties and delirious tech week rehearsals and that one especially trippy sleepover we stayed up all night watching the first season of Glee.
I squeeze my eyes tight in the thick of it, holding them for an extra beat like I’m holding them in place.
Oliver takes a step back from us. “Well, I’m probably just gonna…”
“Hey,” I say, about to pull him into the mess of limbs.
“Favorite ice-cream flavors?” Heather interrupts. “Also, hi, I’m Heather. Aunt of Millie, dispenser of ice creams.”
The knot of theater kids untangles, and I crane my neck looking for my dad, but he’s laughing about something with Teddy’s parents, no doubt at mine and Teddy’s expense. Birthdays are their favorite times to pull out their phones and unearth embarrassing pictures of us.
“What can I get ya?” Heather asks, starting with Chloe.
“Um—I’ll have—whatever’s easiest,” she says quickly, planting herself in between me and Teddy and looking very much overwhelmed.
Heather does that scary game show buzzer impression and Chloe full-body flinches. “Wrong answer.”
Chloe looks at me in alarm, so I nod at her encouragingly. “Um … do you have any strawberry?” Chloe asks.