David points his fork at Nash. “Maybe you’ll have a feeling this weekend, Nash.”
Nash shakes his head and stands, bringing our empty plates to the sink. “The only feeling I have right now concerns finding out what happens to Eleven in the next episode of Stranger Things. I’m so stressed. Seriously.”
I drum my fingers against my thigh and count thirty-four seconds of silence.
“Very funny,” Andrea says, finishing her glass of wine.
David begins clearing the table too. “Well, I guess you’d better go do that. If you’re so stressed.”
“I truly am.”
Nash grabs my hand and leads me away from the kitchen, away from Andrea and David and their not-so Casual College Talks.
* * *
“You can’t keep doing that.”
We’re in Nash’s basement, hanging out like we do after the dinners that have become more and more awkward with each passing week. Usually, the best part about Tuesday nights at Nash’s is after dinner, because we always get at least two full hours of alone. His basement is a media room—the perfect spot to, um, binge watch a Netflix series.
“I’m not doing anything,” Nash says.
He turns on the TV and sits next to me on the floor, our backs pressed against the cool leather chair. There isn’t a couch, just four matching chairs that recline, almost like movie theater seats. We opt for the carpeted rug, padding it with blankets and a deflated beanbag because the chairs are definitely made for one-person occupancy—trust me, we tried.
“Do you even know what episode of Stranger Things we’re on?” I ask. “Because I definitely don’t.”
Remote in hand, he clicks into the series page. “No clue.”
“Nash.” I reach for his hand. Cover it with mine. “Your parents seem worried. I really think you should—”
I stop short. What? I really think you should tell your parents about NYU? Because I totally am an authority when it comes to honesty.
“I know,” Nash says. “If I get in.”
“Okay, but—”
“Halle.” Nash rotates his hand in mine so our fingers intertwine. “Please. Can’t we just watch Stranger Things?”
Then Nash leans in and kisses me and I know I shouldn’t let him off the hook this easily, but it’s literally impossible to focus when his mouth is on mine, so I do. Of course I do. Because this TV time is the only time we’re alone for, like, an entire week. I didn’t realize until I wanted to spend all my free time kissing Nash’s face that we are never, in fact, alone.
Nash breaks the kiss and stands up and I don’t know why because we literally just got down here.
“Pause. I want to show you something,” he says. “I’ll be right back.”
I sit up and wrap my arms around my knees. “This’d better be good.”
Nash runs up the stairs two at time. I run my fingers through my hair to detangle its unruly waves. Count the beats of my heart until it steadies. Then I use the moment alone to check the stats on the latest OTP post. Kels’s hiatus is over, but besides keeping up with One True Pastry’s post schedule, I’m quiet online. My NYU app is in, my numbers are maintaining, thanks to Kels’s response to the Alanna drama being overwhelmingly well received. It’s never been better to be Halle, so it seems like as long as I’m actively posting engaging content, no one really cares if I reply to every tweet.
Every day I’m with Nash, Kels feels less and less real.
I almost forget I still have a very real problem. Almost.
The basement door swings open and I swipe out of all Kels content. Nash reappears at my side with his laptop and a sketchpad.
“Hey,” Nash says.
“Hi.”
He opens his laptop and swallows before turning the screen toward me.
I freeze and breathe because I need to react in a normal way, in a Halle way.
It’s REX—the very first panel he posted two years ago. I’m so invested in the current series, I’ve never gone back to the beginning. It’s good. Of course it’s good. But it’s also cool to see the improvement from the more amateur early work to his current stuff that, well, looks professional.
It has 454K views.
“I’ve never shown you …” Nash’s ears turn pink and he lets out a nervous laugh. “Um, yeah. This is kinda why I’m online so much. It gets better, I swear.”
“I know,” I say before I can stop myself.
Nash blinks. “You do?”
This is not an appropriate Halle reaction.
“I mean …” I stall, trying to grasp a logical explanation out of thin air. “I already read it. I found it the first day of school, after everyone was gushing about it at lunch.”
“Oh,” Nash says, closing the laptop and setting it on the floor beside him. “I forgot about that.”
I exhale.
“You never told me you read it! It’s because you hate it, right? Do you hate it? Sometimes I think dinosaurs are, I don’t know, juvenile, and no one is going to take me seriously and—”
“Nash.” I grab his hand and intertwine his fingers with mine. “It’s so good.”
He looks at me. “Really?”
I nod. “I never said anything because it reads so personal, you know? Like, especially once I knew about Nick. I guess I just figured you’d show me when you wanted to.”
“I want to.”
“I do have one question.”
“Oh?”
“Stevens?” I ask.
I’ve been wondering since the day I learned that Nash Stevens is actually Nash Kim—and I’m not about to waste an opportunity to ask.
“Oh.” Nash laughs. “Steven is my middle name. I don’t love it—not using Kim—but it’s the only way my parents would let me create a public profile to blog. Keywords from my digital youth include privacy and underage and safety.”
With everything I know about Andrea and David, that checks out. “Makes sense.”
“I’m changing it as soon as I turn eighteen, though,” Nash says.
“Even though everyone knows you as Nash Stevens?”
Nash nods. “Yeah. That’s not my name. It’s not like I haven’t thought about sticking with Stevens. A pen name is kind of a safety net, you know? But if I publish REX someday, it’ll be as Nash Kim. That’s who I want to be to the world.”
My pen name kind of feels like the opposite of a safety net right now, but I know exactly what he means. “It’s cool.”
Nash releases his hand from mine and reaches across me for his sketchbook. “This is cooler, I promise.”
He flips through the pages and opens to panels I’ve never seen before, upcoming REX pages. An establishing sketch of a skyline—oh, so Rex is going to look for Terry in New York City next. Rex tries to interact with pedestrians, but they’re all either indifferent or unhelpful or scared of the timid dinosaur.
I run my fingers over the pages because it’s amazing seeing the beginning stages of art. Each line is drawn with care and every word of dialogue is written by hand, with intention. Nash explains the process of creating REX. Every panel is hand drawn, scanned, and filled in with Photoshop. A single panel is a full day’s work from beginning to end. It’s why he only posts once a week now—he couldn’t keep up with it twice a week once AP classes became a thing.