“Exactly what it sounds like. Some weirdo, new-agey retreat where we all sit around in floaty clothes on some mountaintop in Vermont talking about what went wrong and how we can reassimilate on a shared pathway that honors each of our journeys.”
“Ew.” Pinky shook her head. “Right now I’m kind of glad my parents are lawyers.”
Dolly huffed a laugh. “Yeah. You have no idea.”
“So they’re just going to whisk you away in the middle of our summer vacation?”
“That’s the plan. And when we return, I’ll be the new, improved me!” Dolly clinked her bottle with Pinky’s, but the clink was definitely sarcastic.
Pinky quirked her lips. “For what it’s worth? I don’t think you need to be improved. You’re pretty amazing the way you are. And you know what Cash said when he left? About you dating future social workers and teachers or whatever? He meant that as an insult, but… I think it’s really kind of great that you gravitate toward people like that. You’re really kind of great, and you deserve to be with someone who’ll recognize that.”
Dolly smiled at her in the glow of the backyard lighting. “Thanks, sis. By the way, your fake boyfriend was pretty amazing up there on the deck.”
“Oh, right.” Pinky took another swig of her ginger beer to hide just how discomfited she felt. “He, uh, kind of sympathized with you, right?”
Dolly nodded. “Yeah. He basically made me feel like not a total douche, and I really appreciated it, you know? He’s kind of a rock.”
“Yeah,” Pinky mused, realizing just how true that was. Samir hadn’t just integrated with her family. He was like a soothing balm, smoothed all over their sunburned skin. Or something less weird. She was tired and metaphors were hard.
“You know, I’ve been thinking.” Dolly set her root beer down with a clink. “I’m not the ‘bad boy’ type after all.”
“Oh yeah?” Pinky’s heart thumped for reasons she couldn’t quite figure out.
“Yeah.” Dolly looked out into the yard, at the burned shell of the barn. Soon their parents would have someone come cart it away and it’d be like it never happened. “It’s like you said. I think I’m okay dating people who feel right to me. Who are more like me. I don’t know if that makes me boring, but… I think I’m okay with it even if it does. I need to be true to me, you know?”
Pinky nodded, though her head felt heavy. “Yeah, totally.”
Dolly smiled slowly, glancing sideways at Pinky. “So… um. I kind of have a question?”
“Okay.”
“If you’re not using that boyfriend, can I have him?”
Pinky set her own drink down and wiped her suddenly damp palms on her shorts. “What?”
Dolly laughed. “You and Samir are just fake dating, right? Well, once you’re all done with that and everything… do you mind if I text him? Just get to know him a bit better? I think he and I might have a lot in common, actually.”
Pinky was sure a sonic boom had gone off in her chest. She’d seen it coming; of course she had—any moron could have. Dolly and Samir. Samir and Dolly. They made perfect sense, didn’t they? Way more sense than Pinky and Samir. They were perfectly suited for each other. In fact, hadn’t that been the entire reason Pinky had even chosen him for this whole fake-dating farce, because he was exactly the kind of person her cousin would date? So this was no surprise. Not at all. And, in fact, it was good news. If she could keep in mind that Dolly wanted Samir, then she would be able to curb any inappropriate, ridiculous desire she felt for him, the boring baby lawyer. It was all easy. Simple. Dolly was doing her a favor, in fact.
And yet…
And yet Pinky’s tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth, as if she’d accidentally glued it there. She tried to speak, but no words came.
“Hey.” Dolly had a concerned furrow between her eyebrows. She put a hand on Pinky’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah!” Pinky squeaked, finally prying her tongue loose. “Totally!” She smiled and reached for her ginger beer with a shaky hand, almost knocking it over in the process. Taking a deep swig, she said, “You know, this is a great idea. You and Samir. Because, um, he’s just too… he’s too nice, you know? He’s really sweet and focused and he really cares about people. And you might think he’s a total goody-two-shoes mama’s boy, but he’s not. He has this core of confidence, this security in himself that’s completely unexpected.” She took another deep drink. “And, um, all those things might be attractive to some people, but to me—”
“Pinky.”
“—to me, that kind of thing is… I mean, so yes. He makes the world a better place by being in it, but really—”
“Pinky.”
She turned to her cousin, her brain pinwheeling. “What?”
Dolly was shaking her head slowly. “Oh. My. God. You like him. Don’t you? You really, really like him.”
“What?” Pinky said, leaning back a bit. The crickets chirped their own questions. “No, I don’t!”
Dolly laughed. “Uh-huh. Okay.”
Pinky closed her eyes. “Dolly. I can’t like him.”
“Why not?” she heard Dolly say. “Why the hell not?”
Pinky opened her eyes. “Because! What would it say about me if I did? I’m the free spirit of the family. I’m the one who does the thing everyone else is scared to do. I’m the one who thinks outside the box. I’m the creative, rebellious one! If I date someone as staid and steady and even-keeled as him, someone my parents approve of, for God’s sake, what would that say about me?”
Dolly studied her for a long moment. “Who cares?”
Pinky stared at her, feeling kind of hurt. “What?”
Dolly shook her head. “Who cares? Who cares what it says about you? Who cares if he’s the kind of guy your parents would pick for you? Who cares if you like staid and steady and even-keeled?” Dolly leaned forward. “What do you want, Pinky? Forget what everyone else would think or what it might say about your identity. What does your heart say? What does your soul say about Samir?”
For one tempting moment, Pinky wanted to say the first thing that flew into her mind: My soul says it was waiting for him. But in the next moment, she had swallowed the thought. That was foolish, impractical, ridiculous, two a.m. talk. Pinky had been in enough relationships to know what kind of boy her soul needed. Her soul must be broken or something at the moment. “It’s not that easy,” she whispered.
“But it could be,” Dolly pressed gently. “It could be if you wanted it to be.”
Pinky didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing. She wanted to have Dolly’s easy belief in love and dating, but she didn’t. She and Samir were not meant to be together. That was it. What else was there to say?
Dolly studied her for another moment and then sighed. Scooting over on the wooden bench, she put her arms around Pinky. “I get it,” she said softly. “I totally get it. Sometimes we have to find our own path forward. It doesn’t matter what anyone else says.”