I do a quick mental calculation. “There’s a two percent chance.”
“No math. School’s over,” Kirby says with a groan. “I’d tell you if I had you.”
“Really? Because I wouldn’t.” Mara tucks a strand of blond hair behind one ear, smiling innocently
“Oh my God, I don’t trust either of you!” Kirby says when I don’t volunteer my target either.
There’s a stiltedness that’s never cloaked our interactions before. I tug on my bangs, my perennial nervous habit. The street is busy, downtown corporate types heading back to their offices after lunch.
My phone buzzes. “That’s five minutes,” I say quietly, unsure where to go from here. Both literally and figuratively. “I guess we should split up until the first safe zone?”
I didn’t think we’d become Howl enemies so quickly, but I need some time on my own to figure out how I feel about all of this.
Mara nods, her mouth threatening to slide into a devious grin. Competitive mode. “If you guys last that long.”
They already apologized. They shouldn’t feel bad about wanting to go on vacation together. It’s that they didn’t tell me. They’ll have this entire year to be together, whereas my days with them are, quite literally, numbered on the calendar in my room, my end-of-August Boston move-in date circled in red.
“Good luck,” Kirby says. Mara stands on her toes to kiss Kirby, and they squeeze each other’s hands, a small gesture that communicates one thing: you are loved.
“See you guys at the safe zone,” I say.
Then I take a deep breath, tighten my armband, and start running.
HOWL CLUES
A place you can buy Nirvana’s first album
A place that’s red from floor to ceiling
A place you can find Chiroptera
A rainbow crosswalk
Ice cream fit for Sasquatch
The big guy at the center of the universe
Something local, organic, and sustainable
A floppy disk
A coffee cup with someone else’s name (or your own name, wildly misspelled)
A car with a parking ticket
A view from up high
The best pizza in the city (your choice)
A tourist doing something a local would be ashamed of doing
An umbrella (we all know real Seattleites don’t use them)
A tribute to the mysterious Mr. Cooper
12:57 p.m.
A FEW MOMENTS later, I stop running. Seattle has too many hills.
It’s not that I dislike exercise. It’s just that it’s frowned upon to read books on the soccer field… which is what I did when I was eleven and my parents stuck me on a team called the Geoducks. I tucked a paperback in my waistband and, when the ball was on the other side of the field, pulled it out to read. I always put it away before the other team headed our way, but needless to say, it was my first and last season of soccer.
I check the clues again to assess what’s in my immediate vicinity. If I go to the coffee shop across the street, I could get the cup with someone else’s name on it and devise a strategy for the rest. Most people likely ventured much farther, so I’m probably safe here.
The coffee shop is playing folk music with airy female vocals, and I inhale the scent of chocolate and coffee beans. My vision of a Real Writer is someone who haunts coffee shops and wears chunky sweaters and says things like, “I can’t; I’m on deadline.” Most of my writing happens late at night, sitting in bed with my laptop warming my thighs.
“Riley,” I tell the barista when I order my second latte of the day.
After I pick it up, I grab a table and swipe over to Delilah’s Twitter instead of the list of Howl clues.
Delilah Park @delilahshouldbewriting
I’m coming for you, Seattle! And yet somehow it’s not raining? I feel betrayed.
#ScandalatSunsetTour
I’ve rehearsed a hundred times how to tell her what romance novels mean to me, and yet I’m still worried I’ll get tongue-tied. I found my first one, a Nora Roberts, at a yard sale when I was ten, a bit too young to understand what was really happening in some of the scenes. After speeding through everything the school librarian recommended, I wanted something a little more adult. And this… definitely was.
My parents humored me, letting me get that book. They thought it was funny, and they encouraged me to ask if I had any questions. I had a lot of questions, but I wasn’t sure where to start. Over the years, romance novels became both escapist and empowering. Especially as I got older, my heart would race during the sex scenes, most of which I read in bed with my door locked, after I’d said good night to my parents and was sure I wouldn’t be interrupted. They were thrilling and educational, if occasionally unrealistic. (Can a guy really have five orgasms in a single night? I’m still not sure.) Not all romance novels had sex scenes, but they made me comfortable talking about sex and consent and birth control with my parents and with my friends. I hoped they’d make me confident with my boyfriends, too, but Spencer and I clearly had communication issues, and with Luke, everything was so new that I didn’t know how to articulate what I wanted.
But then my parents started asking questions like, “You’re still reading those?” and “Wouldn’t you rather read something with a little more substance?” Most movies and shows I watched with my friends showed me that women were sex objects, accessories, plot points. The books I read proved they were wrong.
It’s a comfort knowing each book will end tied up with a neat bow. More than that, the characters burrowed into my heart. I got invested in their stories, followed them across series as they flirted and fought and fell in love. I swooned when they wound up at a hotel with only one room, which of course contained only one bed. I learned to love love in all its forms, and I wanted it desperately for myself: to write about it, to live it.
I am sick of being alone in my love for romance novels. This is why I want—need—to meet Delilah tonight. Other people read and love these books too, and I have to see them in real life to believe it. Maybe some of their confidence will rub off on me.
“Are you hiding out in here?” someone asks, interrupting my thoughts.
Spencer Sugiyama is standing in front of me, coffee in hand. Spensur, it says on the cup.
“Jesus Christ. You scared me half to death.”
“Sorry.” He eyes the chair at my table. “Can I—” he asks, but doesn’t wait for a response before sliding into it. Even McNair would have waited, I’m pretty sure. “I’m actually glad to see you. I’ve been thinking a lot, and… I don’t want to end on such bad terms.”
“It’s fine.” The slip of paper with his name on it feels red-hot in my dress pocket. His armband is right there. I could reach across the table and pull it off. “Really.”
But a small part of me I’m extremely not proud of wants to hear what he has to say first. I want to know why my longest high school relationship was such a failure, turned me into someone I wasn’t happy with, someone incapable of accomplishing items one through ten on my success guide.
“No,” he says. “It’s not. I need to say something.” He makes a pained face, and there’s something vulnerable there that must have initially drawn me to him.