“I mean, your resentment toward her family had to have gotten shrapnel on her, right?”
“No way,” he said, knowing he was lying as he said it. There was no way of divorcing his feelings about Jude’s dad and grandfather entirely. Plain fact was Sam wished he’d never met them. Them or their worthless gifts. Once he’d tried to pawn the DVD player Mr. Lange had bought to get their gas turned back on. Only Brandi Rose had slapped him across the face, threatening to call the cops on him for stealing.
As Brandi Rose fell apart Sam had to grow up. Fast. It would have been easier to forget if it hadn’t been for Jude and her constant entreaties for friendship. She’d cheerfully muscled into his life before he’d had a chance to sort out his feelings. Except he’d articulated none of this to her. There was no way she could have known.
“I should have told her I felt weird about her coming here,” he said. “But it felt stupid to make a big deal out of it. And it’s not as if I don’t like her. We’re friends.”
“Well, at least part of you is holding a grudge.”
It was true. When she’d actually shown up, Sam’s instinct was to retreat.
“Smart,” he professed.
He tilted his head so he could get a look at Penny. There was just enough light from the window that he could make out the sheen of her open eyes. She blinked. Sam held his breath.
Talking to her like this felt similar to the interface. Except now the proximity felt like a dream. His heart jackhammered like crazy.
“Even so,” she said. “You’re the best person I’ve ever met. And my favorite.”
“And you’re mine,” he said.
Penny leaned over and hugged him. Sam knew this was it. If he’d ever had a shot at kissing her, it was now. Even with their horrible night. And their friendship pact. Sam was her favorite person. Not that kid from her class or her stupid ex-boyfriend. Nobody else. Penny pressed her cheek against his chest and sighed. He knew that if he turned his body to the side and scooched down a little, his mouth would be in the neighborhood of hers. Sam felt her head get heavy. Her breathing slowed. One of her feet made little circles on the surface of the mattress similar to when cats make biscuits with their claws, and then it stilled. She was out. Sam shifted his waist away from her slightly, carefully, so nothing horrifying would happen, like getting a boner in the middle of the night. He listened to Penny breathe. Within moments he crashed too.
He heard the garbage trucks first. Some mornings it was like the trash guys were hurling them at each other. When he opened his eyes, he caught Penny staring at him.
Sam covered his mouth with the back of his hand to best conceal his morning breath.
“What time is it?”
“Five,” she said. Her breath smelled suspiciously of toothpaste.
“Did you brush your teeth?”
She nodded.
“Did you bring a toothbrush?”
She shook her head.
“Did you use my toothbrush?”
“Correct,” said Penny. So the girl who generally abhorred human contact and loathed hugs was not above using someone’s toothbrush without permission. Talk about inconsistent boundary issues.
Sam got up and walked over to the bathroom.
He checked his toothbrush. It was indeed wet. Sam brushed his teeth, washed his face, and ran some water through his hair. He observed his reflection in the mirror. In the early morning he resembled a drug addict on the tail end of a weeklong bender. He was sallow with eye bags. Puffy yet skinny. He lifted his shirt. Yep, still sickly. Sam shrugged and took a leak.
He thought about doing some silent push-ups in the bathroom to look swollen and changed his mind. Instead he did two squats and held for about three seconds each.
When he returned, Penny was looking up at his ceiling.
“Don’t you want to take a broom handle to it and scrape it off?” She nodded at the popcorn stucco.
“Sometimes.”
“Do you know what trypophobia is?”
“Nope,” he said.
“It’s this condition where you get grossed out or scared of irregular or regular holes or circular patterns. I have that. Your ceiling’s freaking me out. Don’t do an image search if you think you have it. It’s too disgusting.”
“Do you know what knot is the one that’s impossible to untie?” he asked, recalling his last conversation with Lorraine.
“Are you talking about trefoil knots?”
“No, the myth one.”
“Gordian Knot. The one that Alexander the Great had to cut with his sword?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why are you asking me this?”
He smiled stupidly at her. “I have no idea.”
“What time do you have to be at work?” she asked.
“You mean downstairs?”
She nodded.
“I have about an hour,” he lied. They were going to have to buy their baked goods for the day.
“Okay, cool. So we can still hang out.” She got back into bed and pulled the comforter up. “You know constrictor knots are hard to untie too, especially once tightened.”
Sam got back into bed with her, this time taking off his sweatshirt and keeping his T-shirt on.
She stared at him intently while lying on her side. “I can’t deal with your ceiling,” she explained.
Sam smiled. It gave him a better view anyway.
“You know what I love about you?” she asked.
“My enormous muscles and my sun-kissed glow?”
“Yes,” she said. “The second thing I like about you”—Sam noticed that she’d switched “love” to “like”—“is that your brain goes as fast as mine,” she said.
“So you like that I remind you of you basically,” he said.
They both laughed.
“Exactly.”
“Cool.”
“No,” she tried again. “Most people don’t ever know what I’m talking about. Not ever. I don’t necessarily know why.”
“Well, you start your stories from the epilogue. Plus, none of your questions have anything to do with what’s being discussed.”
“Neither do yours.”
Sam smiled.
“But you know what I’m talking about,” she said. “You’ve known from the day we met. Even on text, where there are no inflections or nuance or tone for non sequiturs. You’ve always spoken fluent me.”
She slugged him on the arm. A meaty little thwock. Sam didn’t know what to read into it.
“I’m glad you didn’t talk about yourself in the third person just then, like ‘speaking fluent Penny,’?” he said. “That would have been so gnar. What if all I did was—”
Before he could continue, Penny kissed him square on the mouth.
He didn’t have time to close his eyes, so he knew that she hadn’t closed hers.
Sam stared at her for a moment. Then he went for it.
PENNY.