I grew up with a feminist hippy and I’m not too shy to admit that my masculinity is as fragile as glass right now.
Being rejected—again, I might add—by Zoe Thomas after everyone hyped me up would hurt more than I’d like to admit.
Luna smiles.
Tony smiles.
“Yeah, Zee. You’ve got a real chance if you do it right.” I sigh, nod, then place the delicate paper on the coffee table.
“Okay. What do I do?”
And that’s when Luna smiles.
“I’ve got just the thing.”
FIVE
LOVE STORY
-ZOE-
Hours after I get off the phone with Luna, hours after I take a shower in the tiny bathroom attached to my room, using the same drug store shampoo and body wash I used when I was nineteen, and after my mom brings me up food, I hear it.
For a moment, I think I’m going insane, or maybe it’s just been so long since I slept in this room that I don’t remember the creaks and noises of it.
But then it happens again.
Ping.
I stand, moving around the room, waiting for it to happen again, trying to track the source of the sound.
I probably look psychotic as I do, but then it happens again.
Ping.
I move toward my window where I think it came from, waiting for the noise.
Something hits the window.
Looking down, there’s a shadowy figure standing out front. Quickly, I duck, trying to get out of view of someone who is clearly here to murder me.
What did I do to get a stalker?
This is not the kind of experience I thought I’d share with my best friend, who once had a stalker of her own.
Fumbling and attempting to stay below the window, I scramble to grab my phone which just lit up with a new text.
It’s probably Luna.
Thank God.
My dad’s at work and I don’t want to freak Mom out—maybe Luna can send Tony around? Scope out the area?
I read the text and get even more confused.
Did you just fall?
What the fuck?
Go to your window.
My window.
My window?
There’s another ping on the glass, this time louder now that I’m directly under the glass.
Are you my stalker?
A moment passes before another text comes through.
If by stalker you mean the person throwing rocks at your window, then yeah.
What the actual fuck?
I look down at the lawn and see a figure, my eyes focusing until I recognize the form.
He waves at me.
Zander Davidson is outside my parents’ house throwing rocks at my childhood bedroom window.
Why?
Open the damn window, Zoe, Jesus.
I want to argue.
I actually live to argue.
But instead, I move, peeking out to try and see the street and, yup—there it is.
Zee’s car is parked at the corner.
And he’s throwing rocks at my window.
Another hits right where my face is and I finally stand, opening the heavy window and sticking my head out.
“What are you doing, Zander?”
“Let’s go,” he says, calling up to me.
I blink at the man who is barely four years older than me. The man I’ve known since before I could cogitate what it means to know someone. His sister and I have been friends since we were in Mommy and Me classes, our mothers making it a mission for us to be best friends forever and, well, it worked.
“Zander, what the fuck are you doing outside my window? It’s like, forty degrees out. Aren’t you freezing?”
“Yes, now come on. Let’s go,” he says with just a hint of exasperation.
“Where are we going?” I shout down at him.
“A road trip.”
I blink, the cold stinging my eyes, but I don’t respond.
I don’t know how to respond.
“Jesus Christ, Zoe, just come outside. Pack a bag and come downstairs.”
“Zander, what—”
“Alexander Davidson, you stand out in that cold much longer, you’re going to get sick. Stop shouting up at her from down there and come inside,” my mother’s voice says from the front step. “You can come upstairs and shout at her in a warm house.”
My mother.
The reason I moved out all those years ago.
Zander smiles, the flash of his teeth reflecting in the front light of the house before he starts moving to the door.
What on Earth is happening?
Voices from downstairs travel up to me in the old house, Zander greeting my mom. My mom offers him a soda as if having my best friend’s older brother in my living room without my best friend present is normal before I head toward the stairs.
“Joey called. He knows the plan,” she says of my dad, and I hear Zander’s laugh boom through the living room.
“Should have known,” he says.
“Should have known what?” I ask, staring at Zander and my mom.
Zander just smiles at me.
“You pack a bag?” he asks, and I furrow my brow at him in confusion and frustration.
“For what?”
“I’ll leave you two alone,” my mother says, raising her hands and backing into the kitchen. “Just remember, Zoe. Zee’s a good boy. And some adventure would be good for you!” I glare at her before she lifts her hands in a placating manner and leaves the room.
“Come on, babe. Go pack a bag,” Zee says once she’s out of the room, but probably not out of earshot.
Babe?
A bag?
“What on Earth is happening?” I ask in near panic. I don’t do well with surprises. I don’t do well with spur-of-the-moment.
Not anymore at least.
I grew out of that long ago.
“We’re going on a road trip,” he says like this happens all the time.
Like Zander coming to my house at nine at night and telling me to pack a bag for a road trip is normal.
“A road trip?”
“Jesus, yeah, come on.”
“Come on where, Zander?!” My pulse is rising with the lack of an answer.
He steps closer, entering my personal space, and my heart skips a beat.
There has never been a time I can remember when Zander Davidson didn’t make my heart skip a beat.
“On that road trip we planned.”
“I would remember planning a road trip with you, Zander. I don’t—” He stops me with his words.
“You were twelve and I was sixteen. You said when I got my license, we should go on a road trip. We never did it. I’m off for a week and so are you. Let’s go. I’m tired of the cold. Let’s go somewhere warm.”
It all comes back to me in a rush, the memory that was buried in cotton, kept safe from the harsh reality of the world.
I’m at Luna’s for a sleepover and Mrs. Davidson is ordering us a pizza. Luna has run upstairs to grab her magazine to show me some new picture of the Jonas Brothers, and Zander walks in the door.
“Did you get it?!” I ask, jumping up onto my knees and bouncing on the worn-in couch covered in old quilts.