I scowl at Kurt. “Well? Do you wanna talk about it?”
“Talk about what?” he says testily.
I lower my voice, because my door is still open. “Last night?”
“When you screamed at me?”
“When you came in here and found something you weren’t expecting.”
Kurt slams shut his textbook so hard that it makes me jump. “You’re the one person who’s never supposed to talk to me like that,” he says. “Like I don’t understand. You’ve wanted to screw him for three years. Why wouldn’t you now that you’re dating? I’m not the idiot that you think I am.”
I’m stung. “I don’t think that. You know I don’t think that.”
“You do.”
There’s truth to what he’s saying. It shames me.
“Listen. I don’t want to tag along on your dates, and I don’t want you to stop going out, but it’d be nice to know if you still gave a shit about me.”
I crumple down beside him onto the bed. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t say you’re sorry. Say you’re still my friend.”
“I’m still your best friend.” I lean against his shoulder and sigh. “What can I do to make it up to you?”
“For starters, you can fix your lock. I never want to see your br**sts again.”
“Ohmygod, Kurt.”
He snorts with laughter. “They’re bigger than the last time I saw them.”
I shove him away. “Do you want me to leave? Because I’m seriously about to vomit.”
“No.” His expression becomes solemn again. “I don’t ever want you to leave.”
“Come with me this weekend,” Josh says. “Out of the country.”
It’s Friday, and we’re making out in a custodial closet between second and third period. It’s been a long, tension-filled week. Today is Josh’s last day of detention, and this will be our final weekend before he has to fly to New York for the election.
I think he’s kidding until I see his expression. “Josh. We can’t just go.”
“Why not? I went to Germany last month.”
“Yeah, but.” A broom falls against my back, and I shove it aside. “That’s different.”
“The only difference is that it’d be better, because you’d be with me.”
I want to go. I want to go with him so badly.
The broom falls on me again, and Josh throws it into the corner. “Stay,” he tells it.
“I hate this closet.”
“Come on. Let’s go someplace where we won’t have to prop open our doors and hide between mops.”
“I want to, I really do. But it’s too risky.” I pause. “Isn’t it?”
“No, you see. Because here’s what we’d do: we’d catch a train early tomorrow morning, spend the afternoon and evening wherever, crash in a hotel, and then catch the train back on Sunday morning. We’d only be gone for one night.”
“And…how many times have you done this?”
He shrugs. “A few times last year. Just the once this year.”
“And you’ve never been caught.”
“Never.” Josh squeezes my hands. “Nate practically expects us to be out all night on the weekends. He doesn’t freak out if we aren’t in our rooms. This stratagem has only two rules: one, we limit ourselves to a single night away. Anything can happen in a night, and excuses are easy to make. And, two, we tell our plan to the people we’re in regular contact with so that they won’t go asking around for us.”
“So…Kurt.” This bothers me. He’d keep our secret, but he’d also be disappointed in my rash behaviour.
“He’s the only person who’d notice our absence.”
I bite my lower lip.
“Where would you go?” he asks. “Name a place that you’ve never been before.”
“Barcelona.” I’m surprised at how fast I answer.
Josh is less surprised. “Why?”
“Gaudí.”
“The architect?” Of course my boyfriend knows about Antoni Gaudí. He was a Modernista revered by artists of all kinds.
“I saw his work in an old National Geographic. It looked almost magical. I’ve never seen anything like it, not in real life. But maybe that’s stupid, maybe it’s too touristy—”
“No. It’s perfect. It’d be my first time, too.” Josh stops. His words have accidentally triggered the real subject beneath the surface of this conversation. He swallows a lump in his throat. “It’d be our first time together.”
And now we’re discussing something else. Something we both ache for.
The thought of Josh returning to America is unbearable. It’s only a week – I know this – but whenever I imagine his plane touching down at JFK, I feel…not just ill, but wrong. As if our impending separation were something so much worse. I want to be alone with him. No detention, no election. No Kurt, no Nate. Just the two of us, together, in all of the ways that two people in love can be together.
The bell rings. Our time in the closet is over.
“Let’s do it,” I say. “Let’s go.”
Our train is already speeding through the countryside when dawn breaks across France. The car is nearly empty, and we’ve selected a pair of seats with a table. Josh sits beside the window, because he needs the light to draw. He pencils thumbnails into a new sketchbook while I read about a cannibalistic plane crash in the Andes. One of his shoes rubs gently against mine. I rub it back. I’ve always thought the best relationships are those that are as happy and content in silence as they are in action, but until Josh, I’d only ever experienced it with Kurt.
My eyes grow heavy as the sun grows brighter. I lean against Josh’s shoulder only to feel his hand stop moving. “Oh. Sorry.” I sit up so that he can resume drawing.
But Josh removes his dark blue hoodie, places it on his lap, and guides me onto the makeshift pillow. I breathe deeply, inhaling his comforting scent. I’m lucky. I am so, so lucky. I feel his arm moving again as I drift into a half-awake slumber. A dreamlet. An image of one bed and two bodies, his curled protectively around my own. At some point, I fall into a real sleep, because soon he’s brushing my hair away from my face.
“This is our change,” he whispers.
We’re in Figueres, Spain. Catalonia. It’s the birthplace of Salvador Dalí and just across the border from France. I clamber into a sitting position as our train approaches the station. Josh grabs his sketchbook and flips back the tabletop. He groans as he stands. His limbs are crunched and stiff.