“Sounds like a plan.”

Normally, on Good Grace Days, conversation between us flowed pretty easily. There were still awkward silences sometimes, when I couldn’t rack my brain for words to save my life, but tonight felt different. There was a new tension that’d never been there before, because this was a date date (wasn’t it?). Something had shifted between us. Attraction had been acknowledged, and it somehow made everything more difficult.

When the lights went down, I tried to decide if I should hold her hand. I’d held hands with Lola at the movies once, during the week that’d ultimately culminated with the kiss that had determined her homosexuality for her once and for all. I really hoped this would end differently.

It took until all the trailers and ads for the concession stand were over for the skin of our fingers to finally meet, slow-moving magnets drawn together in the dark.

We held hands the entire movie, Grace tracing slow circles on my skin with her fingertips. Occasionally she’d lift my hand to her lips and kiss me. I stared at the screen for two hours, vaguely aware that Liam Neeson was kicking someone’s ass, but if you’d asked me afterward what the movie had been about, I would’ve had very sketchy details about the plot at best.

After it was finished, we walked back to the bus stop together, both of us with our hands tucked into our pockets because it was almost November and too cold to have them out. Or maybe it wasn’t because of the cold. Maybe it was because our relationship (was it even a relationship?) was supposed to be a secret. It was fine to make out at dark parties and hold hands in dark movie theaters, but out in the open, out where other people could see us, Grace and I were still only friends.

“Liam Neeson,” Grace said when we slowed at the bus stop. “What a badass.”

“I know, right.”

“Best comedian in the world.”

“Too bad all his jokes are about AIDS.”

“What are you talking about? AIDS is comedy gold. Oh, look, it’s your bus.”

Damn. Already? I’d been hoping Grace’s bus would show up first. That, while we waited, we’d sit on the low stone wall that surrounded the city park and talk and laugh and make out.

“Rats. Well, bye,” I said. Smooth, Page. So smooth.

I leaned in. Kissed her quickly. Pressed my forehead against hers for a second, hoping this small gesture would convey what I couldn’t say aloud: I like you very much.

Then I turned and went, unsure if anything I’d done all night had been right. The caustic lights of the bus stripped away the haze of darkness I’d been in for the last few hours, and the whole situation suddenly looked far uglier. I stared out the window the entire trip home, my phone clutched in my hand, wondering if I was supposed to message her and tell her what a great time I’d had and how much I liked her. But it felt tacky somehow. Like a cheap shot at her dead boyfriend, still not fully decomposed in his grave.

And I realized then that this would never be a normal love story, if there is such a thing. Even if neither of us wanted to talk about him, Dom would always be there, a ghostly presence neither of us could escape. I’d felt him in the theater, wedged between us. I could feel him now, his half-rotten body in the empty bus seat across the aisle from me. He was shaking his head and saying, “Dating my girlfriend while my eyeballs putrefy? Dick move, bro.”

But it could get easier. Grace could get better. She could go back to the girl she’d been before, in time. The girl I caught glimpses of sometimes.

My phone buzzed in my hand.

GRACE TOWN:

I’ve been inspired by Mr. Neeson to take up the position of voluntary undercover bus marshal. No suspicious action yet. I’ll keep you updated.

HENRY PAGE:

I still think the kid being the terrorist would’ve been an awesome plot twist.

Yes. Definitely.

I’m still of the opinion that Neeson should play Qui-Gon Jinn in all of his movies from now on.

It would be a lot easier to be a bus marshal if I could use the Force.

Wait, let me try.

Well?

No luck.

I’ve been trying for years. One day. One day.

There’s always the dark side.

I’m rather partial to the dark side. I once had a dream that Bellatrix Lestrange was my girlfriend, so there’s that. She wasn’t really a very good girlfriend. Far too fixated on killing Harry Potter. We fought a lot.

You’re so needy.

All I wanted was a little attention, but no, she was always hanging out with Voldemort and his Death Eaters, plotting genocides and killing children.

The poor woman obviously had some issues she needed help with and you were too self-centered to notice. Henry Isaac Page, you disappoint me.

I suppose I could’ve been a little more supportive . . . Maybe told her occasionally what a good job she was doing persecuting Mudbloods. If the dream ever reoccurs, I’ll be sure to be more enthusiastic about her interests. Like murdering teenage boys and being obsessed with Dark Lords. Maybe we can make it into a couple’s activity. The couple that slays together stays together.

I wish you the best. Also, confession time (don’t hate me): I’ve never read Harry Potter. Or seen the movies. So I only have the vaguest idea of what you’re babbling on about.

WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. FUCK?

Yeah.

WHAT KIND OF CHILDHOOD DID YOU HAVE? WERE YOUR PARENTS NAZIS?

Not quite. I never went in much for fantasy. Give me Death Stars and AT-ATs over wands and robes any day.