GRACE TOWN:

Pixar! Sure I want to see that. Lock it in. Night!

The insane rush of endorphins that flooded my system the moment my phone vibrated and her name popped up on screen was worrying. I’d never been addicted to anything before, but I thought maybe this is what it felt like to be a junkie in desperate need of a hit.

“Edward Cullen, you poor, miserable bastard,” I said as I locked my phone screen and stared at the ceiling. “I should not have judged you so harshly.”

• • •

After school on Monday, Grace and I decided to keep walking past her house and catch a bus into the city, where a fall beer and food festival had been set up in the park. I had homework to do, and essays to work on, and the newspaper probably could’ve used some serious attention, but Grace was happy and she’d brushed her hair and there was no way I was going to miss out on spending time with this version of her.

In the park, the space between the trees had been transformed into a shantytown of little white canopies, a different flavor of food and/or beer nestled beneath each one. It was a hipster’s delight: pallet furniture, antique teakettles hanging by twine from every tree branch, a decorate-your-own-hula-hoop station. The Plastic Stapler’s Revenge had even managed to get themselves hired for a gig, and their warbled acoustic tunes (none of which, sadly, were about avenging stationery) carried across the park.

“What shall we feast upon, Town?” I said, but the end of my question was lost to the shout of another.

“Grace?!” said an unknown male voice.

We both turned to find its source: a tall, not-unattractive blond guy with a bunch of tall, not-unattractive male friends.

“Lyndon!” Grace said, and then she was darting through the crowd toward him and he swept her off her feet/cane when she reached him, and I was thinking, as I followed her with my hands in my pockets, about how much I suddenly despised the name Lyndon and anyone attached to it.

I stood by Grace’s side for a solid five minutes while she chatted with him, before Lyndon’s eyes slid to me and Grace remembered I existed. “Oh, sorry! This is Henry. We work together at the school newspaper. Henry, this is Lyndon, my cousin.”

I shook his hand, thinking maybe Lyndon wasn’t such a pretentious name after all. Whatever monster had been scratching away inside my chest since he’d shouted her name slunk back to its cage.

Holy shit, I thought as I surveyed his features and found that, yes, they did look alike, were definitely related. Am I the jealous type? I suppose it’s one of those things you can’t really know about yourself until you’re faced with it. Like you can’t really know if you’re brave and heroic until something terrible happens and you’re forced into action. I’d always thought I’d be the fearless type, calm and controlled and Sully Sullenberger–esque. Last off the plane, go down with the ship, that kind of thing. But now I wasn’t so sure.

I thought about Tyler Durden, about him saying, “How much can you know about yourself if you’ve never been in a fight?” But how much can you know about yourself if you’ve never liked anyone before? I’d never felt so removed from myself as I did at that moment. Whose body was I walking around in? Whose brain was inside my skull? How could I be me, live inside my flesh, and still have no idea who I was?

Grace and I had come to the festival planning to get food, but Lyndon and his friends were all in their mid-twenties, so we gave them money and they bought us spiced cider and mulled wine. We all sat together under a tree, the hundreds of string lights illuminating the park growing muddled as the alcohol made its way to my head. We shared dishes from all the different food vendors—hot-and-sour soup from the Thai tent, honey-glazed mystery meat from the red-lantern-lit Chinese place, transparent rice paper rolls dipped in thick, sweet sauce from the Vietnamese vendor.

By the time Dad messaged me at nine p.m. saying Here, my stomach was full and my eyelids were heavy.

I sat up from where I’d been lying in the grass, staring at the fairy lights twinkling in the branches above me, and said good-bye to Grace, who looked outrageously beautiful in the golden light. I was keenly aware that Lyndon was watching us, so I made my farewell as casual as possible, despite the fact that we usually kissed good-bye. I even called her “dude.”

“I’ve gotta jet, dude. I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said. Then I said good-bye to everyone else and strolled off into the festival crowd, hands in my pockets. I looked back once. Grace was staring after me. I expected her to look away, but she didn’t, and I wasn’t sure what that meant. If I was supposed to go back to her or not. But her cousin was there and we weren’t together and whatever we were, whatever this was, the world wasn’t supposed to know about us. I worried that if I did go back and kiss her like I wanted to that it would be the wrong thing, that it would make her angry. So I turned my head and kept walking, consumed by the crowd, certain that Sully Sullenberger would’ve gone back and swept her off her feet and that I was almost definitely a jealous coward.

My phone buzzed on the car trip home, while Dad told me about his day and I tried very hard not to sound like I’d been drinking.

GRACE TOWN:

So saying good-bye sucked. You still up for the movies this week?

HENRY PAGE:

I didn’t know if it was cool for me to kiss you in front of your cousin or not, so I kind of panicked and bailed. Or if we’re still doing the whole “keep it on the down-low” thing or not . . . So yeah, sorry. But movies fo sho. Thursday night, 7:30 p.m. The theater near my place. We can chill in my room after school or get dinner or something beforehand.

Sounds good. I don’t really know what’s going on.

We’re hopeless, you and me. I’m amazed that Hink put us in decision-making positions.

• • •

On Wednesday, I woke up to Grace calling me at six a.m.