Will Grayson, Will Grayson(29)
Author: John Green

“So different!” she says again. “Can you be like this permanently?”

“Probably not,” I say.

“How many minutes do we have?”

“Four,” I say.

And then we’re kissing.

I lean in this time, and she doesn’t turn away. It’s cold, and our lips are dry, noses a little wet, foreheads sweaty beneath wool hats. I can’t touch her face, even though I want to, because I’m wearing gloves. But God, when her lips come apart, everything turns warm and her sugar sweet breath is in my mouth, and I probably taste like hot dogs but I don’t care. She kisses like a sweet devouring, and I don’t know where to touch her because I want all of her. I want to touch her knees and her hips and her stomach and her back and her everything, but we’re encased in all these clothes, so we’re just two marshmallows bumping against each other, and she smiles at me while still kissing because she knows how ridiculous it is, too.

“Better than wisdom?” she asks, her nose touching my cheek.

“Tight race,” I say, and I smile back as I pull her tighter to me.

I’ve never known before what it feels like to want someone—not to want to hook up with them or whatever, but to want them, to want them. And now I do. So maybe I do believe in epiphanies.

She pulls away from me just enough to say, “What’s my last name?”

“I have no idea,” I answer immediately.

“Turner. It’s Turner.” I slip in one last peck, and then she sits up properly, although her gloved hand still rests against my jacketed waist. “See, we don’t even know each other. I have to find out if I believe in epiphanies, Will.”

“I can’t believe his name is Randall. He doesn’t go to Evanston, does he?”

“No, he goes to Latin. We met at a poetry slam.”

“Of course you did. My God, I can picture the slimy bastard: He’s tall and shaggy-haired, and he plays a sport—soccer, probably—but he pretends like he doesn’t even like it because all he likes is poetry and music and you, and he thinks you’re a poem and tells you so, and he’s slathered in confidence and probably body spray.” She laughs, shaking her head. “What?” I ask.

“Water polo,” she says. “Not soccer.”

“Oh, Jesus. Of course. Water polo. Yeah, nothing says punk rock like water polo.”

She grabs my arm and looks at my watch. “One minute,” she says.

“You look better when your hair is pulled back,” I tell her in a rush.

“Really?”

“Yeah, otherwise you look kinda like a puppy.”

“You look better when you stand up straight,” she says.

“Time!” I say.

“Okay,” she says. “It’s a shame we can’t do that more often.”

“Which part?” I ask smiling. She stands up.

“I should get home. Stupid midnight weekend curfew.”

“Yeah,” I say. I pull out my phone. “I’ll call Tiny and tell him we’re headed out.”

“I’ll just take a cab.”

“I’ll just call—”

But she’s already standing on the edge of the sidewalk, the toes of her Chucks off the curb, her hand raised. A cab pulls over. She hugs me quickly—the hug all fingertips and shoulder blades—and is gone without another word.

I’ve never been alone in the city this late, and it’s deserted. I call Tiny. He doesn’t answer. I get the voice mail. “You’ve reached the voice mail of Tiny Cooper, writer, producer, and star of the new musical Tiny Dancer: The Tiny Cooper Story. I’m sorry, but it appears something more fabulous than your phone call is happening right now. When fabulous levels fall a bit, I’ll get back to you. BEEP.”

“Tiny, the next time that you try to set me up with a girl with a secret boyfriend can you at least inform me that she has a secret boyfriend? Also, if you don’t call me back within five minutes, I’m going to assume you found a way back to Evanston. Furthermore, you are an asshat. That is all.”

There are cabs on Michigan Avenue and a steady flow of traffic, but once I get onto a side street, Huron, it’s quiet. I walk past a church and then up State Street toward Frenchy’s. I can tell from three blocks away that Tiny and Will aren’t there anymore, but I still walk all the way to the storefront. I look up and down the street but see no one, and anyway, Tiny never shuts up, so I would hear him if he were nearby.

I fish through my coat pocket’s detritus for my keys, then pull them out. The keys are wrapped in the note that Jane wrote me, the note from the Locker Houdini.

I’m walking down the street toward the car when I see a black plastic bag on the sidewalk, fluttering in the wind. Mano a Mano. I leave it, thinking I’ve probably just made someone’s tomorrow.

For the first time in a long time, I drive with no music. I’m not happy—not happy about Jane and Mr. Randall Water Polo Doucheface IV, not happy about Tiny abandoning me without so much as a phone call, not happy about my insufficiently fake fake ID—but in the dark on Lake Shore with the car eating up all the sound, there’s something about the numbness in my lips after having kissed her that I want to keep and hold onto, something in it that seems pure, that seems like the singular truth.

I get home four minutes before curfew, and my parents are on the couch, Mom’s feet in Dad’s lap. Dad mutes the TV and says, “How was it?”

“Pretty good,” I say.

“Did they play ‘Annus Miribalis?’” Mom asks, because I liked it so much I played it for her. I figure she’s asking partly to seem hip and partly to make sure I went to the concert. She’ll probably check the set list later. I didn’t go to the concert, of course, but I know they played the song.

“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah. It was good.” I stare at them for a second, and then say, “Okay, I’m gonna go to bed.”

“Why don’t you watch some TV with us?” Dad asks.

“I’m tired,” I say flatly, and turn to go.

But I don’t go to bed. I go to my room and get online and start reading about e. e. cummings.

The next morning I get a ride to school early with Mom. In the hallways, I pass poster after poster for Tiny Dancer.

AUDITIONS TODAY NINTH PERIOD IN THE THEATER. PREPARE TO SING. PREPARE TO DANCE. PREPARE TO BE FABULOUS.

IN CASE YOU FAILED TO SEE THE PREVIOUS POSTER, AUDITIONS ARE TODAY.