Page 48 of You Say It First

Meg spent the next hour talking to a sweet old man in Toledo and a grouchy old lady in New Hope, then left four voice mails in a row before finally leaning back in her chair, staring up at the fluorescent lights in the drop ceiling overhead. Em would forgive her, she told herself firmly. She’d forgive her, and they’d room together at Cornell just like they’d always planned, and if the thought of it made Meg feel like the walls of this office were closing in on her by the second, she’d just have to be a damn adult and get over it.

After all, what else was she going to do?

She tugged on her lip for a moment, remembering the conversation she’d had with Colby way back when: If you actually do want to go change things, if you actually think you can, then shouldn’t you, like... go out there and change them?

She glanced over the partition at Lillian, who was talking animatedly into her headset, then opened her internet browser and put in the address for Annie Hernandez’s website. She scrolled all the way down until she found it, there at the very bottom: a blue rectangular button that said Work with Annie.

It wasn’t a real plan, she chided herself firmly.

She didn’t know anyone who’d ever done anything like it.

Still, she took a deep breath and clicked.

Twenty-Two

Colby

“I’ll tell you the worst part,” Meg said on the phone late that night, her voice bright and brittle like it always got when she was putting on a little bit of a song-and-dance number. “I didn’t even get a dress for the stupid wedding.”

Colby laughed. He was lying faceup on the scrubby grass in the backyard, Tris farting periodically beside him. It had been warm out today, or almost. “Is that really the worst part?” he asked.

Meg sighed theatrically. “I mean, no, of course not, but try to find me charming, will you? I’m doing a whole bit here.”

“I hear that,” Colby murmured, sifting a rock out of the soil and twirling it between the fingers of his free hand. “That’s kind of my point, though.”

“What is?” Meg sounded suspicious.

Colby shrugged into the grass even though she couldn’t see him. “That you don’t have to do a bit with me. I don’t know.”

“Oh really?” Meg huffed. “I thought me not doing a bit with you meant I didn’t think you were fancy enough to try to impress.”

“Easy,” Colby said mildly, pushing himself up on one elbow in the weedy grass. “That’s not what I said.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No, actually.” At least, he didn’t think so; talking to Meg tied his brain into knots sometimes, until he wasn’t sure what his point had been to start with. “Or if it was, then it’s not what I meant.”

“Fine,” Meg said in a slightly snotty voice, like she didn’t agree with him but wasn’t about to waste time and energy arguing about it. “Anyway, my point is, doing a bit isn’t always a bad thing. I don’t actually think there’s anything wrong with not wanting to be full of doom and gloom all the time.”

“It’s not being full of doom and gloom to say you fought with your friend and your mom was drunk in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday,” Colby said, though when he said it like that, even he had to admit it did sound kind of bleak. “Do you think I’m full of doom and gloom all the time?”

“Yes,” Meg said immediately, but then she laughed, so he wasn’t entirely sure if she was serious or not and wasn’t sure how to ask her without sounding like a weenie.

“You’ve got time, right?” he said instead. “To get a dress, I mean.”

“Yeah,” Meg said, sounding resigned. “The wedding’s not till Memorial Day weekend. And the dress is the least of my problems, honestly.” She was quiet then, like she was weighing something. “You could come, you know.”

Colby opened his mouth so fast his scabby lip split all over again, the iron tang of blood in his mouth. He reached up and wiped it away with the back of his hand. “To your dad’s wedding?” he asked. “Like, as your date?”

She blew a breath out on the other end of the phone. “Yeah, Colby, like, as my date.”

“I—oh.” Colby thought about that for a moment. It was a truly terrible idea for all kinds of reasons, obviously: First of all, he had no idea where he was going to get gas money to drive to Philly. Second of all, his left eye was currently a charming shade of plum. He tried to imagine it: her fancy house and her fancy friends and her dad’s fancy wedding. It would probably be a fucking disaster. The smart thing to do would be to stay far, far away.

“Yeah,” he said, almost before he had decided. “I’ll come be your date.”

Meg smiled; he could hear it. It sounded like someone handing you a chocolate chip cookie, or coming inside after being out in the snow. “Really?”

“I mean, yeah.” Colby squeezed his good eye shut, already wondering what he’d just gotten himself into. Already wondering if there was a way to bail out. “If you want me to be.”

---