Page 41 of Promise Me Sunshine

“Knock yourself out.”

He’s starting to step away so I reach back and grab his shirt, tugging him back into position.

“I know!” I assert. “SayIf you’re a bird, I’m a bird.”

“That’s not even from the right movie!”

“Just say it!” I’ve started swimming my arms like I’m doing the breaststroke because they’re running out of blood flow just hanging out in the air like that.

“Isn’t that the girl’s line?”

“You knowThe Notebookwell enough to know who says which line?”

“I’ve had girlfriends, Lenny. Part of having a girlfriend is that she makes you watchThe Notebook.”

“Well, it’s a classic and all your past girlfriends have wonderful taste. And since it was clearly so formative for you…”

“If you’re a bird, I’m a bird,” he grumbles, deadpan, presumably to get this all over with faster.

Still, I take the W and throw my head back on an overjoyed cackle. The crown of my head bumps into his collarbone and when I open my eyes, I can see up his nose, and that the center of the sky is just starting to turn the blueberry blue of twilight. Instead of panicked sadness, I simply feel that I might be briefly living inside a wonderful moment.

“Did we do it?” he asks, tipping his head down slightly, hands on his hips, waiting patiently for me to stop leaning on him.

I stand up straight and stomp a foot. “By God, I think we’ve done it!” I yank the list out of my pocket and draw a line through number eight with my finger. It’s laminated so all line-crossing has to be imaginary.

That’s two down. I’m feeling tingly and slightly unsettled. Am I living again, yet? Who can tell. Probably I won’t know until every single thing is crossed off and Miles appears from behind a curtain with a flower sash. I feel slightly ill. Also I’m dying for aTitanicrewatch.

He takes another two inches of his beer down and then glances back at the people who are looking at us with mixtures of amusement and embarrassment. “I think it’s time.”

“Let’s blow this popsicle stand,” I agree.

We leave the second half of our drinks and wander through Lower Manhattan, vaguely toward the train.

“So,” I say, hands in pockets. “You’ve had girlfriends.”

He laughs. “You say that like it’s weird.”

“It is weird. But only in an existential way. Not because you’re gross. I just mean, it’s also weird that you were once in second grade or if you ever went to Disneyland, that would be weird. It’s weird because you’ve got a whole life I don’t know anything about.”

“ ‘Girlfriends’ with an ‘s’ might be pushing it. I’ve dated. And had one serious girlfriend.”

“And?”

He frowns. “And?”

“Nothing more you wanna say about her?”

We pass a narrow alleyway and between the two buildings we get a glimpse of the half-red, rising moon. He eyes that instead of me. “Not really.”

A world opens up between us. It’s unexpected. Heartbreak Miles. First Date Miles. First Kiss. I’m Sorry Flowers. Miles leaning over someone in bed to click the lamp off for the night.

“Huh.”

“What?” he asks.

“I don’t know. Just thinking about all the experiences other people have. Through all the, you know,grief,I’ve kinda forgotten that the entire world is filled with all these other realities…possibilities…that I’ve never even considered before.” A man in SpongeBob pajama pants walks his pug past us and I wonder who he’s going home to. “I think when you’re depressed sometimes it’s easy to think that everyone is depressed? But right this very second, there are billions of people having happy moments. I kind of forgot about those people. I thought I knew how everything worked. And that all of it was terrible.”

He weighs his head from one side to the other. “Only some of it is terrible.”

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