Page 96 of Reggie and Delilah's Year of Falling

It takes me another week to figure out what I want to do, and thenanotherweek to get the nerve to call Yobani. We’ve been...fineever since Halloween, but fine isn’t enough to ask someone to help me do something wild to win back the girl I love. And fine definitely isn’t what Yobani deserves from me after all our years of friendship.

I FaceTime him and he answers on the first ring.

“I’m sorry.”

His face quickly settles from shock into a smirk. “Go on.”

“I was acting like I was better than you, like I knew so much more than you, and I don’t really know shit.”

“Okay, I’m glad we’re on the same page here.”

“And you were just trying to help and, like, hold me accountable, and I threw it back at you. Even though I should have listened.”

“It’s true. I was dropping knowledge and you shoulda been taking notes.”

“I should have. You were being a good friend, and I was being a total dick.”

“And anuglyone too, with, like, a crooked tip and some sort of STD—one of those rare ones we had to take that test on in health class.”

I raise my lip in disgust, and he shrugs. “All right, I forgive you.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, as long as you agree that you were an ugly, warty dick.”

“I was an ugly, warty dick,” I repeat.

He nods, satisfied. “Cool. Now what’s the plan to get Delilah to forgive you?”

“Are you sure you want to help me? Because you totally don’t have to help me.”

“Of course I want to, Reg.” He grins. “If only to save our D&D game. It’s been gettingreeeeealmelodramatic lately, and Trickery does not thrive in those conditions.”

I lay out my plan, and he cheers and then cracks up, making me promise that he can be the one to tell Greg and Leela.

After I get off the phone with him, the panic starts to creep in over this big risk I’m taking, and I’m terrified that it all might be for nothing anyway. But I know that if I don’t start right this second, those feelings will take over and I’ll lose my nerve. So, I open up my transcribing app and start drafting an email I should have sent a long time ago.

THU, DEC 7 6:18 PM

Okay so... I know it’s in the name, but how tight are tights actually supposed to be?

There’s no crying in theater, Reggie!

TUE, DEC 12 11:21 AM

I don’t care how many times you ask, bro. There is no way that Trickery is going to be involved in this

Booooooo!!!!!!!

Christmas Eve

Reggie

I decide to put the plan into action on Christmas Eve because it’s a nod to our weird, wonderful beginning, how we were pulled together on these days with so much meaning, almost as if there was a string tying us together all along. But whether or not those were coincidences or divine intervention from Santa or a groundhog or whatever—this is me taking control and declaring who I am, what I want. Taking a ridiculous but hopefully romantic risk, and then living with the consequences.

“Siiiiiiilent niiiiiiight! Hooooooooly niiiiiiight!”

“You better sing it, Mae!”

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