Page 82 of Night Shift

Vincent brushes his fingertip over the toe of my ballet flat where it’s peeking out from under my dark-blue dress, then taps the side of the picture with the boys in it.

“Which one was your date?” he asks.

I pick at an imaginary hangnail on my thumb. “I didn’t have one.”

It’s like bumping an old bruise that I was sure had healed. But it hasn’t. The girl in the picture might be smiling, but I know how miserable she was that night. I know the hunch of her shoulders, her ballet flats, her simple navy-blue dress—floor-length, sleeves, no sequins—were all to not draw any attention to herself. To make herself smaller. And I know college has changed me for the better, but it still aches when I look at pictures of that girl and wonder how much of her fear and pain still lingers with me. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever get over the need to fade into the background.

“I wish we’d gone to high school together,” Vincent says suddenly.

I don’t know why that makes my chest squeeze and my eyes sting, but it does. Me too, I think. But then I try to conjure up the mental image of teenage Vincent, and all I’m getting is Troy Bolton gallivanting around the halls of East High in a well-choreographed musical number with a basketball under one arm.

“I bet you would’ve bullied me,” I blurt. Vincent looks genuinely offended, so I add, “Not because you were a meathead asshole jock or anything. I was an insufferable English nerd with, like, two friends.”

“You still are, but I’m not bullying you for that, am I?”

He dodges my punch to his shoulder.

“All right, all right,” he says. “Here. We’ll make it even.”

He reaches into the pocket of his jeans and pulls out his phone. Some scrolling and a few taps later, he’s holding the screen up in my face. It’s teenaged Vincent, his hair longer and his body about thirty pounds leaner. His tux is just a little too small for him too. But the boy in the photo is definitely a heartbreaker.

“Fuck off,” I grumble. “That doesn’t make me feel better.”

“What do you mean? Look at my sleeves, Holiday. They don’t even hit my wrists.”

He’s right. It’s weirdly endearing.

“This is from your senior prom?” I ask.

“I was a sophomore, actually. I got asked by my teammate’s sister.”

The girl in the photo next to him has braces and curled hair that looks like it’s seen a little bit too much hairspray, but she’s got the confident posture and pretty bone structure of a girl who probably enjoyed high school. I sort of hate her for it. And then I feel bad, because she’s literally a child. Despite the definitely-borrowed-from-Mom stiletto heels she’s wearing in the picture, she barely comes to Vincent’s armpit.

“How tall were you?” I ask.

“In this picture? No idea. I hit six-four freshman year, though. Great for my basketball career. Horrible for clothing.”

I nod solemnly. “Pants were a nightmare.”

“See?” Vincent says, tucking his phone away. “We probably would’ve been friends.”

I shake my head. “No way. That hair and those puppy dog eyes? And you were taller than me? You would’ve ruined my life, Vincent.”

He stares at me a moment, his eyes twinkling like he wants to say something, but he just shakes his head and turns back to my bookshelf. He slides a paperback off my shelf to examine the cover. It’s an Oscar Wilde play. If Vincent noticed that it was sandwiched next to a battered copy of Twilight, he doesn’t comment on it.

“You’re not going to start reading that to me, are you?” I ask.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Vincent murmurs. He slides the book back onto my shelf before tossing me a look. “I could whip out the Shel Silverstein for you, if you’re still interested.”

“Did you really memorize one of his poems?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“I memorized three.”

I let out a bark of shocked laughter. “Why would you do that?”

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