Love and Other Words

Elliot sprawled on the floor, pulling a new, furry pillow off the futon and tucking it beneath his head. It was nearly two p.m., and Dad and I had barely made it up here due to some terrifying dry rattling under the hood of the Volvo. While Dad and Mr. Nick had worked on Dad’s car, Elliot and I had devoured some cold leftover chicken on the front steps. Back in the warmth of the house, I was more likely to take a nap than read an entire chapter.

Elliot’s voice seemed deeper than it had even the weekend before: “Favorite word?”

I closed my eyes, thinking. “Excruciating.”

“Wow.” Elliot paused, and when I looked over at him, he was staring at me curiously. “That’s a zinger. Update?”

I kicked off my shoes and one of them barely missed the side of his head. We’d spent the past hour together, but something about being back in the closet, with the blue walls, and stars, and the warm bulk of Elliot’s body nearby, seemed to loosen everything inside me. Things had been hard in ninth and tenth grade, but eleventh? Definitely the worst.

“Girls suck. Girls gossip, and are petty, and suck,” I said.

Elliot marked his place in his book and closed it, placing it at his side. “Elaborate.”

“My friend Nikki?” I said. “She likes this guy Ravesh. But Ravesh asked me to spring formal and I said no because he’s just a friend, but Nikki is mad at me anyway, as if I could help that Ravesh asked me and not her. So she told our friend—”

“Breathe.”

I took a deep breath. “She told our friend Elyse that I told Ravesh’s friend Astrid that I wanted to go with Ravesh just so he would ask me, and then I turned him down. Elyse believed her and now neither Nikki nor Elyse are speaking to me.”

“Neither Nikki nor Elyse is speaking to you,” he corrected, and then, at my glare, apologized under his breath before adding, “Clearly Elyse and Nikki is bitches.”

I laughed, and then laughed harder. Everything felt so easy in the closet. Why couldn’t it always feel this way?

He scratched his jaw, watching me. “You should take me to your spring formal.”

“You would go? You hate that stuff.”

Elliot nodded and licked his lips distractingly. “I would go.”

“Everyone wants to meet you.” I found myself unable to look away from his mouth, imagining being tasted.

“Well, that is perfectly lopsided. I have no desire to meet everyone.” He grinned at me. “But I do want to see you in something other than pajamas, jeans, or shorts.”

“You would really go to spring formal with me?”

He tilted his head, brows drawn. “Is it so hard to accept that I want to be the only person you’d consider taking to a stupid formal?”

“Why?”

“Because you’re my best friend, Macy, and despite your ridiculous reticence—”

“Good alliteration.”

“—you are the girl I want. I want to be together.”

My stomach flipped in thrill and anxiety. “You kiss other girls.”

“Rarely.”

“Uh, ever.”

“Obviously I wouldn’t if I could kiss you.”

I sighed, chewed my lip, fidgeted. “Why can’t everyone be like you?”

“I can be enough of your world that it feels like everyone is.”

I smiled up at him, softly, pressing down the familiar bubble of need. It was getting harder and harder to ignore that I really, truly loved Elliot.

“What’s your favorite word?” I asked him.

He sucked on his lower lip for a moment, thinking. “Vex,” he said quietly.