Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood

            I almost spit my ayran all over her. But it’s okay because she totally deserves it.





19


            IMPEDANCE


            On Friday night, I wear a dress.

            Nothing fancy. It’s a cable-knit sweaterdress my cousin handed down to Mom because it was too long, and Mom handed down to me because it was too small. I pair it with my one lipstick, my one tube of mascara, my one eye pencil, my one pair of thigh highs. I curl my hair all on my own, cursing softly whenever I burn the side of my hand, so Cece won’t hear.

            Reader: she hears anyway.

            “This is such an M. Night Shyamalan plot twist,” she tells me from the kitchen, where she’s pouring milk into a bowl. “Do you see dead people? Oh my God—am I dead?”

            “Shut up. I dress up all the time.”

            She waves her spoon at me. “Not for dates.”

            “Actually—”

            “Not for real dates with your professional archnemesis and brother of the guy you used to fake-date, who you wished would incur a death by papercuts but now like enough to fix that cowlick on the back of your head.”

            I sigh. “Great synopsis of my life.”

            “Thank you. If you ever need a biographer . . .” She pours Cocoa Puffs into the milk, like the nonsensical creature she is. “Where are you guys going?”

            “Dinner with his friends. He has this really active social circle that makes me look back to that summer when my best friend was a watermelon with googly eyes and feel absolutely devastated.”

            “In third grade?”

            “High school.”

            “Ouch. Well, you have me now. Ready to call law enforcement if you’re not back by eight thirty. May I? I’ve always wanted to report a missing person.” She holds the spoon like a phone. “No, Officer, she didn’t have enemies, but she was part of a weird sectarian conflict that only someone with a doctorate in physics could fully grasp. Last seen cavorting with a big dude in a Saint Patrick’s Day Porta Potty. Yes, I’ll hold.”

            I laugh. “Do text me before you call Liam Neeson. And I might be later than that, but I’m not spending the night.”

            “Ever?”

            “Ever.”

            She gasps. The spoon clatters. “Are you not letting him smack the salmon because of the article he wrote? Is his seventeen-year-old self cockblocking him from the past?”

            I frown—at her usage of salmon and at the reminder that why, yes, the guy I’m going out with did do that. And it’s not that I ever forget. It’s just that I truly cannot reconcile it—the way Jack is when we’re together, kind and funny and even admiring of my work, and the fact that fifteen years ago—

            “Elsie? Is that it?”

            “No. No, he’s just . . . not planning on having sex with me.”

            Her eyes widen. “Are you planning on having sex with him?”

            Maybe. Probably. No. Should I? I want to. I’m scared. Maybe. “I have to go.” I chew on the inside of my cheek and pick up my purse. Then stop at the door when Cece says, “Hey, Elsie?”

            I turn around.

            “You look pretty tonight.” Her big eyes are warm. “Even more than usual.”

            I smile. I think I look medium as usual, but my heart feels open all of a sudden, open for Cece, this beautiful, odd person who cannot read analog clocks or tell the difference between left and right, who’s been sticking with me through thin and thin and thin for the past seven years. For a moment, all I want is to open my mouth and say, I hate art house movies. Could we watch a rom-com sometimes? Riverdale? Literally any Kardashian show?

            What comes out is “You look like a weirdo, pouring milk before the cereal, but I love you anyway.”

            I step out to her middle finger. Then my phone rings, and that’s when my night collapses like an accordion.