The Unexpected Everything

“Want to get out of here?” he’d asked. I nodded, and he held my hand tighter as we ran through the house. He stopped in front of a door that I would have run past and pushed it open. It was a laundry room, a tiny space with a folding table, a stacked washer and dryer, and barely enough room to turn around. Topher pulled me inside, and we shut the door behind us and stood in the dark and waited.

We weren’t discovered right away, and after a few minutes of both of us panicking that cops were about to fling open the door at any moment, we both relaxed a little and found our way to the folding table. We sat side by side next to a stack of fluffy, neatly folded towels, moonlight streaming through the tiny window above the dryer and the smell of fabric softener all around us. And when the panic that I was about to ruin everything had started to subside, I let myself appreciate this situation for the first time—that I was sitting very close to a cute gray-eyed boy in the moonlight.

We started talking, about school, about our parents, about the counter-spin we’d have ready in case we were discovered—that when we’d realized there was underage drinking happening, we’d removed ourselves from the situation immediately—until I realized that enough time had passed that we could probably go out safely. I turned to Topher to tell him this and saw that he was sitting closer to me than I’d realized and was looking at me thoughtfully, like he was studying my face. My heart started pounding hard, but I made myself keep looking into his eyes as he brushed a stray lock of hair from my forehead and then wound it around his finger once before tucking it behind my ear. And then, moving so slowly, he leaned over and gave me my very first kiss.

We’d ended up making out against the stack of towels until the party’s host—sounding very annoyed—started banging on all the doors in the hallway, telling people that the party was over and to either help him clean up or get the hell out.

“So,” Topher said, as I pushed myself off the table and tried to smooth my hair down. My lips felt puffy and I had a giddy, racing energy coursing through me. I’d just been kissed. I couldn’t wait to tell my friends. I wondered if I looked any different. I turned to him and saw he looked slightly nervous, like he was bracing himself for something. “This—I mean . . . this doesn’t have to mean anything, you know?”

I blinked, realizing that he was scared I would want to turn this into something—like I would expect him to be my boyfriend or something now. “No,” I said immediately. “Of course not.” I’d never had a real boyfriend, but I’d been watching Palmer and Tom for a month now, and even the idea of that kind of dependency on someone made me feel claustrophobic. “It was fun, though.”

Something washed over Topher’s face when I said that, like he’d just seen something that he recognized—relief mixed with the happiness of an unexpected discovery. “It was,” he said, giving me a smile, “so much better than being arrested.”

And now, three years later, here we still were. I played with the buttons on his shirt, thinking about it. “I kind of think maybe we should have refolded the towels.”

Topher laughed. “You know, I think it warped me. For months I couldn’t smell fabric softener without getting flashbacks.”

“So what are you doing this summer?” I asked, when I realized I didn’t know, and after the silence between us was starting to stretch on.

“Interning,” he said with a long sigh. “At my dad’s office. Fun times.”

“Oh,” I said, a little surprised. Topher’s dad was a litigator, and while there was nothing wrong with doing an internship with your parent, we both knew it wasn’t the best thing for your résumé.

“I know,” he said as he ran his hands over my shoulders, smoothing down the fabric of my sleeves. “But I was too late for the good stuff. I didn’t start applying until last month, and by then everything was gone. Internships, summer programs—even the volunteering slots had giant wait-lists.” He leaned away slightly, like he was trying to get a better look at me. “You took care of this back in March, didn’t you?”

I gave him a tiny shrug. “February,” I said, holding back what I really wanted to say, which was that Topher should have known better. You had to get this stuff locked down early. The good jobs and internships and summer programs, the ones that looked impressive on your applications, the ones that mattered—they went fast. “But I’m sure your dad’s office will be good,” I said, looking up at him, feeling beyond grateful, once again, that I was heading to Johns Hopkins and that this summer would be the furthest thing from a questionable gap on my résumé.

“I’ll let you know,” he said, tracing the outline of my lips with his thumb for a moment.

“Oh, yeah?” I asked, propping myself up on my elbow. “Are you going to write me a postcard or something?”

Topher smiled at this. “Every day,” he said, matching my tone.

I laughed at that and pushed myself off the couch. I left first this time, returning to the party and hoping that nobody could tell anything had happened, that I didn’t look different at all.

? ? ?

Three hours later, I yawned as I headed up the driveway to my house, Palmer waving to me out the window of the minivan. Bri had asked me if I wanted to sleep over at her place—Toby was, of course—but I’d said no, mostly because Bri’s evil, ancient cat, Miss Cupcakes, seemed to have some kind of feline vendetta against me.