I look into her dark brown eyes and grab her hand. I hear the crowd faintly cheering our names in a beautiful song as I spin her around and around, the sound of her laughter drowning out the bass of the music playing.
“Delia! Darren!” the crowd continues.
“Delia! Darren!”
I pull her closer.
“Delia!”
“DARREN!”
The deep voice of my best friend, Justin, interrupts my daydream and fills my ears. Delia and the crowd melt away around me, replaced with the parking lot of the corner store.
“Did you hear me?” he says, waving his ashy hand in front of my face. He scoffs. “Don’t tell me you were having another Delia Daydream?”
“I wasn’t,” I say uncomfortably, defensively. “I heard you.”
“Then what did I say?”
I pause. I have no idea. “Hopefully, you asked to borrow some lotion.”
Justin sucks his teeth as he gets out of the car. It’s lunchtime, and we’re off campus. We just grabbed lunch and we’re at the corner store grabbing some snacks to get us through the rest of the day.
“Darren, come on, this is serious. We’re juniors now,” Justin says as we walk in and spot our go-to snacks right in the first aisle. He grabs his, barbecue chips and lemonade, and I grab mine, spicy chips and a bottle of water, and we quickly pay for them and head back out.
“What’s serious?” I ask noncommittally as we crunch through the gravel toward Justin’s car. The remote on his key chain beeps as we approach. He presses the button to start the car.
“This. I’ve been having to pull you out of these Delia Daydreams for too long now, and they got worse over the summer. I’ve had enough; you’ve had enough. Either ask Delia out or move on.”
I almost stop in my tracks, but I keep walking so he won’t know what he’s saying is actually ringing true today.
“I get it,” he continues. “Last year, she had a boyfriend already. You didn’t want to be disrespectful. This year, though? Just walk up to her, talk to her, and ask her out! She’ll only say yes or no.”
But that’s the thing, I think to myself. She can say no, and if she does, it’ll be over. No more what ifs, no more Delia Daydreams. I’d eventually move on, and that would be that. The thought was kind of sad.
But all I say is “You make it sound so simple.”
And it’s really not. Delia Dawson, known affectionately as Dillie, creator of the newish, hit podcast Dillie D in the Place to Be, transferred to Jamison High School during the second semester of our sophomore year. When I saw her walking the halls for the first time, I immediately knew she was The One. Well, if she wants to be.
Her presence commands attention: her skin is a warm, rich brown that looks like it glows from the inside out; her lips are full and pink and always shiny with lip gloss, spread apart in a genuine smile or a sneer when someone around her says something ridiculous—the kind of sneer that makes me feel glad I’m not on the receiving end of it.
When she first arrived at Jamison, I joined the chorus of the other kids around school who wanted to know, “Who is she?” Dillie D in the Place to Be hadn’t taken off yet, so no one knew much about her. From what I heard, she had a boyfriend from her old school, but they broke up a little while after she transferred, and it ended kind of badly. She started the podcast shortly after that because she wanted an outlet to vent her feelings.
He broke up with her on Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day.
I knew better than to try to ask her on a date during February, March, or even April, but a lot of guys didn’t. She took her thoughts to the
podcast, discussing some of the worst pickup lines she’d received, and even though she kept their names anonymous, those guys knew they’d struck out. When I do finally get the courage to ask Delia out, everything has to be perfect. I can’t help but feel like I’m only going to get one chance to do it right.
It’s not like we don’t casually talk. We’ve had a few classes together, and even attend the same church. We’ll speak sometimes during Morning Fellowship, in the hallway, or at football games when we see each other. But that’s enough for now. I don’t want to say too much until she knows I’m interested in her—then she can see me as a potential boyfriend and not just some random guy she sees around.
“Darren,” Justin says again, angrily.
“I’m sorry, man. What?”
Justin sighs, rubbing his hand over his head as if me and my Delia Daydreams are the most taxing thing in his life right now. Maybe we are. Justin pretty much has it all. He’s always the life of the party, liked by everyone; he has a huge house, a nice car, and is back “on” with his on-again, off-again girlfriend, Tiffany.
“Look, just ask her out,” he says again. He has a way of homing in on an issue and not letting it go until it’s resolved. I prefer to let my thoughts settle before speaking, but that’s how we’re different.
“I know it’s not that simple, but this relationship you have going on with Delia inside your head is creepy. Imagine what she’d think about it?”
I consider this. It seems like everything is a lot safer inside my head. But the last thing I want is for Delia to see me as creepy.
We are juniors now. Upperclassmen. This is serious business. I even have a meeting with my guidance counselor after lunch to talk more about the next two years. Maybe daydreaming about my crush is underclassman behavior. It was the first week of school, time for a fresh start.
“Aiight,” I tell Justin as he pulls out of the trash-filled parking lot of the corner store and back to school, the smell of our chicken sandwiches filling up the car. The radio turns on automatically. It takes a second to figure out what the song is since the bass in Justin’s car stereo overpowers the lyrics. The seats and windows vibrate in that way we all know and love, every time the beat drops. When the verse starts, I realize it’s that new singer, Louis Dot Williams, who a lot of people like but who, quite frankly, struggles with his notes live.
“Man!” Justin slaps his steering wheel. “Whew! This man is a lyrical genius! Do you hear that?”
“No,” I say. Between the bass and the auto-tune, how can I?
Justin shakes his head. “You don’t get it. Louis Dot is talking about some real stuff. It sounds just like what me and Tiffany are going through.”
I say nothing, because this is Justin’s favorite artist and we’ve gotten into it countless times before about our differences of opinion.
I like clear, difficult notes, key changes, and bridges, and this song doesn’t have any of that. In the words of the late, great Whitney Houston, “I listen to singers.” I open my bag and pull out a handful of curly fries, ignoring Justin’s warning about not getting crumbs everywhere because he just got his car cleaned. My mind drifts back to what Justin said about Dillie. “How should I do it, then?”
I genuinely don’t know. I know Justin will, though, because when he and Tiffany are Off Again, Justin wastes no time going out on dates with other girls, at Jamison and beyond. Tiffany does the same thing, dating other guys. It’s weird; they’ll casually date other people, but everyone, including the two of them, knows they’ll eventually get back together, and the new “daters” know to tread lightly, never catching serious feelings. Ask either Tiffany or Justin, and they’d both tell you in a heartbeat that they are getting married one day, and that this chaotic system just works for them right now.
I don’t want Delia and me to have to have that sort of system. Never mind. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked Justin for his advice after all.
I’m starting to think that maybe he forgot about my question since his favorite singer is on the radio, but this is his thing: helping, giving solicited and unsolicited advice. So he takes the bait before I can take it back.
“You could always do the obvious thing: walk up to her and ask her,” he answers, as he turns onto the street our school is on.
This is true, but not as simple as it sounds. I’ve seen dudes crash and burn in front of Delia, whether it’s because she’s with her friends and they did the dirty work for her, or she waved them off herself, thanking them for trying. Even when I do try to talk to her about any old thing, there’s rarely any time for that. She’s always hustling to her next class, the library, to work on her podcast, always on the brink of being late. The thought of me stammering through asking her out and making her even later to her next commitment makes me queasy.
“That’s an option,” I say, carefully wiping the crumbs I’ve spilled on the seat into a napkin before Justin notices.
“You could also shoot your shot digitally. You know, Clip Message her.”
Hm. Messaging her on social media. I was better with words written than words said. Maybe I could do that.
“Another option” is all I say.
As we pull into the parking lot of Jamison High, I’m thinking about the places I can ask Delia out on a date. Maybe we could go to a local concert together, or grab a bite to eat. Or both.
Justin and I grab our lunches and snacks and walk to the main courtyard, where mostly everyone else is walking around, talking, eating. We head toward our usual spot, the brick wall, which is low enough to hop on and get a good view of everything that’s going
on around us.
I notice her walking past the brick wall, straight toward us, with two of her friends.
Delia.
Justin eyes me pointedly, then veers off to the right, leaving me to walk toward her and her group of friends alone. He must think I’m going to ask her right now. Now, as if I’d say something unrehearsed. As if I’d had a chance to think about what to say, or to consider every scenario in which she could say no.
Or yes.
But I have to say something because she’s right in front of me.
“What’s up, Delia? Mia, Julie,” I say, pretending that I’m seeing her for the first time.
Mia and Julie wave at me and keep walking. Delia slows down, just a step.
“Hey, Darren.” She eyes me up and down. “I like that shirt.”
The navy-blue button-up shirt that I almost didn’t buy because it seemed like a beast to iron, the shirt that I almost didn’t iron today because I was running late, but I decided to anyway?
I’ve never been so thankful for my iron.
“Thank you,” I say, and for just another second or two, she’s still standing there. Should I compliment her back? Should I say something about the iron?
Or maybe, just maybe, I could just ask her out.
“Dillie! Come on, I’m hungry!” Mia says, waving her over, a small frown on her face. I sympathize. My stomach is growling, too. Those curly fries didn’t fill me up at all.
But—
“I’m coming!” Dillie says, walking away from me. I register the curve of her hips as she walks away, but keep my eyes up, in case she turns around.
She does.
“What were you saying, Darren?” she asks, walking backward now.
“Oh, uh—I was saying I like your shirt, too.”
She smiles, a brilliant white smile that could disarm anyone.
“Thanks,” she says, and turns around and jogs toward her friends.
I’m grinning, walking to where Justin is sitting, thinking of how our interaction is enough to fuel my daydreams for the entire week.
Justin is frowning at me, though, the same one that Mia had, but he’s still working on his lunch, so it can’t be from hunger.
“What?” I ask.
“What happened?”
“It wasn’t the right time.” And it really wasn’t. It didn’t feel right.
Justin groans.
“You saw her, she was in a hurry, as usual.”
Justin finishes off the rest of his chicken sandwich and balls up the foil it wa
s wrapped in. He shoots it toward the trash can; it spins around the rim and pops back out. He groans again, hops off the wall, walks toward it, and picks it up.
“Darren, look. You are this piece of foil,” he says, holding it up to me.
I raise an eyebrow.
“You were shooting your shot, everything was prepped for success, but you jumped back and chickened out.”
“That’s what just happened? Or are your shooting skills just off?”
“No. Listen. I’m doing this because we’re basically brothers and I’m trying to help you. You gotta get out of your own head, man. Ask her out or leave her alone.”
As much as I hate to admit it, Justin and his unsolicited chicken sandwich analogy are right. This is the year that I ask Delia out. If she’s uninterested, I could live with that. But at least I’d have gathered up the courage to ask. At least I’d know.
I take the wrapper from Justin and toss it toward the trash can and it lands perfectly. He scoffs, and I shrug.
If only dating were that easy.
I walk into the career development office, still buzzing from the compliment Dillie gave me and my non-wrinkled, navy-blue shirt, and have a seat.
After a few minutes, my guidance counselor, Mrs. Thompson, peeks her head out from around the corner where her office is. “Darren! Hello! Please, come on in!”
I get up from where I was sitting in the lobby, pulled out of the trance caused by the receptionist clicking away on her laptop and the trickling sound from the water coming out of the little fountain they’ve placed on the coffee table in front of me.
“How are you?” Mrs. Thompson says this so enthusiastically that for a second, I wonder if she’s going to reach out for a hug. She doesn’t.
She’s cool, though. A far cry from my old guidance counselor, Mrs. Earnhardt. If you were making anything less than a B in any class, she’d tell you with the straightest face that college didn’t look like it was the best option for you, and maybe you should try being a mechanic.
Don’t get me wrong, being a mechanic is great and all, but still. She wasn’t exactly the most encouraging when it came to going to college and seemed weirdly obsessed with suggesting this one specific alternate career.
I don’t know if she left on her own accord or if she just got too many complaints from crying juniors who knew nothing about fixing cars, but she’s gone now. I like Mrs. Thompson, though, because she actually gets to know us enough to make suggestions that fit with our personalities, and she’s super nice, so she’s the exact opposite of Mrs. Earnhardt. And since she’s new, I don’t have to hear about being the Great Zoe Armstrong’s little brother every time I enter her office.
“Have a seat.” She gestures to the armchair in front of her desk. I sink into it. Even her chairs are nicer than Mrs. Earnhardt’s were.
“How is junior year treating you so far?” she asks, typing something into her computer and glancing over at me.
I look at the poster behind her, which says, “YOUR ONLY LIMIT IS YOUR MIND!” in bold, blue lettering.
“Um. So far so good. You know, for the first few days.”
“Junior year flies by,” she says, clicking some more buttons with her mouse. I assume she’s pulling up my file. “The next thing you know, you’ll be committing to a college and trying on your cap and gown.”
“That’s what I hear,” I say. My sister just told me the same thing.
“Your grades are still stellar,” she says. “Community service, excellent. Hmm.”
Her brow furrows for a second, and I wonder why. I haven’t even so much as gotten a detention before.
“Extracurricular activities? ...
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