When We Were Infinite by Kelly Loy Gilbert

Author:Kelly Loy Gilbert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Published: 2021-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

On our way to second period, when Jason and I had been together for a week, I finally asked him when he was planning to come back to BAYS.

“We’re doing a Haydn,” I said, because he’d always liked Haydn. It was noisy, conversation and footsteps and locker doors slamming reverberating off the brick walls and metal locker banks, but the ordinariness of the hallways felt transformed because Jason was holding my hand. I kept seeing people glance down to look.

“Which Haydn?” he said.

“One-oh-four.”

“Ah. Kind of the obvious choice, I guess.”

“It’s kind of an interesting arrangement, though. I think you’d like it.”

He smiled politely in a way that probably meant he was done with the conversation. But I said, “We sound worse without you there.”

“Nah, I’m sure it doesn’t make a difference.”

“It does, though.”

I recognized the way he dodged the subject, so I didn’t push it, and I didn’t bring up Juilliard, either. But then he called that afternoon when I was home from rehearsal.

“I was thinking about what you said about BAYS,” he said. “What are you doing now? You want to practice together? I could come get you.”

“And practice at your house?”

“Yeah, does that work for you?”

He came by ten minutes later. I’d tried practicing on my own a little—I didn’t want him to hear how bad things had been—but had given up, and by the time he came I was mostly just scrolling frenetically on my phone. He’d said we were going to his house, but then a few streets before his, he turned.

“So, ah—I lied.”

A cavern opened in my chest. He had lied about what—about me? Maybe I should’ve realized it was too good to be true, that if he sat down and thought about it, outside the moment, what did I have to offer him, really? “Oh—well, that’s fine, if—”

“I didn’t actually want to rehearse.”

I tried to breathe again. “Oh. Then—”

We were at Linda Vista Park, and he pulled into the parking lot. “I just thought maybe we should try this again. By this I mean—” He motioned between us. “I feel like I kind of bombed the first time.”

“You didn’t bomb anything.”

“Yeah, well—” He smiled in a self-deprecating way. “I know you think I’m always too down on my failures. So.”

He opened his door, and when I got out after him he held out his hand. I took it, and we walked together across the parking lot.

When we got there, there was a blanket spread out on the grass, and it took me a second to realize this was his doing. He’d brought a small picnic: a thermos and two paper cups, a plastic clamshell of strawberries, a bag of Japanese rice crackers. I said, inanely, “This is for us?”

“It’s a little better, right?” He extended a hand to the blanket, motioning for me to sit. When I did he sat down next to me and carefully opened the thermos, and the scent of jasmine came steaming out. He poured the tea into the two cups and handed me one.

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