Page 87 of All of You

“So tell me about this haunted hayride,” she says between bites. She’s got a tiny smidge of melted cheese stuck to her bottom lip and I cannot resist the urge to wipe it away. I put my gargantuan burger down and swipe my thumb over the cheese. “That’s embarrassing,” she sighs.

“I actually thought it was hot.”

Delia rolls her eyes at me. “The hayride,” she says.

“Right. So you sit on a trailer wagon thing and they drag you through the woods and people jump out and try to scare you and then there’s hot cider and donuts. It’s pretty fun.”

“Do you go every year?”

I look at my plate. “We used to.”

Delia gives me a small, sad smile. “Well, I’m excited. It’s a very good first date idea.”

“Oh yeah? What are bad first date ideas?”

She puts her steak and cheese down and picks at her fries while thinking it over. “I mean, dinner and a movie—boring. You don’t even really get to talk. Once this kid took me to an airsoft range to shoot—that was awkward. I mean, hello weirdo gun-toting serial killer vibes. Also, ear protection is not exactly cute and again, makes conversation difficult.”

“I did consider dinner and a movie, I’ll be honest, but an airsoft range…nope, never would have dreamed it.”

Delia laughs loudly it makes my stomach flip with excitement.

“Come on you haven’t had a weird or bad first date?”

I shake my head. “Not really. I mean, all my first dates have been…vanilla. Nothing awkward but nothing exciting either. Just kinda unoriginal. I mean, there’s not a ton to do here in town so choices are limited but you know what I mean.”

She nods and takes a huge bite of her sandwich. When she licks her lips, I find myself wishing that I was on them.

“What are you staring at?” she asks.

I blink rapidly out of my daydream and shake my head.

Forty Two

Delia

When he smiles at me, I melt inside and simultaneously feel that I’m not worthy of his time. After dinner, he opens my car door for me and before I can get in, wraps his arms around me. I let myself melt into his body.

He releases me and I tilt my head toward his hoping for a kiss but he just smiles and waits for me to get in the truck so he can close my door. Did I just get friend-zoned? My stomach lurches at the thought. Was it something at dinner that I did or said?

On the drive to the hayride, which is deep in the woods in the middle of nowhere, Langdon holds my hand which makes me feel better about getting stiffed for a kiss earlier. His eyes keep roaming my body in a way that doesn’t scream friends at all and he was the one who asked me on a date.

I’d been absolutely giddy upon hanging up the phone when he called to ask. Gramps had burst into my room, worry furrowing his brows asking what was wrong. At that moment, I’d wished for my mother. She would have clasped my hands and jumped up and down with me in excitement. It was a short-lived pang of pain. I wasted no time filling Gramps in. He’d huffed and groaned but I saw the little sliver of a smile as he walked out of my room. He was happy for me.

We pull into a field lined with cars. To the left of the lot tall corn husks wag back and forth in the breeze. Fog rises up out of the tree line before us in the eeriest way. Langdon parks and asks if I’m ready. There’s a line of people waiting, who all look eager, but the creepy music blaring and the fog set me on edge.

“I guess,” I say.

In the ticket line, I slip on Langdon’s sweatshirt. It smells like him and envelopes me in a warmth so soft and gentle feeling that it might be a cloud. A breeze picks up and I shiver. Langdon tucks me into his side to block the wind. I wonder if anyone from school will be here.

We hop on a long trailer pulled by an old tractor and squeeze next to each other on bales of hay as other people pile on.

“If I scream, I’m sorry,” I say.

Langdon laughs. “You can always close your eyes.”

“I’m tough.”

The tractor roars to life and off we go into the woods. There’screepy music and fake fog that smells sweet and acrid and pure blackness once we’re inside the tree line. Small kids are already crying. A man dressed as a prisoner jumps out with a chainsaw running right at us.