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“Then what’s it about?” Meg asked, sounding wounded. “I don’t care what you do, Colby. Take the job or don’t take the job; I won’t bring it up again. I just want you to be happy. Like, actually, honestly, sincerely happy. Whatever you might think.”

Colby was silent for a moment, staring out at the darkened tree line. He wanted to believe her, but he didn’t know if he did. Even if she thought she meant it, what exactly was going to happen when her bossy friend Emily found out he’d barely graduated high school? What was going to happen when this whole thing inevitably crashed and burned?

Still, though. Still.

Colby flopped back onto the grass so hard he winced, his ribs protesting. Just for a moment, he’d forgotten his whole body was bruised. “I don’t think we’re messing around,” he admitted finally, his voice barely more than a mumble. Tris, sleeping fitfully now, grumbled quietly at his side. “At least, I don’t think that’s all we’re doing.”

Meg cackled a sound that wasn’t a laugh, not really. “Oh no?”

“No,” he said, swallowing the fear down. “I don’t.”

“Then what are we doing?”

“You tell me.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s not how this works, Colby.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not!”

“That doesn’t sound very feminist of you.”

“Oh my God. I’m hanging up.”

“Meg—”

“No, I am, because—”

“Meg—”

“I don’t know what your problem is tonight, but—”

“Meg!”

“What?”

“You want to be my girlfriend?” he heard himself blurt.

Meg didn’t answer for a moment. Colby could picture her, the way she pulled at her bottom lip when she was thinking about something. “Do you want me to be your girlfriend?” she finally asked.

“I wouldn’t be asking you if I didn’t.”

Another pause. Then, more quietly: “Okay.”

Something turned over in Colby’s chest, surprised, though honestly he wouldn’t have asked her to begin with unless he’d been reasonably sure she’d say yes. Still, the feeling pressed at the inside of his rib cage, buoyant: his girlfriend. Jesus Christ on a cracker. Colby smiled dumbly into the dark.

Twenty-Three

Meg

It was her dad’s turn to plan their next dinner, but instead of sending her a restaurant link like usual, he suggested dinner at Lisa’s house in Penn Wynne. “I think it would be nice for us all to spend some time together,” he said, which Meg felt kind of violated the spirit of their tradition, though it didn’t feel worth it to argue. “Um, sure,” she said. “Sounds great.”

Lisa lived in a tidy Cape Cod at the top of a hill with a swing set in the yard and a We Are All Welcome Here sign staked into the tulip bed. All the furniture was made of pale blond wood. Literally everything, from the glass canister of whole-wheat flour on the kitchen counter to the wire bins of art supplies on the bookshelves in the living room, had been labeled with a white paint pen in Lisa’s immaculate hand.