Page 96 of Eye of the Beholder
My jaw drops. “You’re going? Really?” I turn into my neighborhood, admiring the falling snow.
“Well—all right. In the interest of full honesty, I didn’t actually do that today. I did it on Christmas Eve. But I hadn’t told you. I did basically nothing today. But yeah; I’m going.”
“Wow,” I say. “Okay. Cohen, that’s great. Honestly, I think that’s great. I know you were on the fence. What made you change your mind? Unless you don’t want to tell me,” I add quickly.
“I don’t mind telling you,” he says, and the emphasis he puts on “you” causes me to smile. “He sent me another invitation, but he put a note in it.”
“Was this note better than the one before?”
I hear Cohen laugh softly. “Yeah. It was. My mom said I should forgive him. And I remembered that you had said the same thing, and…I don’t know.”
I pull up in front of my house and park on the street, but I don’t get out as I listen to Cohen.
“I thought I could take it easy on him, even though I don’t think it was okay for him to leave. I remembered how you said I’d helped you decide to apply to school. You were brave. I thought I could be, too.”
“Cohen,” I say, feeling a lump in my throat, because I guess I haven’t done enough crying for the day? “That’s—” I break off, then start again. “That’s really nice.”
He groans. “Are you crying? Did I make you cry?”
“No,” I say, dabbing at my eyes with my sleeve.
“You cry a lot, Willy,” he says, his voice gently teasing.
“If you think it’s bad for you to have to be around it, imagine how I feel,” I say. “Do you ever cry? Is that a thing guys do? Or do they all stop crying when they’re little?”
He’s quiet for a second. Then he says, “There might have been a few angry tears last year when I thought he’d left.Mighthave been. I can neither confirm nor deny that.”
I smile. “You’re allowed a few tears. So when is the wedding?”
“Next weekend,” he says with a sigh. “I hope he doesn’t ask me to wear a corsage or boutonniere or whatever.”
I hear a little knock, and I jump. I look to the window on the passenger side, and sure enough, there’s Cohen, and he’s smiling at me.
I hang up and roll down the window. “What’s the password?”
“Hmm,” he says, pretending to consider. “How about, ‘Do you want me to buy you food?’”
Um, yes. “That is correct,” I say, and he laughs and gets in the car.
“Have you been waiting for me?” I say, looking at him with raised eyebrows.
“Maybe,” he says with a grin. “You mentioned you were on your way home, and I’m not tired enough to sleep. Want to drive through somewhere?”
“Always,” I say. “But didn’t you say you just ate?”
He shrugs. “I can always eat more. I just want to hang out.”
I smile. I’m not mad about it. I watch him from the corner of my eye as I pull away from the curb and head back out of the neighborhood. Then I swallow and say, “Who’s going to buy me food when we go to college and you don’t live next to me anymore?”
“Oh,” he says, sitting up straighter. “That reminds me. My ACT score should show up any day.”
“You’ll have to let me know when it does,” I say, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel as we wait at a light.
“You were a good tutor,” Cohen says. “I feel like I actually learned something.”
I glance at him, smiling. “You did?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Especially the stuff about parts of speech and all that.” He hesitates. “I guess my teaching wasn’t quite as great, huh?” His voice is a little too casual. “Although aside from the party, you and Jack seem to be hitting it off well enough.”
