“Are we celebrating anything tonight?” the waitress asks us.
Julius tilts his head toward me. “There’s a lot to celebrate.”
“True,” I say. “Graduating as valedictorians, for one.”
“Joint valedictorians,” he supplies.
“Right.Jointvaledictorians. And getting into our dream schools.”
“And, most importantly, it’s the sixth-month anniversary of the email incident,” Julius says.
I blink. “It’s—what?”
“You don’t remember?” Julius’s mouth twitches. “On this very special day, six months ago, I’m sitting in physics class, just minding my own business, when all of a sudden, I receiveforty-twolengthy emails from my co-captain confessing how obsessed she is with me—”
I kick his leg underneath the table, but he doesn’t pull back or even flinch. “That’s not how it happened,” I protest.
“Would you like to review the evidence together? I have all the emails printed out, you know,” Julius says.
I gape at him. “You—You printed them out? You never told me that.”
“Of course. I’m keeping them for life,” he says, leaning back leisurely in his seat, his dark eyes glittering under the chandeliers.
“Well, congratulations to you both?” the waitress says, looking quite lost, and leaves to fetch our menus.
“I didn’t even remember the date was today,” I admit to Julius.
“I guess that settles it, doesn’t it?”
“What?”
“That I have a better memory than you,” he says, so proud of himself it’s almost endearing, like a kid showing off the sparkly sticker he earned at school.
“You rememberedonedate,” I counter.
“I remember them all,” he says confidently. “Test me, if you’d like.”
“When’s my birthday, then?”
He looks affronted by the question. “Sadie Wen, do you honestly think I wouldn’t remember yourbirthday? I remember the exact color of the skirt you wore on our first official date. I remember where we were sitting when you first held my hand.”
“Okay, you know you’re really setting yourself up for a huge apology if you ever forget our first-year anniversary,” I point out.
He shrugs. “That simply won’t happen. Not our first anniversary, not our second, not any of the ones after.”
When the waitress returns, we choose the potato gnocchi and sticky date pudding upon her recommendation. It tastes like childhood, but someone else’s childhood—the cake itself is warm and sweet and buttery, the caramel sauce even sweeter, the kind of food where you can feel how much sugar has been stuffed into every bite but you can’t stop eating it anyway. The sky is pitch-black now, and it’s dim indoors too, the restaurant lighting up only when a group of teenagers in cocktail dresses gather to take a rapid series of photos with the flash on, switching up poses, positions, self-conscious and showing off at the same time.
“We should get a photo together too,” Julius tells me.
We get five. In the first photo, I’m so awkward that I pose like I’m getting my passport photo taken, facing straight ahead, my shoulders stiff. But by the fifth, I find the nerve to wrap my arms tight around Julius, burying my face into his chest.
“I like this one,” he says, and sets it as his new lock screen right there in front of me, and I try not to act too thrilled.
On our way home, we stop by a bookstore, where he hands me a massive tote bag and gestures to the shelves like he owns them.
“Choose as many as you like,” he tells me. “I’ll buy them for you.”
I laugh, shake my head. “That’s really very generous, but even if I wanted to, I couldn’t possibly carry them all.”
