Chapter 2: Partly Cloudy Skies

Mike

When Dana’s mom pulled up in our driveway, I was already in the driver’s seat of my van. I gave Helen a cheery wave, more cheery than I was feeling, while Dana hopped out of the car and into my passenger seat. Only once Helen went inside did I look at my girlfriend. She smiled and leaned over to give me a quick buss.

I looked her over carefully. She wore a pleated skirt and a very pale pink blouse with three buttons undone—two more than usual than when Teri’s around. It showed a bit of cleavage and her commitment necklace, the one Teri and I had given her when we all started going out. Her straight brown hair was held off her forehead by the enameled cherry-blossom-design clip I’d given her for Christmas. Very much her usual outfit for a date with me. Her smile, however, was smaller than usual, and she wasn’t climbing all over me.

In fact, that had to have been the briefest kiss she’s ever given me while we were alone.

“You just had an interesting conversation, too, ” I observed. Not a surprise—Dad had told me she would.

“Yyyyeah.”

“Should we talk about it now or after the movie?” Not that I wanted to skip the movie—the new Makoto Shinkai had actually made it to our small-town mallplex, with a Saturday matinee to boot. I was giving up training time for this. The plan was for Dana and me to see it while Teri did her usual weightlifting at the rec center, before we all dived into studying for next week’s final exams. But I felt I should ask.

Dana licked her lips. “We need to discuss things before we talk about it with Teri.”

Okay, if I wasn’t willing to skip the movie, I shouldn’t have offered. Then I noted her wording and nodded. She was right. “Let’s go to Bing’s.” The mallplex boba tea shop—my house wasn’t the best choice, today, and not just because our parents were about to start an all-day marathon of watching classic movies together. Couldn’t use her place, of course, without Teri to bump me over the stairs between all the rooms of her crazy-split-level house. Dana nodded.

One nice thing about Bing’s is they have enough room for my chair at the tables up front, and the one in the corner is dimly lit enough to feel almost private. It didn’t hurt that, this early, it wasn’t crowded.

Dana slurped her house milk-tea before setting it down. She took my hand—warm and soft and comforting.

I opened with, “So your first thought was what our living together means for us and Teri.”

That was the big bombshell. It had been weird enough when, shortly after we started going out, my father began dating the mother of one of my girlfriends. Weirder still, Dad and Helen had gotten increasingly serious over the last eight months. And now the weirdbomb had boomed: they were looking at shacking up. Merging households. With marriage down the line strongly implied.

Dana raised her eyebrows slightly. As usual, she caught on quickly to my implied message. “It wasn’t yours?”

“It was second, ” I admitted. “My first was the sleeping arrangements.”

She nodded. “That’s bad enough, too, though it also plays into the three of us.”

I grimaced and slurped some lychee-flavored boba pearls. It took me a moment to catch up. As usual. I tried to keep the disappointment out of my voice. “Separate bedrooms?”

“We’re 17 and 15. Mom and Matt are not going to let us give up all pretense of not shacking up ourselves. Even if I’m allowed to spend the night in your room, which I doubt, I’ll have my own.”

“Helen told you that?” I managed not to hesitate, using her name. I’d gotten better, this spring, but the weirdboom had me off-kilter. It doesn’t help the weirdness that I actually like her—she’s pretty cool for a grownup, and it was good that Dad finally had someone else in his life, six years after Mom died. But. And but.

“She confirmed it, ” she said. “But even if you and I never spend the night together, nor take advantage of living in the same house, it still unbalances our triad.”

I sighed. “Teri’s going to hate it.”

Dana gave me a Look. “Teri is going to be seriously pissed off. It’s a surprise she can’t control.”

I made a frustrated noise. “It’s not like we can control anything grownups do.”

“Well, in this case..., ” Dana said.

I pressed her fingers. “You mean that option to veto it? Okay, yeah, let’s do it.” Torpedo the whole idea, till I was off to college anyway, and wrap things up quickly. That sounded good.

Dana shook her head. “Not so fast. We need to consider it, yes. Consider it with Teri.”

I gave Dana a Look right back. “She’ll tell us to veto it immediately.”

“She’s not us. These are our families we’re talking about.” I felt a spurt of anger, but she tugged my hand. “We need to hold off on a decision for a couple weeks. When we’ve all considered it calmly.”

She was right, dammit. Anger shaded to shame. And, well, irritation at putting a decision off. “Do we have a couple weeks? How much time do we have?” I hadn’t even thought to ask Dad about that.

“After next weekend, once we all get back, ” Dana said. “They won’t start making any plans till then, Mom said, including working out where we’ll live.”

Wait, what? Dana’s house was Right Out for me—which meant, “As in, maybe getting a new place?”

“Maybe, ” Dana said. “I don’t know what they’re thinking.”

“Urf, ” I muttered. I liked my house—a lot. Dad and I spent a lot of time and money, making it work for my wheelchair. I doubted any new place would be comfortable for me for a while.

“Agreed, ” she agreed. (Gimme a break, that’s the best way to say it.)

Dana slurped more pearls through the oversized straw, while I refastened the fingerless glove on my left hand—the velcro was wearing out. We looked at each other and, at the same time, smiled. This was, despite the topic, nice. Then it hit me: it was the longest pure conversation we’d had alone, Dana and I, in I didn’t know how long—and I was enjoying it. A lot.

Then Dana shook her head and her smile turned sly. “Maybe we should just forget about it and go make out for a while.”

Her suggestion hit me like a slap in the face.

She looked at me, confused.

Tegan & Sara’s “Boyfriend” started playing in Dana’s pocket—her ringtone for Teri.

Dana

I looked at Mike again, then shook my head and put my phone on the table between us. “Hey, it’s us—we’re on speaker.”