What If It's Us
Page 43

“A few months ago, when Arthur found out we’d be spending the summer in New York, Michael and I came home early from a friend’s birthday party and Arthur was—”
“Mom!” Arthur shouts.
“—watching a YouTube video of a Dear Evan Hansen song and belting along while dancing.”
“It was magnificent,” Mr. Seuss says.
I don’t laugh this time because Arthur seems a little upset.
I stand. “Arthur, let’s go to my room. I can show you the cover I drew for my book.”
Arthur practically knocks into his dad getting out of his seat. “Yes, please.”
“But wait, we’re still eating,” Ma says.
“Food isn’t going anywhere,” I say, taking Arthur’s hand. “We’ll be back.”
“Keep the door open!” Mr. Seuss shouts.
We go to my bedroom with flushed faces.
Like we’re going to lock the door and get wild in here with them outside.
Except when we enter my room, I lead Arthur out of sight and I kiss him with this howling hunger that’s demanding more time with him each passing day.
I take a breath. “You okay?”
“Better now. I just don’t like being teased about Broadway. The videos keep me going. I saw two shows last month, but they weren’t my top shows.” His eyes widen. “Oh. That’s shitty to say. That my Broadway shows weren’t good enough. I was lucky to go to any. I just keep entering the lottery for Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen, but no luck.”
“There’s still time,” I say. “And it could’ve been worse out there.”
“True.”
Arthur looks around the room. He walks over to my desk. “So this is where the future bestselling and global phenomenon The Wicked Wizard War gets written. Where’s the book cover?”
I reach into my drawer and pull out a purple folder where I drew some of the little monsters in the story. And I pull out the book cover. It looks like a Harry Potter cover except there’s a Ben-looking wizard in the center and he’s hiding behind a demolished wall as evil wizards search for him. It is not good at all, and even Arthur laughs.
He looks around at the rest of the room. I put Hudson’s breakup box in my parents’ closet a couple hours ago. I should just get rid of it. I don’t like hiding anything from Arthur. But it’s just like the old posts on Instagram that I can’t get myself to just delete. Like Hudson never happened. Like he’s someone to be ashamed of. And throwing away the good memories feels like a slap in the face to our history. It has nothing to do with the future.
I don’t know.
“I really like your room,” Arthur says. “This entire apartment. I hope this doesn’t come off as wrong, but I really love it because it feels more like home than my own house does. Everything here feels like it matters. If something broke or got lost, you would notice. So many things in my house feel so replaceable.”
“Maybe you just don’t know why some of it matters?”
“Maybe. I need to get better at asking questions.” Arthur sits on my bed.
I sit beside him and I think about sex because that’s what happens when your beautiful boyfriend is in bed with you. If we make a move to have sex while he’s still in New York, it’s going to be his first time. That’s wild pressure. I want to prove myself to him so that no matter what happens between us, he won’t ever look back at me and regret our choice. Like how I don’t regret Hudson and me losing our virginity together and I hope he doesn’t either. People change and he did and I did too, but who we were when we had sex still feels right to me. I hope I always feel right to Arthur.
I lean in to kiss him when my mom calls for us.
“We’re done talking about you! Come finish your dinner.”
I squeeze his hand and we go back out there.
The rest of dinner is painless. We’re all laughing together, not at one another. The only thing that could’ve made the night a little extra perfect is if Dylan, and yeah, Samantha too, were here. I hate that I’ll have to recount the night to Dylan and that I won’t be able to do it justice. That I’ll forget some jokes that had us all laughing so hard. But I guess that’s just the cycle that comes with dating—time spent with best friends is minimized and you get this whole new life they’re not always a part of.
Arthur and I help clear the table as my dad brings out the cookies Team Seuss brought over. The cookies are huge—like, it looks like someone put four globs of cookie dough too close to one another on the tray and a mega cookie happened. Two are double chocolate chip, two are oatmeal raisin, two are chocolate-chip walnut.
“Thanks so much for bringing these over,” Pa says. He offers the box to Arthur.
“You get first dibs for hosting us,” Arthur says.
“Kiss-ass,” Mr. Seuss says with a smile.
Pa grabs one double-chocolate-chip cookie and Arthur watches him take a bite with this wide-eyed look, like my dad just took Arthur’s car for a joyride and crashed it. Ma grabs the other double chocolate chip because she’s never been big on anything with nuts or raisins. Arthur stares at her like she just got the last available ticket in the world for Hamilton.
Smart money is on Arthur wanting one of those cookies.
“This is so good,” Ma says.
Arthur grabs the chocolate-chip walnut cookie and picks out the walnuts before eating it.
Mr. Seuss takes a bite out of the oatmeal raisin cookie. “I probably won’t wait twenty minutes for a cookie again, but I’m glad we did it.”
We talk a little more before calling it a night. As Arthur hugs my parents, I can’t believe this is all happening. Whenever Hudson came over for dinner, he would just shake their hands like they were my bosses and not my parents. But it’s also really awesome seeing our dads hug and Pa telling Mr. Seuss that they have to come back over soon since they never got around to drinking the wine they brought over. Mrs. Seuss trades numbers with Ma, and wow, if I ever write my mom back into TWWW, I’ll have to include her enchantress BFF Mara.
Arthur and I kiss very quickly while everyone is saying bye and Team Seuss thanks us one last time before leaving.
“That was so fun,” Ma says. “Arthur is wonderful. Adorable. Great manners. I really like him. The whole family.”
“Me too.”
“What’s going to happen when he goes home?” Pa asks.
I shrug. This question sucks. “I’m just getting to know him while he’s here.”
I think about the way Arthur smiled so hard during dinner when he thought no one was watching him and what I could do to win as many smiles out of him as possible.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Arthur
Monday, July 23
“I leave the room for five minutes,” Namrata says, “and now you’re standing on a fucking chair.”
“I’m taking a sensory motor break.” I press my fist to my chest. “Oh Benny booooooooy . . . the pipes, the pipes are calling.”
Juliet glances up from her laptop. “I’m just glad he stopped singing ‘Ben’s Body Is a Wonderland.’”
“Anyway, big announcement time,” says Namrata. “Guess who’s dropping out of school and moving in with their parents.”
I gasp. “You?”
Namrata snorts. “No, dumbass. David’s roommates.”