Never Always Sometimes

by Adi Alsaid

“You realize this is insane, right?” “You’re mispronouncing ‘genius.’”

Chili’s was probably the best place for covert operations; no one cared enough to look around.

she came back out, a huge, goofy grin on her face, color in her cheeks.

laughter on the edge of her voice.

“Don’t split hairs now;

Things had gone wrong, but in the exact way they should have. Now he had the evening with Julia to look forward to.

the Nevers brought out a joy in Julia that he loved being a part of.

As long as nothing between them changed, he didn’t have much to complain about.

Without question, the best night in Dave’s life was the night he and Julia sat staring at the map, splitting a bottle of wine stolen from the garage and planning travels the two of them would go on together.

He worked slowly, not because he wanted to stretch out the time, but because it was Julia’s hair, and everything to do with Julia he did with care.

They turned to face each other, and when Julia asked how her hair had turned out he had to swallow down the word sexy.

It was hard not to want this to go on, whatever his hair looked like, hard not to chase after the idea of the Nevers, too, when the result was a whole day spent with Julia laughing at his side, her cheeks as pink as her hair, her eyes suffused with joy.

Dave loved sitting in the kitchen with Julia and her dads, loved the ease with which they talked and laughed with each other. He wished him and Brett and their dad had it, too. Dave had always wondered how Tom and Ethan handled Julia’s infatuation with her mom, whether they were ever hurt by it. But when he sat with them in their kitchen, it became clear that there was plenty of love to go around. No matter how much she longed for her mom, Julia never neglected her dads.

“Sorry I haven’t talked to you in class this week,” Dave said once the hair dryer stopped. “I kept wanting to. But the more I thought about it, the more the other night at the Kapoors’ felt like a dream and I wasn’t really sure it happened. It did happen, right?” Gretchen brought her book up to her face like she was smelling it, but Dave had the notion that she was just trying to hide a smile. He could see it in her eyes. “It happened,” she said.

Gretchen was waiting for him at the front.

she reached up and ran a hand over his shaved head. “This feels nice.”

wondering if she could spot the goose bumps she’d given him.

The weight of her against him was like warmth added to the day. It quieted everything, as if the touch of her head on his stomach was a mute button, and all that existed was the two of them.

Ever since he reached the right age for it, basically since he met Julia, he’d considered himself a romantic, an advocate of love, of people getting tangled up in each other.

But because he’d only ever loved Julia, and only ever in that particular way that he loved her, he’d never experienced getting tangled up firsthand.

there’d only been the constant longing for Julia. He’d never pursued anyone else because there wasn’t anyone who could ever pull his interest away from her.

A picture flashed in Dave’s mind, quick and without warning, of Gretchen with her hands around his neck, pulling him close.

“It takes less than a second for the sound of the friction between my fingers to reach your ears.” Another snap. “That’s the line between life and death, and you can’t see it but you sure as hell can hear it.” Another snap. “Listen.” Snap. “To.” Snap. “Every.” Snap. “Second.”

the best you can ever do is to leave the world a little better than you found it.

Gretchen pulled a GPS out of the glove compartment and smiled at him. “Wanna do something cool?” “Almost always.”

“You drew a smiley face.” “I drew a smiley face.” “With the car.” “And a satellite,” she added. “Gretchen,” Dave said, admiring the GPS screen, “you are so cool.”

There was no doubt in his mind that he wanted to kiss her. He could feel the desire for it like a ball of energy high up in his chest, but there seemed no way to move it from there, as if a part of him was against the whole idea and would not allow it. He couldn’t help but think that Julia was somehow responsible.

“Play me your favorite song,” he said, picking it up. The screen lit at his touch, casting Gretchen’s face in a soft white light. She took it from him, her fingers touching his for what seemed like a deliberately long moment. “You won’t make fun of me?” “I’ve never made fun of anyone in my entire life.”

“Seriously. Almost no one knows this song is my favorite, and if I choose to trust you and you think it’s cheesy or something, then for the rest of my life, any time I listen to the song, there’ll be a tinge of shame. You might forever ruin my favorite song.”

“If you hated it, don’t say anything.” “I loved it,” Dave said, wondering if this was it, the moment when the ball of energy finally made its way up and he would lean to kiss her. She was smiling at him and their eyes held each other for long enough that Dave thought there was no way a good-bye could happen without a kiss. But he had no idea how to accomplish such a thing. When the time came for a good-bye, he leaned across the shift stick and gave Gretchen a hug, which was quick, and warm, and stayed with him as he lay in bed awake all night.

The fourth wall had a whiteboard hanging above his desk, and it wasn’t until now that Dave remembered he’d written a little better than you found it on his whiteboard after their date at the harbor.

The closer he got to her, the more he wanted to kiss her, the more insane it felt that he wasn’t already kissing her.

Gretchen asked, her knee bent and resting on Dave’s thigh.

Dave thought about it for a while. Or, rather, he tried to actually come up with an answer, rather than picture kissing Gretchen.

Now, every fiber of his being screamed. Now.

still thinking, Now now now. Still thinking, despite it all, about Julia.

Dave’s and Gretchen’s hands clasped together. Dave didn’t know how it had happened, if he had initiated the contact or if it had been her. He only knew their fingers were interlocked.

What Dave could acknowledge, though, was this: Julia. Julia in the back of his mind the whole time, restraining his movements. Every way he touched Gretchen, every place he touched Gretchen, he thought of how he’d failed to touch Julia.

Dave felt too much like he was cheating on Julia to kiss Gretchen.

Everything told him he should be kissing her, everything except Julia in his head

Every time he was about to nod off, the thought of not kissing Gretchen popped in his head, as insistent as a mosquito buzzing past his ear.

The lack of a kiss lingered like a sore muscle.

It was so different picturing someone’s face all day and then being up close to it. It was like the difference between seeing a picture of a beach and stepping onto the sand.

She sipped shyly from her beer and looked around the party. She looked so lovely, and he wished they were elsewhere, some place they could be alone.

“I can’t imagine how many cool things you and Julia have done,” Gretchen said. She was holding her cup with both hands and smiling, but she didn’t meet Dave’s eyes.

He was tired of inaction, tired of not having learned a thing from years of sitting still. It built up in him, like the desire to kiss Gretchen had on their date, but this time more powerful, more urgent. As if this was his last chance, a momentous fork in the road. If he chose inaction now, inaction it would be for the rest of his life.

“You don’t have to, Dave, it’s okay. I get it.” She shrugged and smiled, a smile that felt somehow rehearsed, like the way he’d kept it in mind on their date at the harbor to compliment her looks.

“It’s okay; I get that you’re with Julia. I’m sorry if I came on too strong.” Her smile faded to more of a lopsided grin.

Gretchen looked up at him just for a second. Her expression gave nothing away. Or it did, and he simply wasn’t familiar enough with her face to catch its subtle changes; he couldn’t read her silences the way he could read Julia’s.

Dave had never seen someone who smiled this often, in such a variety of ways. She looked sad and embarrassed and still managed an honest smile. It felt insane, all of a sudden, how long he’d been reaching for Julia. And if not insane, then too long by exactly four days. Tuesday night, watching a movie with Gretchen, that was the exact moment he should have let go for good. “I’m not with Julia,” he said again. “Dave, it’s okay—” she said, but he didn’t let her continue. He dropped his beer to the ground, ignoring the way it splashed at his feet and soaked his legs, and he finally kissed Gretchen. She tasted like honey, too. Her lips were warm and soft and wet, all the descriptions he’d read and heard and imagined a thousand times, sure. But they were so much more than that. They were real, and wonderful.