Page 25 of Stops Along the Way
He leans back on the couch and turns his face toward me. “My middle name is Conor?”
Perhaps I should have come up with a more creative question. “Nice name.”
“What about yours?”
I mirror his relaxed position. “It’s pretty classic. And way overused in my family.”
He tilts his chin quizzically. “I’ve got a couple ideas, but give me the first letter.”
“M.”
Exactly one second later, he says, “Hmm, let me think what other questions I have for Iris Marie Biagi.”
Him getting it right on his first guess throws me off balance. “Don’t go stealing my identity now.”
Declan’s face grows more serious, and I can sense an actual question coming my way. “What about that time you showed up crying? A few weeks ago? I wanted to make sure you were okay,but you told people you didn’t want to talk about it, so I didn’t want to bother you. Though you don’t have to tell me if—”
“Oh.” It doesn’t take long to figure out what night he’s talking about. A small laugh slips from my lips.
He relaxes. “It’s funny?”
“I wouldn’t have still gone to play Rivalry if it was tragic.” Though my eyes are welling again now from the amusement of it all. “I’m almost embarrassed to tell you because it was actually nothing.”
“It couldn’t have been nothing?”
“I was having a bad day, but just, like, annoying-classes-level bad. On the way into Roll Again, I stubbed my toe on the curb.” I chuckle at the retelling of this pointless incident, causing Declan to laugh as well. “Which was apparently the last straw? But then I walked into the store with a tear running down my cheek, and everyone was so concerned, which made me”—I wipe away the water from the corner of my eyes—“cry even more because it was all so nice? One of those days, I guess.” I don’t want to dwell on this ridiculousness. “But that reminds me…you never told me how you broke your arm?”
He starts laughing even harder than me.
“What?” I ask.
Declan reaches out and puts his hands on my shoulders. “There was also a curb involved.”
Our fits of giggles have briefly garnered some attention from across the hall.
Declan sits back and gestures to himself. “Despite looking like I could be a natural skateboarder…I am most certainly not.”
“Oh no!” I say, but can’t stop laughing. “I’m sorry, it’s not funny.”
“It is now.” Declan reaches for my arm and scribbles with his fingers across my skin as if writing something, making me catch my breath. “You signed your name in huge letters on that cast. Prime real estate all the way across.”
“There was a lot of empty space. I felt bad!”
He gives a silly gasp. “Iris, I hadn’t gone back to school with it yet.”
“Ohhh, of course.” That didn’t dawn on me back then.
“The next day everyone kept asking me who you were.”
“Really?” I need to know what he told people about me.
Declan bites his lip, debating if he should say exactly. “They thought I had a mystery girlfriend at another school.”
My jaw drops. I was not expecting that. “Oh my gosh, why would they think that?”
“You seriously don’t remember?” He opens his mouth wide, ready to tease me with a final detail. “Because you also drew a heart.”
My face goes bright red. “No…I mean…” I lift my finger and trace a tiny little heart in the air, his gaze laser focused on following my motion. “A littleget well soonone, you know?”
