One morning, Dipper drove west out of town to pick up his prescription of lithium. The local pharmacy had neglected to fulfill it and they referred him to another one, in a strip mall by the side of the interstate about twenty miles away. He never had any reason to visit the west side of Gravity Falls, so on his way back into town he drove slowly and looked out for anything that might have changed since his summers as a teenager. Bud Gleeful's used car dealership came up on his left, and Dipper pulled over at the side of the road and stopped, because in the far corner of the lot sat Wendy's red van, the familiar flannel pattern sticking out like a sore thumb.

Dipper squinted, through the haze brought on by the heat, and although it was boxed in by other vehicles, that was the van, alright. Dipper could hardly believe it. Wendy had spoken of the van like it was a lost relic, and yet here it stood, taller than anything else in the lot, not a mile away from her house. At sixteen, she had dubbed it the 'Escape Van,' and driven it deep into the woods or up into the mountains whenever she wanted to forget about life for a while. Dipper steered his truck onto the grass at the side of the road and got out.

As he crossed the lot, a bell rang to his right; Bud pushed open the door of the showroom. "Howdy," he called out, and halfway to Dipper, recognition lit up his face. "Dipper Pines. Well, I must have seen you in town just last week but I thought my eyes were deceiving me. How have you been, son?"

Bud was in a straw hat, leather boots, and he had one too many buttons open on his shirt for Dipper's comfort, but the guy was friendly, and Dipper shook his hand. "Fine, thanks. How are you?"

"Good, I'm good. How's that uncle of yours doing?"

"He's doing okay. Slower than ever, but okay. How's, um– how's Gideon?"

Bud rolled his eyes and folded his arms. "He's a slacker, is what he is. Spends all day on the couch playing his game-station or whatever it is he does. Doesn't know what to do with his life. Says he needs time to reflect after high school, but he graduated a year ago. I say to him, come out on the showroom floor every once in a while, get a taste for sales. Does he listen? No, sir."

Dipper refrained from saying anything, Gideon's situation being far too close to his own.

"Anyway, what can I do you for? See anything you like? We've got a sale on." He pointed to the banner over the entrance, but Dipper couldn't remember a time he had passed by the dealership and Bud hadn't had a sale on.

Dipper pointed to the corner of the lot. "That van used to belong to my girlfriend. She had to sell it a couple years back."

"Oh, yes. Wendy Corduroy. Well, I can tell you that it hasn't moved in those two years, 'cept for when I drove it over to the corner there. I knew when she came in here with it I was taking a risk, I knew I wouldn't be able to sell it. But her dad's a friend of the family and she needed the money so I thought, ah, what the hell."

"So it's still for sale?"

"Oh, yes, yes." He led Dipper over to the Volkswagen, squeezing between the bonnet of a sedan and the rear of a four-by-four. There were cracks in the asphalt only on this corner of the lot, weeds pushing through, all around the tires of the van. "There are some scratches in the paintwork, here and here, but otherwise she's in fine condition."

Dipper walked around to the back, only pretending to inspect the vehicle – in truth he had no idea what to look out for. He lifted a hand to one of the rear windows and peered inside, expecting to find some kind of remnant of Wendy's teenage years, but the interior was bare. There was no trace of her ever having owned it. "How much?" Dipper asked.

Bud stepped back and scratched his chin. "It's been so long since I even considered a price for this one. Usually I'd sell a Volkswagen like this for four to five thousand, but seeing as you'd be doing a favor getting it off my property, I could do thirty-five hundred. Now that's gonna go up if I need to replace the engine, but that shouldn't be the case. I go around and run the cars every now and then, make sure they get a little bit of attention. Keeps the engines intact."

Dipper swallowed, nodded, tried not to appear too stunned by the price. He knew then and there that he didn't have three thousand dollars in his bank account, but still he stood by the van, nodding his head, appearing deep in thought, as if by waiting long enough he could summon the money out of thin air.

"I can show you some other options if you'd like?" Bud said. "What kind of budget are we looking at?"

"No, it's okay," Dipper said. "I was only interested in the van for Wendy. Maybe... keep it here for another year or two and I'll come back." He smiled and slipped back through the gap in the surrounding vehicles.

"Now hold on," Bud said, and when Dipper turned around, Bud was staring out at Dipper's pick-up beyond the fence. "Is that your wheels out there in the street?"

Dipper parked the van on the main road around the corner from the Corduroy cabin. He hopped out and started up the driveway, swung the keys around on his finger, then stowed them away in the back pocket of his jeans. He heard the echo of logs being chopped and went around the side of the cabin; Wendy was in the back yard, already at work cutting the firewood they would sell come winter.

She lifted the bill of her baseball cap as she looked up, and broke into a grin. "Hey, you." She threw the axe down in the dry dirt and came over to give Dipper a kiss. "What are you doing here?"

He stole her cap and put it on his own head. Strands of her hair stood up but she did nothing to fix it, just put her hands on her hips and looked up at him expectantly. He dipped his head and kissed her again. "Let's go for a walk," he said, and took her hand.

"A walk? Where?"

"Not far. I've got something to show you."

"I'm supposed to be working," she said, though Dipper knew it was a shallow protest. Wendy had never been a fan of working.

"Well, now you're on break."

"You're lucky my dad isn't home."

'Lucky' wasn't quite the word for it – Dipper knew Dan's working hours, and he wouldn't have come to the house if Dan was off the clock. Sure, Dipper would have been fine to walk into their back yard – Dan would have watched him from the porch, but he wouldn't have stopped him – but he knew that Dan would have followed them down the driveway, too, and Dipper didn't want any moment he shared with Wendy to be overshadowed, quite literally, by her ape of a father.

As they neared the quiet road, Dipper told Wendy to close her eyes and promise she would keep them closed. They walked hand in hand along the uneven grass by the side of the road, and when they came to the van, Dipper stopped and told her she could look.

First, she frowned, then her eyes went wide and her mouth dropped open and she let go of his hand, took two steps forward but froze in place. She turned, her arms out to the side like she didn't know what to do with them. "What is this? Is this the same one?"

Dipper couldn't stop grinning. "Yeah. Who in their right mind would paint a van like that?"

She turned back to the van. "How the hell– what did you do? How did you get it here?"

He stepped forward and put a hand on the small of her back. "I bought it."

"Are you nuts? How did you afford it?"

"Well, I didn't really buy it. I traded my pickup for it."

Out of all the reactions Dipper had expected, anger was probably last on the list. Wendy shoved his chest so hard he thought he might fall over. "No," she said. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You need to go back to wherever this came from and undo it."

"What? Wendy, it's fine. I can get another truck. If I save up a little longer I'll–"

"No, shut up. You're gonna go back and get your truck. You love your truck! It's all you ever talk about, is your fucking truck."

"I love you a lot more than my truck."

For a second, Wendy's eyes were feral, and when she jumped at Dipper, he thought, this is it, she's going to scratch me to death, but her arms snaked around his neck and her knees came all the way up to his back and she kissed him as if the world were about to end. Dipper wasn't a strong man, and he was only just able to carry her without the two of them toppling over onto the asphalt, but he managed to hang on until their lips parted and they caught their breath.

"I love you," Wendy breathed. "I love you so much."

"Then get off me," Dipper said, "or you're going to break my arms."

Wendy jumped back into the road and swept her hair out of her eyes. "Does it– like, does it work? Can I drive it?"

"Of course it works." He took the keys from his pocket and tossed them to her.

She clutched the keys in her fist and walked around to the driver side door, but before she got there her eyes lit up again. "My shirt," she said. "I need to go get my shirt."

"Are you kidding? The van's right there, after all this time. Just get in, already."

"I know. I know it's ridiculous, but I need my shirt." She touched his arm and then ran off, didn't even use the driveway, just sprinted into the woods, dodging trees, aiming for the cabin. Dipper sat on the hood of the van and tapped his foot on the road until she came back in her red flannel, out of breath. She tugged at the hem of the shirt and grinned at him, her teeth almost glinting in the sun. "Now we're talking," she said, and finally got in the van.

Dipper climbed into the passenger seat and buckled his seatbelt, watched Wendy begin the ceremony of starting the engine. The look on her face as she turned the key, like a kid on Christmas – that alone was worth trading the pickup for. The engine rumbled and then growled to life, and Wendy threw her head back against the headrest and laughed. "So awesome," she said, gripping the steering wheel. Dipper had to remind her to put her seatbelt on before she pulled out into the road.

The road ran dead straight out of town, southward, rolling over hills that restricted a driver's vision while they were between them. Wendy brought the van up to sixty-five as fast as she could and kept it there. "I can't believe it," she said, and slapped her palms on the wheel. "I can't believe it! It feels so good. I'm gonna pull over, you can have a turn."

Dipper laughed. "No, I drove it over here already. It's all yours."

"Dipper, I can't– what were you thinking? I mean, what are you gonna drive now? We can share the van, I guess, but–"

"We don't need to share the van. Bud let me have an old Fiesta as part of the deal. It's not... great, and it's very green, but it's a car."

"I can't imagine you driving anything that isn't your truck."

"Stop worrying about the truck. I'm over it already. All I care about is knowing that you're happy."

"Happy? Dipper, I'm not just– you know what?" She slowed the car, steered into the grass, and killed the engine. "Unbuckle your seatbelt."

"What? Wendy, I don't want to drive, really."

She unbuckled it for him, then leaped over the console and straddled him against the seat. "I know," she murmured, her forehead pressed against his.

"Oh," he said, and they kissed and touched by the side of the road, the occasional car whizzing past and catching a glimpse of them pressed together in the front seats.

Two nights later, Wendy knocked on the door of the Shack and Dipper let her in, and they climbed up to the attic. She was wearing a red sundress and a silver necklace, her freckled shoulders on display.

"I didn't realize we were dressing up tonight," he said. He opened his wardrobe and flicked through the few shirts that were hung up and not in the bundle of clothes at the bottom, picked out a blue button-down and threw his t-shirt on the bed.

"You don't have to dress up if you don't want," Wendy said, and Dipper noticed she was hurrying around the room, going through all of the drawers she could find. She stepped up to the wardrobe and peered inside, over his shoulder.

"What are you looking for?"

She didn't respond, just walked over to the nightstand beside Mabel's old bed and started searching through that, too. Dipper shook his head and sighed; he was sure she had picked up this habit from him – often when Dipper had his mind set on an idea, every other facet of life became background noise, to a point that he failed to notice words that were spoken right in front of him. It was worse when he suddenly conjured up the idea of a story to write in the middle of the day – he would retreat to his room and rejoin reality some time in the evening, check his phone and find unanswered messages from six hours before.

"Aha," Wendy said. She held up a pink sleep mask. "Perfect."

"Perfect for what?"

"We're not actually going bowling tonight. I have a surprise for you."

"Oh, god."

"It's a good surprise. Don't freak out. When we get in the van I want you to put this on so you don't know where we're going."

"Jesus. That's a little bit sinister."

"Just shut up and get dressed."

Dipper tried not to complain. He wasn't a fan of surprises – being on the receiving end of them, anyway – but Wendy was clearly excited and he didn't want to ruin it for her. As they pulled out of the Shack's parking lot, he got the sudden suspicion that she was tricking him into returning to the dealership, to swap the van for the pickup, but he could tell by the turns they made that that was not the case. In fact, the blindness served to heighten his sense of direction, and after a series of left and right turns he knew they were on the road that climbed the mountain north of town. There was a flat clearing near the summit – Lookout Point. They had been up there a couple of times in the winter and sat in the bed of his truck, under a blanket.

Sure enough, the ground beneath the tires became even, and the van came to a stop. Wendy shut off the engine and told him to stay put with the blindfold on. He heard her open the rear doors of the van and rifle through whatever had been sliding about and jingling all the way here. She shut the doors and there was a moment of total silence, before the passenger side door opened and Wendy told him to take off the blindfold.

He couldn't see much over the dashboard of the van – only the cliffs on the other side of the valley and the forest of pines on top – but he stepped out onto the dirt, over to the weathered rope lining the clearing, and down in the valley Gravity Falls was a cluster of yellow lights, the streetlights on the road leading south out of town giving way to the dark after a few hundred yards. "Okay," Dipper said, the notion to act surprised having slipped his mind.

"The surprise is round here, Dipper." She stood by the tail of the van and nodded towards the woods. Dipper followed her around the back of the van, and between it and the trees sat one circular table, two chairs, complete with a white tablecloth, a candle, two wine glasses, even folded napkins.

Dipper laughed. "Wow. I wasn't expecting that." He walked over and trailed his fingers along the smooth tablecloth. "Did you just set this up?"

"No, I did it earlier. I lit the candle just now." She stood by the table while he inspected it, her hands clasped together, almost shy. "Do you like it?"

"I love it," he said, and he kissed her. "But, um... I'm curious to know what we're going to eat." To be blunt, Wendy couldn't really cook. Neither of them could, which was why when they were together, their diet mainly consisted of Chinese takeout and frozen pizzas.

"I'm glad you asked." She returned to the back of the van and brought out a portable grill, opened it up to show him, then threw it down in the dirt like it was nothing, the metal rack inside rattling loudly. She also took out a tripod, to stand the grill on, a bag of charcoal, a pack of two sirloin steaks from the supermarket, and a bag of salted chips, which she tossed to Dipper. "Steak and chips," she said. "Sit your ass down. Don't even think about trying to help."

"Alright, alright." He sat in the chair facing the van, the lights of Gravity Falls visible off to the side. Wendy set up the grill and lit it, took an electric lantern and placed it on top of the van so she could see what she was doing.

She brought over a can of something to the table and took his wine glass. "Grape soda?" Without waiting for a response, she filled both glasses and held hers out. "To the hottest couple in town," she said.

He smirked as their glasses clinked together. "To the hottest girl in the country."

"I don't know about that."

The steaks sizzled as Wendy worked the grill, her back to Dipper. The moon was bright enough that he could see the pillar of smoke rise into the indigo sky, pointing slightly to the left in the light breeze. The clouds were few and wispy, the full array of constellations he had watched all his life perfectly visible. When Dipper wasn't looking up, he was watching Wendy, her hips dancing from side to side to a nonexistent tune and her long hair swaying along with them. He hadn't noticed until now that the dress clung tightly to her body, and suddenly there was something about her cooking steaks in a sundress that had him more lovestruck than ever. He got up from the table and crept behind her, brought his hands around to her stomach and kissed her neck, inhaling smoke and the savory aroma of the meat.

"Um, excuse me," she said, paying him no interest. "You're supposed to be sitting down."

"How can I sit over there when you're over here being all beautiful?"

"If you were patient, you would have found out that I've allocated time this evening for us to get handsy, and it's not while I'm making our dinner."

Dipper laughed into her neck. "So all the times you've ridiculed me for making schedules and lists and now you're like, the Stalin of schedules."

"Well, Dipper, clearly you've had a bad influence on me."

They ate without talking much, which was nothing out of the ordinary. Dipper was aware that neither of them led hugely exciting lives. They were both in the in-between stage, no longer children but not quite adults, either, both living with family, working monotonous jobs that weren't on the ladders they wanted to climb, even though they weren't yet aware of the ladders they each wanted to climb. If a talking point cropped up in their lives it was likely to come from the people around them – Mabel got a new boyfriend, Kevin was playing soccer again, et cetera. The long conversations about their dreams, aspirations, the nights spent trying to uncover everything there was to know about one another, those had fizzled out quite early on in their relationship, and yet the romance had not. If anything, Dipper was more in love with Wendy than when they first got together that night on the rooftop. Even tonight, they kept catching each other's eyes across the table and smiling in unison, each time further cementing the belief in Dipper's mind that they were meant to be together.

After dinner, Wendy again dipped into the seemingly endless bounty stashed away in the back of her van and pulled out a boom box, of all things. She brought it over and slammed it down on the table, planted a hand on her hip. "I brought some music."

"I know where this is going, and–"

"Dipper, I am a girl who enjoys dancing. That will forever be the case. As your girlfriend, I would really enjoy it if we were to dance together. I have brought you up here, where there is literally no chance of anybody being within distance of seeing you."

"Ah, so there was an ulterior motive to all of this."

Her face fell, almost like she was about to cry, and Dipper jumped to his feet.

"Whoa, hey, I was kidding." He rubbed her arms.

"It's not an ulterior motive. I brought you up here so we could have a nice evening. For you. I can put the boom box away if you want me to."

"Wendy, no." He cupped her cheeks in his hands and kissed her forehead. "I'm sorry. Of course I'll dance with you."

"Really?"

"Yeah. What kind of music did you bring?"

She cleared her throat. "I made a 90s mix on my computer. You know, because of the–" she held up the boom box.

Wendy's taste in music didn't really fall in the realms of radio-friendly, so the CD she had made wasn't something the high school class of '99 would have heard at their prom. There was some metal and punk music that they would have been better off thrashing their heads to instead of slow dancing, but by the time Dipper had gotten the hang of not stepping on Wendy's feet, and not tripping over his own, a slower Smashing Pumpkins tune came on that he had a feeling she had chosen for him.

Dipper moved the hand on her waist to draw her a little closer, and she smiled and pressed her forehead against his. They turned in circles in the center of the clearing, the stereo quiet over on the table, not a soul around to see, or hear. "If you wanted me to dance with you, you could have just asked," Dipper said.

Her jaw dropped. "I have asked! Many, many times."

"That was before I got you your van back. You should have known by now that there's nothing I won't do for you."

Wendy grinned and gazed up at him, but slowly the look faded, her eyes turned solemn.

"What's wrong?"

Tears sprung to her eyes and she shook her head.

"Wendy, what is it?"

"Don't leave," she said. "Please don't leave. I know that you were only supposed to move here temporarily, and I know that you're not going to college yet, not this year, anyway, but I know that you have a life back in California that you're going to need to go back to. And if that's the case I want to work something out, maybe I can go with you, I don't know, but just... please don't leave me."

Dipper shook his head, the words he needed to say not jumping off his tongue. She had caught him completely off guard. He almost felt guilty. Had he not told her enough that he loved her? Had he not assured her that it would be physically impossible to leave her side? "I won't leave you," he said. "I won't ever leave you."

It was strange, Dipper noticed, that they were still dancing, their feet moving to the rhythm of the music on autopilot, despite the shifting tone in their conversation.

Wendy let out a wet laugh, and a tear fell from her cheek and landed somewhere on Dipper's shirt. "You say that now, but–"

"No, there aren't any buts," he told her. "Yeah, I have a life back in California, and yeah, there are a handful of people I'd like to go back to, but I wouldn't even dream of it if you weren't coming with me."

She cupped his cheeks and kissed him, and then her arms almost strangled his neck as she inched closer, pressed their chests together, kissed him again. For a while they stayed clasped together in the center of the clearing, and they grabbed at one another's clothes almost in frustration, as if they only served as obstacles to the skin that they wanted to touch. Dipper sensed a difference in Wendy, maybe a readiness to explore their intimacy a little further, but he let her set the pace.

A few minutes must have passed before Wendy backed into the side of the van. They pried their lips apart and opened their eyes, and Dipper looked around and felt a pang of terror – they had been so lost in the moment that they could just as easily have tripped on the rope around the clearing and toppled over the cliff.

Wendy didn't appear to notice. "I think I'm ready," she breathed.

Dipper swallowed. "Are you sure?"

She nodded, but only after a second's hesitation, and that wasn't enough.

"Wendy, you don't have to do anything just for me. I'll wait as long as it takes."

Her face relaxed into a smile, and she took his hands. "I'm ready."

She led him around to the back of the van and opened the doors. There were a couple of cardboard boxes and a cooler, but behind that was a single mattress, complete with the blue pillows from Wendy's bed and a thick red blanket. Wendy jumped up and perched on the back of the van, then hopped over the boxes and the cooler, the mattress squeaking below her. She turned and crawled on her back, up to the pillows, and lay there leaning on her elbows, her legs spread apart in a way that Dipper didn't think was intentionally alluring, but the sight excited him so much that he tripped on one of the boxes as he attempted to mimic Wendy's nimble entrance. He flumped onto the mattress and his hand slammed into her midriff. She groaned and clutched her stomach and Dipper said, "shit, are you okay?" but Wendy laughed, in between deep breaths.

"Come here, you goon," she said, and pulled him down on top of her. They rolled around on the bed, kissing each other's necks and cheeks, the blanket sticking to their legs. The doors were open but the breeze outside wouldn't come in, and soon the summer heat – combined with the confines of the van and their own frenzied movement – made them both sweat. Dipper sat up and gazed down at Wendy in the dark, wiped his forehead, breathing heavily. She sat up on her knees and started to unbutton his shirt. Outside the music was faint but still playing, only audible when they weren't breathing in each other's faces or ruffling their clothes. It dawned on Dipper, as his eyes scoured Wendy's dress, that he didn't know how to take it off, and he laughed under his breath.

Wendy looked up. "What?" she said.

"This is gonna sound dumb, but I don't know how to take your dress off."

She smirked, unfastened the last button on his shirt, and pulled it off his arms, tossed it into the gap between the mattress and the side of the van. "Try it," she said.

"Again, this is gonna sound stupid, but I don't even know where to start." He reached around to the small of her back and trailed his hand upwards over the smooth fabric, until he came to her bare skin. "I can't feel a zip or anything."

She stretched her arms above her head, grinning. "Just lift it off. Like a t-shirt."

He started with the arms, then went to her waist, gently tugging upwards on the material. The wavy hem rose and revealed the milky skin of her thighs, followed by white underwear, and Dipper looked away, not wanting to encroach on her privacy, before realizing that that was a ridiculous thought. The dress was loose enough now that he could pull it over her head, and as he did so, he took a breath, tried to still his heart. A montage of all the unsolicited advice his friends had thrown around in high school played through his head – don't be too rough; you want to last as long as possible; use your fingers, girls love the fingers. When the dress was off, Dipper held it in his hands and ignored the strange urge to sniff it, and Wendy patted down her frizzy hair. He looked her up and down, stepping out of the moment for a second to wonder if life would ever be more exhilarating than it was right now, but then Wendy leaped at him and they were kissing again.

They sank back into the mattress. Wendy unbuckled Dipper's belt and he struggled to pull off his jeans while Wendy kissed his neck, impatient. It was all so perfect, the feel of her skin, the fire in her eyes, the soft humming noise she made when they kissed, but perfect things don't last, and when Dipper touched her through her underwear, she flinched.

He pulled his hand away like he had burned himself. "Sorry," he said. "I'm really sorry."

"No," she said. "I want you to." She took his hand and dragged it back toward her crotch, pressed it up against her underwear, a tiny wet patch in the center, warm to the touch. Something between a moan and a sigh escaped her, and her muscles relaxed underneath him. "You can put your hand in," she breathed. "Please."

Her eyes fluttered shut, then, and Dipper hovered above her, waited patiently for a sign that she didn't want him inside of her, but no sign came. He put a palm against her stomach and tucked it into the hem of her underwear, explored the fleshy skin underneath, massaged it gently with his fingers, and Wendy's breath picked up, her eyes still shut. He slipped one finger between the folds, surprised at the warmth and the wetness, and Wendy moaned louder so he kept going, gradually picking up the speed of the motion and pushing his finger further inside.

And then, as if a switch had been flipped, his finger was clamped, and he looked up just in time to see Wendy's fist sail into his cheek. The flash of pain didn't surprise him, but the noise did – a loud, dull thud, followed by a piercing ring in his ear. His vision turned gray and fuzzy for a second, like an old television set, and he squinted, trying to make out Wendy's body, only focusing on deflecting another attack instead of questioning the motive behind the first one.

But she was pressed up against the back of the seats, sitting on a pillow, her hands over her mouth, tears brimming in her eyes. "I'm sorry," she whimpered.

"It's okay," Dipper said, his own voice nearly breaking. "Wendy, it's okay."

She scurried forward and slowly raised her hands to his face, ran her fingers across his cheek, teardrops rolling down her own. There was no blood, but it stung. He knew it would bruise. A nerve below his eye was twitching and he couldn't suppress it. "Dipper," she whispered. "I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," was all he could say. He wanted her to know that he understood, that he knew what was wrong, but he couldn't find the words and he wasn't about to try and comfort her with his hands.

Wendy crawled across the mattress and tore the lid off the cooler. She took out a bag of ice cubes and pressed it against Dipper's cheek, and as soon as Dipper held it in place, she started fumbling by the side of the mattress, pulled out her dress and slipped it back on. Dipper watched her jump out of the van, heard her boots against the dirt as she strode back over to the table and shut off the music they had been dancing to not a half hour earlier. She kept bringing things over from the table and depositing them in the cardboard boxes, and Dipper wanted to tell her to stop, to slow down, but he had no idea what was running through her head so he kept quiet; when she brought the grill over to the van, she looked at him, forlorn, exhausted, and after a moment he took the cue that he needed to get out of the van.

The drive home was much of the same – he thought of so many things to say and said none of them, the frustration with himself building to the point of clenching and unclenching his fists, biting his lip. It should have been easy. He should have been able to comfort his girlfriend when she needed to be comforted, but so rarely was that the case that he didn't know where to start. The van wound its way down the mountain, headlights shining on the grass, bushes, and trunks of pine trees lining the road.

"I'm not mad at you," Dipper eventually said. "Or anything."

"I know. You're too good to be mad at me."

"So you know that I would never, ever do anything to hurt you. I'd never even think of it."

"I know," she said, her voice barely hearable over the quiet drone of the van. "I do know that."

But I'm a man, Dipper thought. And other men have hurt her.

They came to a stop outside the Mystery Shack, but Wendy didn't shut off the engine. Normally when they were on a date and she drove, she stayed overnight in the attic, cuddled up to Dipper despite the sometimes unpleasant stickiness that the summer induced. Dipper couldn't imagine either of them sleeping if they slept alone that night, after the punch and the silence, so he asked her if she wanted to stay.

"I think I need to be alone right now," she said. "It isn't your fault. It's mine." For the first time since they'd left Lookout Point, she looked at him. She leaned over the console and kissed his cheek – the unbruised one. She told him he loved him, he said he loved her too, and then he got out of the van, watched her drive away, climbed the stairs to his room, went to bed alone, and tossed and turned in the stale, hot air into the early hours of the morning, replaying everything in his head, trying to piece together how one of the best nights of his life had crumbled apart.