CHAPTER SIX

It's incredibly hot and muggy the next day and I practically have to peel myself out of bed. Even Tanya, who usually loves the heat, is lying on the floor and panting. I pound on the air conditioner a couple of times and it starts up, but slowly. In the meantime, I plug in a fan and sit in front of it, trying to dry off my sweaty shirt.

Wood and Amelia are at work already, but they left me a bagel and once the air becomes breathable again, I pop it in the toaster. Glancing out the window, I sigh. The sky is cloudy again, so dark gray it's almost black and there are occasional rolls of thunder. Too hot to run and too stormy to swim...I don't know what I'm going to do today.

The phone rings while I'm chewing and I swallow before I pick up. "Hello?"

It's Melissa. "Hey, you. Wanna come over?"

I sigh again, this time with relief. "Sweetheart, you just saved me from hot and sticky boredom."

She giggles. "Gross."

"I'll be over in about a half hour, okay?"

"Sure. Love you."

"Love you too."

I hang up and cram down the rest of the bagel so I can take a shower. A cold shower, but it feels great. Then I throw on my baseball cap and my dad's old jean vest and kneel in front of Tanya. "I'll be gone for a couple of hours, okay? Be good."

She nods wearily and rolls her eyes.

I smile and kiss the top of her head.

It's even hotter than I thought outside and so humid, the air feels like a physical weight on my shoulders. It's only a couple of blocks to Melissa's house, but it's a miserable walk.

It's worth it just to see her smile.

Her house is almost cold after the heat outside and I have to bite my lip to keep my teeth from chattering. We retreat to her room, leaving the door open in accordance with her mother's paranoid law, and sit on the bed.

Melissa makes a face and pulls her knees up to her chin. "I hate that she makes us do that. I mean, we could have sex anyway with the door open, she'd just be able to see it."

I smile and wind a strand of her hair around my finger.

"Oh!" She jumps up and yelps as her hair is pulled.

"Sorry." I untangle it gently.

"It's okay. Check it out!" She goes over to the bigger of her two aquariums, the one that holds the Nonextant that Wood got her. It's a blue kind of upright turtle, a little bit smaller than Red and it's pretty adorable. Now she's reaching into the tank, grinning excitedly at me.

When she pulls it out, it looks different. The change isn't drastic, like Tanya's was, but he now has big ears and a fluffier tail.

Melissa puts him on the bed next to me, where he gurgles happily and rests his head on my leg. "Isn't it cute? He changed!"

"Evolved, actually," Wood told me a lot about this. "There's - "

"It happened yesterday," She cuts me off. "When I was letting him swim around in the pool. He likes doing that, he gets a lot of exercise and I don't know, he swam to one side of the pool and came back looking like this."

"It was probably - "

"Still, I think he's kind of cuter this way," She strokes his ears and he smiles and closes his eyes. "He's a little darker blue and I like it better."

I'm a little annoyed now. I'm not sure why...she was cutting me off, but she does that a lot, she always has. Still, I feel inexplicably irritated.

"Anyway, I'm sorry, you were trying to say something." She lays down on her stomach and looks at me expectantly.

Well, that's something, at least. Still, I was too busy being annoyed that I forgot what I was going to say. "I don't know."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay." It comes out angrier than I mean it to, angrier than I feel.

Her expression becomes worried. "What's wrong?"

I force a little smile. "Nothing." Which is kind of true. I don't really have anything to be annoyed about, but I am anyway. I just...kind of want something to be annoyed about.

...Complicated emotions are best left to girls.

She puts a hand on my leg. "Are you sure?"

"Yes!" Again, it comes out angrier than I mean it to.

Her blue eyes widen and she sits up a little. "Baby, what's the matter?"

"Well, thanks for letting me talk," My mouth seems to have a mind of its own and makes everything I say come out scathing. "Nice to know you care."

"Dash, I was just about to!" Her voice cracks a little. "I'm sorry I cut you off before, I was just excited!"

I'm open my mouth to lash out at her again when I notice her eyes filling with tears and my heart melts. "I'm sorry," I murmur, pulling her closer and wiping her tears away with my thumb. "I'm not mad at you." I feel bad...in the whole time we've been dating, we've never really had a fight and I almost started one.

She sniffs. "What are you mad at?"

I sigh, rubbing her back. "I don't know, everything. Wood and Amelia are fighting all the time, Jared is in the marathon and he's much faster than me…"

She cuts me off with a long, deep kiss that incinerates any brain cells I have left. Then she pulls away and looks at me seriously. "Dash, you are the most amazing boy I've ever known and you need to chill out."

I laugh and hug her tight, the little turtle curling up between us.

(-o-)

"Oh thank god, there's a fountain! Dash, help me drown!" Wood makes as if to leap into it. "Tie cement blocks to my feet so I sink!"

"Grow up." Amelia rummages in her purse for something, not looking at him.

We're at a shopping center, not quite a mall, not quite a plaza, to look for dresses and stuff for the wedding. Being guys, Wood and I are not thrilled about clothes shopping - in fact, I only came along to give him some support.

I pull him away from the fountain as he pretends to fight. "No, let me go! It's better to die quickly!"

Amelia sighs impatiently and crosses her arms. "Can you just be serious for once? Please?"

Wood's grin fades and he straightens up, mumbling, "Sorry."

"Sensing an awkward moment, I jump in. "What about me? Can I drown?"

She fixes me with icy stare and I look down, chagrined.

Then she leads us in silence to Jasmin's Bridal Palace (pronounced 'yazmeen' according to the lady inside) and starts thumbing through the clothing rack. Wood and I sit in the uncomfortable chairs and exchange meaningful looks.

"What about this?" She pulls out a gauzy green dress with short sleeves. "For the flower girl?"

Wood looks at it, takes a deep breath and smiles. "Yeah. That looks great."

She puts it back like he hadn't said anything. "Maybe we should go for more tailor made things...that's more original. Of course, that's a lot more expensive…" She's not even talking to us anymore, just that kind of thinking-out-loud that girls do when they don't want another opinion but want everyone to know theirs.

Wood and I look at tuxes, though there's not much variety to consider, thank goodness. We joke around with some ruffled shirts that look like they're from the seventies and Amelia looks up from the racks with a little smile, exasperated, but not annoyed anymore.

"Hey, disco man, come here and help me decide whether this purple matches the color scheme."

Wood, still facing the mirror, mutters under his breath, "We have a color scheme now?" Then he turns and walks over to her.

I take off the flamboyant tux and try on a couple of jackets that turn out to be way too small for my new muscles and some pants that are way too loose. Finally, I see a nice suit that I think I would like, but it's on a hook far above my head. I ask the sales lady for help and she nods and goes behind the counter to get a long stick with a hook on the end.

From the other side of the room, I hear Amelia say, "What do you think?"

I glance over. She's trying on a wedding dress, a typical white one with long sleeves and a tight skirt.

Wood touches her cheek. "I think you look great."

She does an experimental twirl and makes a face. "I don't think so. Besides, it's too tight under the arms and I wanted a more flowing skirt."

"But I like this one!" He puts his hands on her hips. "It's my wedding too, you know."

She rolls her eyes and pulls away. "I know."

"They're all like that." The sales lady says and I turn back around. She hands me the suit. "When's the wedding?"

"Next month."

She lets out a low whistle. "Yeah, the pressure's on, huh? See, all the women - and most of the men, too - always want their wedding to be perfect and memorable and they freak out about it so much that they tend to get mad at everything, especially each other. I've seen a lot of breakups happen right here, over a dress."

A little chill runs through me.

She - Jasmin? - notices my look of alarm and smiles reassuringly. "I don't think that'll happen with these two. They're patient with each other, which is more than a lot of people are."

That does make me feel a little better and I relax.

"But you should still keep an eye on them." She winks. "Just in case."