Proof of Forever Read Free

from J.Crew that slips off her shoulder. With a tiny bit of cream blush, mascara, and lip gloss, she looks like she’s been hanging out on a sailboat all day, minus hairstyle-altering wind.
    She puts a beaten gold cuff on her wrist and starts to step into her espadrille wedges, trying to recall if Blake is taller than six feet. Better not take any chances. She tosses them back into the mountain of heels in her closet and settles on her favorite open-toe yellow flats with the ankle buckles instead.
    She grabs her iPhone, half-buried under a pile of discarded outfit options. The house is so quiet she can hear the beep of the dishwasher finishing its cycle from all the way on the east end of the first floor. Yrma must have turned it on before she left. Tali’s parents are out of the country again, and she feels their absence like a weight. Even though her social life improved vastly over the last couple of years of high school, there’s still no one who can make her feel more confident than her mom and dad.
    Unconditional love
, she told Ashlynn just the other day, when Ash was teasing her for still listening to old Britney songs,
is a blessing and a curse
.
    Taking a deep breath, she clicks on Blake’s face and types a message.
    Still going tn?
    She waits several minutes, her heart pounding in her throat. She feels like she’s going to throw up.
    Beep! New message:
    It’s like my backyard so prob. U?
    She smiles, feeling a shiver of excitement. She spends eighteen minutes writing and rewriting her response.
    Save a dixie cup 4 me? If cruz isn’t being all stalin about the booze lol.
    He responds right away. Right away!
    haha. Good ole cruz. Sure thing bender.
    He called her Bender. This basically seals it. He has called Tali this ever since she used to be into gymnastics. She did all the tumbling programs at Okahatchee for the third through sixth graders. And he remembered.
    She takes a breath. Tonight it’s going to happen. Blake Green and Tali Webber. Okahatchee’s golden boy and ugly-duckling-turned-swan.
Finally
.
    Half an hour later, Tali slows her new red BMW—a gift from Dad, symbolizing her strength and independence—and pulls off the highway exit just past Roxy’s Diner, where for years she and her parents stopped for chocolate-chip pancakes before they left her at camp. The sun’s only just starting to set, sending a cherry-red glare through her windshield; it looks briefly like the mountains are on fire, angry and majestic. Even though it’s hidden by trees, she can actually
smell
the lake now with herwindow down, that mossy, mineral scent that always seems even stronger at night.
    Her phone beeps and her pulse reacts. But as she grabs it, she sees it’s not a message from Blake. It’s a text from a random 603 number.
    Wait. A number she remembers.
Zoe.
She doesn’t keep Zoe in her phone anymore, not after she rebooted all her contacts after she dropped her last phone in the toilet at the Goose, Liberty’s one townie bar. This was sometime during winter of junior year, when Tali started spending more time with Ashlynn Dermott, and Zoe accused Tali of becoming too “cupcake” for her (all frosting, no nutritional value). But Tali’s pretty sure their friendship actually expired around the time Zoe started flaking on every single one of Tali’s invitations to hang out. It seemed like she was more into holding burping contests with bad musicians in the school parking lot and analyzing her geeky sci-fi novels than spending time with people like Tali, who preferred to, well, grow up.
    Funny that she still knows Zoe’s number by heart, though. Same with Luciana’s and Joy’s. Force of habit, even after all this time. She pops open the text with her right hand while steering with her left.
    Joy called. She’s coming 2 the reunion. C u there?
    Tali feels a quick stab of envy. Of course Joy would call Zoe and not Tali. Even