The John Green Collection(55)
“So what do you do here?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s too dark to read. I guess you could get a head lamp or something, but other than that—”
“No, I just sit here. When I was a nerd, I came here to be somewhere where no one would find me. And now—I dunno, I guess the same reason.”
“. . .”
“. . .”
“Do you want to drink it? The moonshine?”
“I never really drank before.”
“Color me surprised.”
“Also, moonshine can make you blind, and what I’ve seen of blindness so far hasn’t really impressed me.”
“Yeah that would suck for you if you couldn’t read anymore. But how often are you going to find yourself in a cave with moonshine? Live a little.”
“Says the girl who never wants to leave her hometown.”
“Oh, burn. Okay I got the bottle. Talk to me and I’ll come over to your voice.”
“Um, hello my name is Colin Singleton and it’s very dark and so you should come over here to my voice except the acoustics in this place are really w—oh that’s me. That’s my knee.”
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Ladies first.”
“All right. . . . Sweet holy shitstickers, it tastes like you’re washing down a bite of corn with a pint of lighter fluid.”
“Did it make you go blind?”
“I have absolutely no idea. Okay. Your turn.”
“. . . AkhhhhEchhhAhhhh. Kahhh. Ehhhhhh. Wow. Wow. Man. It’s like French-kissing a dragon.”
“That’s the funniest thing you’ve ever said, Colin Singleton.”
“I used to be funnier. I kinda lost all my confidence.”
“. . .”
“. . .”
“Let me tell you a story.”
“Ooh, a Lindsey Lee Wells story. Does it star an Archduke?”
“No it stars a Lindsey, but it’s got all the elements of a top-notch story. Where are you? Oh, there. Hi. Hi, knee. Hi, calf. Okay. So we all went to Danville for elementary school and pretty much all the Gutshot kids stuck together because everyone else thought we were dirty and poor and spread lice. But then in about third grade—like I’ve said, I was ugly—Colin and all his friends started saying I was a dog.”
“I hate that. I hate kids like that so fugging much.”
“Rule Number One. No interrupting. But anyway, so they starting calling me Lass, short for Lassie.”
“Hey, he called you that just the other day on the way to the oldsters!”
“Yeah, I recall. Also, to repeat myself: Rule. Number. One. So it’s fourth grade, okay? And it’s Valentine’s Day. I really wanted to get some valentines. So I asked Hollis what I should do, and she said I should just make a valentine for everyone in the class and then people would respond. So Hollis bought a bunch of these Charlie Brown valentines, and I wrote one for every kid in the class even though my handwriting wasn’t very good and it took me a shit-long time. And then, predictably, I didn’t get any valentines.
“So then I went home and I was really upset but I didn’t want to tell Hollis about it so I just sat in the chair by the window in my room and felt so—just horrible—I don’t even want to think about it. And then I see Colin running up to my house with a little cardboard box. And he’s the cutest boy in school and the only one from Gutshot who’s popular. He puts the box on my doorstep and then rings the doorbell and runs off and I run down there and my heart’s beating like crazy and I’m so hopeful that he’s got this secret crush on me and I get down there and there’s this really elaborately decorated cardboard box with red-construction-paper hearts pasted all over it. . . . God, I hadn’t thought about this in so long till he called me Lass.”
“Wait, what was in the box?”
“Alpo. A can of Alpo. But I got him in the end, because now he dates that dog.”
“Wow. Jesus Christ.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Just, you know, I thought my romantic relationships were fugged up.”
“Anyway, it became my life’s goal to get him. To kiss him. To marry him. I can’t explain it, but it did.”
“And you did it.”
“I did. And he’s different now. I mean, we were eight. We were little kids. He’s sweet now. Very protective and everything.”
“. . .”
“. . .”
“Do you ever wonder whether people would like you more or less if they could see inside you? I mean, I’ve always felt like the Katherines dump me right when they start to see what I look like from the inside—well, except K-19. But I always wonder about that. If people could see me the way I see myself—if they could live in my memories—would anyone, anyone, love me?”