See You When I See You

27 // I Hope You Dance

As a result of her stunt chasing Marco down two blocks in the Upper Main district of the city, Josie spends the next week confined to her bedroom with strep throat and a violent cold.

For an introverted homebody like Josie, confinement isn't so bad. With the exception to the fevers and severe throat pain, she is content passing her time sleeping or re-reading her favorite books (currently, all six Earthsea books by Ursula Le Guin). Every day after school, Lyla stops by to deliver her homework assignments and brings her to speed with the latest school gossip. Her dad manages to fix up a few decent dinners from grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup to shrimp fried rice, and Michelle even takes it upon herself to do the laundry.

But the best part about her bedridden state is getting to talk to Marco every night on the phone.

For the most part, things between her and Marco feel the same. Their conversation picks up exactly where they left off as though they'd never stopped talking. Josie hears the grin in his voice as he gabs eagerly about the complicated schematics for his senior project, and he listens raptly as she praises Le Guin's genius in creating a subversive female protagonist in The Tombs of Atuan. It's only in the natural lulls of their conversation that Josie blushes with ruby remembrance of the definitive declarations she made that night in the rain.

"I... I don't know how to do this," she finally admits to him on the fourth night.

"Do what, Jojo?"

She hoists herself up with her elbows, sending used tissues toppling to the floor.

"Be in a relationship," she says, feeling her face warm.

Marco smiles over the phone. 

"Just be you. This is new for me, too. We'll figure it out together, one step at a time."

"Okay."

The line is silent but for their steady breaths. Even without words, Josie is confident in Marco's certainty of their future. She closes her eyes and yawns, beginning to feel the somnific effects of her many medications.

"You should get some sleep," he says with an affectionate chuckle. "We can always talk tomorrow."

"Okay."

"Jojo?"

"Hm?" she murmurs languidly.

"I think you're beautiful."

Josie blooms with the force of a million monarch butterflies being released at once. How can his words have such an effect on her? She smiles into her pillow, the tips of her ears turning red.

She falls asleep with happy visions of Marco's handsome face in her mind.

---

Josie returns to school just as her all her peers receive their long-awaited college acceptance letters. 

Many students proudly announce their chosen school by donning university apparel, already eager to belong to a collegiate faction. Most of Josie's classmates are clad in the emblematic scarlet and white of Rutgers University, but others, like Jasper McNulty wear disparate colors to show off their coming futures (green, orange, and white for the University of Miami).

Seeing no reason to partake in such tradition, Josie arrives at school dressed in her usual fare, jeans, and basic t-shirt. At lunch, she quickly finds Lyla (who also isn't wearing any school colors) and sits down.

Josie withdraws a neat bento box from her lunch bag and throws her best friend a teasing look. 

"Couldn't pick a school?"