Read Online Don't Stop Now by Julie Halpern - Free Book Online

sometimes says things in flirty ways (using names like sweetheart, baby, cutie ), but I think that’s more out of habit than due to the fact that I could possibly be an attractive female if he’d just screw in his eyeballs correctly. I just grossed myself out.
    I, on the other eyeball, have had a crush on him from purple day one. Since before we met, actually, when I saw him play guitar at Lizzy Rubin’s junior high graduation party. I’m such a sucker for guys in bands, even more of a sucker when it comes to guitarists who also sing harmony parts (So supportive! Yet, what do we really know about them?). I’m very good at playing it cool around guys (which probably accounts for the very small, count them on one hand, not every finger, number of boyfriends I’ve had in my life), which makes me, well, very cool to have as a girl friend.
    Fast-forward to the end of senior year, exactly four weeks before prom. I’m embarrassed, ashamed, hitting-myself-in-the-head pathetic because I wanted, no needed , to go to the prom. Who can explain why? Was it all the movies and TV shows and books that glorify the crap out of this ritual? Did I really believe that I’d be the girl, so common and blendy until my glorious, glam debut in some bud get hotel’s ballroom that everyone would whisper, “Who’s that?” “Don’t you know? That’s Lillian Erlich.” “But she’s so beautiful…” And then Josh would swoop in, my date in powder blue, and say, “I didn’t need a prom dress to tell me how hot you are,” and he’d grab me, dip me, and kiss me passionately while balloons and sparkles fell from the ceiling and the whole room applauded.
    Not how it happened. Four weeks before prom, neither Josh nor I had dates. Josh could not have cared less, but I had a countdown in my head that said if no one asked either of us by four weeks prior to prom, I would ask Josh. As a friend. So I did. And he answered, “Why not?” Six hours of dress shopping later, I was ready for my close-up in, what else, a skimpy little purple dress. Only one week later, I got a call from Josh.
    â€œYeah. About prom…,” he started.
    Of course like a douche I had to interrupt with “Do you think we should try to match? Like in a kind of funny way? But so we look good in pictures? Or is that stupid? Or is that funny stupid? Do I have to get you a corsage? What do you call a guy corsage? A boutonniere?”
    â€œLil.” Josh caught a break between my pathetic desperations and said, “Look, I’ve been thinking. This is our senior prom and all, and maybe I want to go with, you know, someone I like more than a friend?” No response from me except in my stomach, which initially jumped up to my lungs but quickly plummeted to near bathroom floor horror. “I kind of just asked Liza Bell.”
    I know, I know. It makes him sound like the biggest prick when I tell that story, but when I put myself in his shoes, I mean, I wanted to go with someone I liked more than a friend.
    I ended up spending prom night on the couch, watching prom-themed horror movies ( Carrie, Prom Night, Prom Night 2 ) with several boxes of stale Girl Scout Cookies I found in the pantry and a bottomless bowl of popcorn I whipped up in the Whirley Pop. Not exactly a memory for the keepsake book.
    Tonight, now, it’s just us. No boyfriends. No girlfriends. No external crushes who may sneak their way into the lunar module. One bed—one round, somewhat hysterical, space-themed bed. And the two of us. Heading west. However we get there.

CHAPTER TEN
    â€œWe need to pick some stuff up at the drugstore,” Josh says through bites of Pizza Hut thin-crust cheese-and-pineapple pizza. There are very few food options near the Don Q, and we wanted something quick, easy, and familiar. We called the Don Q to reserve Tranquility Base and were pleasantly surprised to find it available