“Eli, you have never made a dress like this in your life.”
“No, ma’am. I haven’t.”
“Then how—”
“I just need you to say yes.”
I nearly refused. I had every reason to. But there was something in his eyes that did not look seventeen. Something steadier than anything I had felt all year.
“Yes,” I whispered.
That night, I stood by my kitchen window and watched the light in Eli’s bedroom stay on long past three in the morning, wondering what in the world I had agreed to.
Eli’s bedroom light became my new clock.
Past midnight, past two, past three. Some nights, I stood at the kitchen sink and watched it glow while the whole street slept.
His mother called me on the third day.
“Mave, his fingers are sore,” she said. “I wrapped them in cold bandages, and he unwrapped them. He missed a chemistry test.”
