Adi Alsaid - Never Always Sometimes

“Really? What were you thinking? How much fun you had?”

He smirked, but Julia surprised him by answering, “God, yes. It was so awful, I couldn’t help but enjoy myself.”

She pulled out her earphone and then plucked Dave’s out, wrapping the cord around her phone. “There were so many clichés, I don’t think we even touched on all of them at the diner. Did you see the girl puking in the bushes? I thought it was you for a second and I was really proud of you, but then I realized that she was five feet tall and had red curly hair and way bigger boobs than you do.”

“You mean April Holmes? She was in a miniskirt.”

“You could have been in a miniskirt. I think you have the legs for it.” She sat up and put her phone away in her bag, which was this hand-stitched, colorful knapsack thing that her mom had sent her as a gift from Ecuador. “Anyway! I think we should do more.” She’d talked herself fully awake now. In the background, Ms. Romero had finally succeeded in getting the projector to work and was asking if anyone had any questions about the bulletin. She said it in a way that made it sound like she had no interest in answering any of those questions.

“More parties?”

“No. Well, yes. But I was thinking of more Nevers. Do you have the list?”

Dave rummaged through his backpack until he found the folded sheet of paper, a little bent at the corners from whatever it is that happens inside backpacks that ensures all papers get ruined. He pulled out a chocolate muffin as well and peeled off the Saran Wrap while Julia looked at the Nevers. His mom had loved those chocolate muffins, and now his dad kept them stocked in the house, making trips to Costco specifically to get them. Dave made eye contact with Nicky Marquez across the room, whom he had talked to at some point at the party. He hadn’t known a thing about Nicky before, but now he knew that his parents were migrant workers, and that he hadn’t learned English until he was nine.

Julia drew a red line across Never number three. “We can have so much fun with these.” She brought the paper closer to Dave, so he could read with her. It always drove him crazy how easily she minimized the distance between them, as if it didn’t mean anything. And then, almost out of nowhere, he thought about sitting next to Gretchen, how he was looking forward to seeing her in chemistry third period.

“We’re definitely dying our hair crazy colors.”

“We are?”

“This week,” she said, folding both hands on the desk and resting her chin on top of them, continuing to read the list, the matter not up for discussion. “Actually, we’re doing all of them.” She sat back up quickly, smiling. “It’s the perfect way to end the year,” she said. “It’s been so boring; this’ll be the perfect end-of-high-school celebration. Embrace the clichés so tightly they’ll suffocate. I think my mom would approve.”

Dave eyed the clock. Homeroom was almost over. His tired brain tried to process doing all the Nevers, and the first thing he could think of was the chance at running into Gretchen more often. He grabbed a chunk of his muffin and chewed on it.

Julia was eyeing the list, chewing on her lip. He did one of those mouth-shrug-raised-eyebrow things that meant, “Sure, why not?” Which he immediately regretted when Julia spoke again.

“Mom’ll probably want to be here to see her daughter go to the prom with the prom king. Side note: You’re definitely running for prom king.”

Muffin crumbs fell out of his mouth. “Is that so?”

“Yeah. That hasn’t happened yet, right?” She tapped the girl next to her on the arm. “When do we vote for prom king stuff?”

Margot—petite, nerdy, shy—had never looked so confused in her life. “Uhh, prom, I think?”

Julia turned back to Dave. “We’ll have to research with Brett. I’m already seeing big things for your campaign. Fund-raising galas.” Her leg started racing up and down under the table. She was radiant when she got excited about something. Her mouth scrunched over to one side of her face but somehow remained a smile. It was indescribably cute.

He watched her eyes go wide, a smile that was about ninety-five percent mischief spreading her thin lips. “Marroney. Number seven.” Her finger pointed at the line. Never hook up with a teacher.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Julia, the man collects food in his mustache. He wears pocket protectors, which I’m pretty certain have been out of production since the eighties, right around the time his kind-of-sometimes mullet-hairdo thing went out of style. He makes jokes about irrational numbers. He’s a total cliché of a math teacher. I’m almost certain that he’s not a real person; he’s Frankenstein’s monster but made up of math-teacher clichés. I heard a rumor that he’s got all the known numbers of pi tattooed on his ass.”

“That’s a stupid rumor. And I can’t wait until I undress him and dispel it once and for all.”

Dave was mostly sure the comment was a joke, but he still felt a pang of jealousy. The bell rang, and everyone gathered their belongings, rushing toward the door as if already free for the day. Jenny Owens said, “Shit,” and tried to scribble in a few last-second answers.

Julia stood up, folding the Nevers list neatly and grabbing her belongings. She stepped into her sandals and gave Ms. Romero a little wave as they walked out into the hallway. Dave followed behind, still trying to figure out if Julia was joking.

o o o

“I’ve never been a stalker before,” Dave said. They waited for the Chili’s hostess to find them a table near where Marroney and a handful of other teachers had gathered to enjoy a Friday afternoon happy hour.

“This isn’t stalking. This is organizing a coincidental run-in.”

“That’s a stalkerish way to put it.”

After obsessing for the rest of the week over how to best seduce Marroney (Dave shuddered every time she said it), Julia declared Friday to be a Never day. After school, they’d go to Julia’s house and dye their hair in a bright display of their individuality—individuality purchased from a box at the CVS. But before they could do that, Julia and Marroney had to have their meet-cute. “Prepare for a lot of flirtatious giggling and some charming repartee,” Julia had said when they were outside the school, waiting for Marroney to leave so they could follow him. “And that’ll just be coming from him.”

Now Dave watched Marroney struggle to find the straw in his margarita, his tongue flicking out blindly. He wondered if Julia would call her own bluff anytime soon. Marroney was wearing a mustard-colored short-sleeved button-up shirt with a coffee stain on his collar. His tie had little calculators on it. Five other teachers were at the table, including Ms. Romero and Dave’s AP Chem teacher, Mr. Kahn. Each of them had a giant fluorescent-colored frozen margarita in front of them.

Dave and Julia sat in a booth perpendicular to the teachers so they could both see as the teachers delved into a bottomless basket of chips and salsa. On his first attempt, a fat blob of red salsa fell from Marroney’s chips and landed squarely on his tie.

“You know, I didn’t get it at first,” Dave said, turning to look at Julia, who was smiling in Marroney’s direction, “but you’re right. This has the makings of a great seduction.”

“Your tone says you’re trying to be sarcastic, but I’m failing to understand the joke.”

“Julia, he’s hideous.”

“That’s an ugly thing to say.” Julia picked up her menu and propped it up so she could stare without being caught. “Okay, so here’s the plan.” She leaned across the table conspiratorially, refusing to speak until Dave leaned down, too. It was their classic pose for plotting mischief; they’d done it when figuring out which movie to go to, or when planning the surprise party for Julia’s dads. They’d huddled together like this when they wrote the Nevers on their bench in Morro Bay. Dave loved seeing the details on her fingers when she put them flat on the table in front of her, the way her orangey smell seemed stronger in just those instances. They always adopted a tone more serious than was called for, whispering to each other, craning their necks around, pretending to study the room skittishly, as if someone was after them. The rest of the world felt exterior to them, like their friendship was some idyllic cove only they had access to.