I want the happy ending

Cade pulls over.

“I don’t want to go,” I say.

“I know. Me neither.”

“Let me go with you.
I can take care of you.
I’ll be the best nurse ever.”

He takes my face
in his hands and
looks at me with
those gorgeous brown eyes
that I lose myself in
like the sweetest of songs.

“Did you see that movie?”

I think.
I think hard.
Boy leaving?
Girl crying?
What is it?
But I’m too sad
and I’m drawing a blank.
I shake my head.

“Lloyd Dobler ring any bells?”

Another of my mom’s favorites.
Say Anything with John Cusack.

He goes on.
“That scene, where Lloyd holds
the radio above his head?
Think of me. Every night, think of me,
and pretend I’m doing that.”

I shake my head.
“But he goes with her.
They end up together.
It’s not fair.”

He kisses me.

“Who says we don’t end up together too?”