Maybe the prince would be relieved. Maybe he was tired of being asked who he was going to marry. Maybe all he wanted to do was go back to his library and read a hundred books, only everyone kept interrupting him, telling him he couldn’t ever let himself be alone.

I might have liked to share a dance with you. If I may be so bold to say.

I thought:

But isn’t this a dance? Isn’t all of this a dance? Isn’t that what we do with words? Isn’t that what we do when we talk, when we spar, when we make plans or leave it to chance? Some of it’s choreographed. Some of the steps have been done for ages. And the rest—the rest is spontaneous. The rest has to be decided on the floor, in the moment, before the music ends.

I am trying to embrace danger….

I am not dangerous. Only the stories are dangerous. Only the fictions we create, especially when they become expectations.

I think it’s time to experience life outside the notebook.

But don’t you see—that’s what we were doing.

I’m so sorry.

No need to apologize. No need to say Game over. Your disappointment makes me sad.

Then Mark Strand:

We are reading the story of our lives

As though we were in it,

As though we had writ en it.

Mark Strand, whose three most famous lines are:

In a field

I am the absence

of field

So I took out my fourth postcard and wrote:

Postcard 4: Times Square on New Year’s Eve

In a eld, I am the absence of eld. In a crowd, I am the absence of crowd. In a dream, I am the absence of dream. But I don’t want to live as an absence. I move to keep things whole. Because sometimes I feel drunk on positivity. Sometimes I feel amazement at the tangle of words and lives, and I want to be a part of that tangle. “Game over,” you say, and I don’t know which I take more exception to—the fact that you say that it’s over, or the fact that you say it’s a game. It’s only over when one of us keeps the notebook for good. It’s only a game if there is an absence of meaning. And we’ve already gone too far for that.

Only two postcards left.

Postcard 5: The Empire State Building at Sunrise

We ARE the story of our lives. And the red notebook is for our storytelling. Which, in the case of lives, is the same as truth telling. Or as close to it as we can get. I don’t want the notebook or our friendship to end just because we had an ill-advised encounter. Let’s label the incident minor, and move on from it. I don’t think we should ever try to meet again; there’s such freedom in that. Instead, let our words continue to meet. (See next postcard.)

The last postcard I saved for the notebook’s next destination. The doorbel rang—Boomer—and I scribbled down some hasty instructions.

“Are you in there?” Boomer yelled.

“No!” I yelled back, Scotch-taping each postcard onto its own page of the notebook.

“Really—are you in there?” Boomer said, knocking again.

It hadn’t been my intention when I’d asked him over, but already I knew I’d be sending Boomer on another assignment. Because as curious as I was to see Lily’s snowman, I knew that if I started talking to her great-aunt again, or stepped inside that house again, I would likely end up staying for a very long time. Which was exactly what the notebook didn’t need.

“Boomer, my friend,” I said, “would you be willing to be my Apol o?”

“But don’t you have to be black to sing there?” was Boomer’s response.

“My messenger. My courier. My proxy.”

“I don’t mind being a messenger. Does this have to do with Lily?”

“Yes, indeed it does.”

Boomer smiled. “Cool. I like her.”

After the contretemps with Thibaud last night, it was refreshing to have one of my male friends beam with niceness.

“You know what, Boomer?”

“What, Dash?”

“You restore my faith in humanity. And lately I’ve been thinking that a guy can do far, far worse than surrounding himself with people who restore his faith in humanity.”

“Like me.”

“Like you. And Sofia. And Yohnny. And Dov. And Lily.”

“Lily!”

“Yes, Lily.”

I was at empting to write the story of my life. It wasn’t so much about plot. It was much more about character.

sixteen

(Lily)

December 29th

Males are the most incomprehensible species.

The Dash fell ow never showed up to see his snowman. I would have shown up if someone had built me a snowman, but I am a female.

Logical.

Mrs. Basil E. called to tell me the snowman melted. I thought, Sucks to be you, Dash. A girl made a snowman using lebkuchen spice cookies to shape the snowman’s eyes, nose, and mouth, just for you. You don’t even know what you missed. Although, according to Mrs.

Basil E., the snowman’s demise should not be a cause for concern. “If the snowman melts,” she said, “you simply build another.” Ladies represent: logical.

illogical Langston woke up from his u and promptly broke up with Benny, because Benny left for Puerto Rico to visit his abuelita for two weeks. Langston and Benny decided their relationship was still too new and fragile to survive a two-week absence, so breaking up entirely was their compromise. They did so with the promise that they might get back together when Benny gets back home, but if either of them should meet someone else in that two-week window, they had the green light to pursue. Makes no sense to me whatsoever. With that kind of logic, they deserve each other—or not to have each other, as the case may be. Boys are crazy—so much drama.