Free The Night We Said Yes by Lauren Gibaldi

instead as he sits down inside. “All okay?”
    “Yeah,” he answers, stuffing a brown paper bag in the backseat. “No problem at all. Didn’t even look at my ID.”
    “What did you get?”
    “The penguin wine.” He smiles. Instinctively, I smile back. Of course he remembers. It was what we drank before he left, on our six-month anniversary. I picked it out because I thought the penguin was cute.
    I shake away the memory and run my finger over my bracelet’s pattern.
    “So are we really going to Jefferson?” I ask, breaking the silence.
    “If you want to,” he answers. “I mean, yes. Yes we are. It’s a night of saying yes, after all.”
    “This feels so . . . one year ago.”
    “I know.” He hesitates. “Kind of the idea.”
    It’s not until we’re a few minutes down the road that I realize he’s had this night planned for longer than I thought.



CHAPTER 8
    THEN
    9:50 P . M .
    After eating at Wing King, we walked back to Ross’s house to pick up our cars. We took the main roads; they were easier to navigate than the sidewalks behind the houses we had previously crept along. Some cars passed by, but for the most part we were alone. Along the way, we made our first plan for the night.
    “So, for a night of saying yes, we need drinks first,” Jake said, walking with his hands in his pockets.
    “How do you expect us all to get them?” Meg asked, walking in step with him. Despite their fighting, they were still magnets, always drawn to each other. An attraction that couldn’t be broken, no matter the amount of pushing and pulling.
    “I’ve got an ID. Let’s grab our cars and head to Shop & Shop,” Jake answered.
    “Where to after that?” I asked.
    “We’ll decide then,” Jake responded, winking at Meg. She shook her head and I could see the crack of a smile. I looked over at Matt, but he wasn’t next to me anymore. I stopped and noticed him a few feet behind, picking something up off the ground. I walked back over to him.
    “What’s up?”
    “Oh, sorry, nothing,” he said, straightening up quickly with something in his hand.
    “Drop something?”
    “No, um, it’s stupid,” he said, putting whatever he had picked up into his pocket. He started walking again, so I continued behind him. I didn’t want to pry, but I was curious.
    “What’s stupid?”
    He was quiet for a moment, and then spoke. “I pick up things whenever I find them. Not, like, trash or anything, but notes and photos. Glimpses into people’s lives and stuff.”
    “So, like, found objects?” I asked, feeling him out.
    “Yeah, exactly. It started in Italy. I was walking around this little market in Florence and found a photo of three people laughing, a guy and two girls. They looked so in the moment, like the photo almost felt private. But I couldn’t put it down. What were they laughing about, you know? How did they know each other? So, I kept the photo, andsince then, I haven’t really stopped picking these things up.” He paused, glancing at me. “It’s weird, I know.”
    “Not weird,” I said. “Just interesting.”
    “Interesting in a creepy way?” he asked in a self-deprecating manner.
    “Totally creepy. I’m afraid you’re going to read my diary now, or something,” I joked. “No, I think it’s cool. I like the idea of seeing people’s private moments. You can learn a lot about them.” I think about my writing, and how I do something similar when creating characters. Finding stories on the ground could be good inspiration for me.
    “Exactly!” he said, as if I was the first person to understand, and I wondered if, perhaps, I was. “I mean, I move around so much that I don’t have these things—you know, photos with friends, and notes and stuff. So, I guess it’s nice seeing that other people do.”
    “That’s really sad,” I sympathized.
    “Oh god, I’m the pathetic, sad, creepy guy now, aren’t I?”
    “No! It’s just . . .” I paused, and thought about all of the photos I