I nod my head. “Mm hmm.”

He flashes me a content smile and then continues his trek down the hallway. “I’ll see you later then,” he says.

I laugh quietly to myself and turn back toward my locker. There’s only one textbook and a notebook on the shelf. I grab them both and go to close the locker before I stop and spot a note taped to the inside of the door.

I quickly peel the folded piece of paper off and fall back against the locker door. It latches shut with a click as I press the books against my chest and open the note with both hands. And instantly, my eyes go to reading the familiar handwriting:

Reptile disease? I laugh to myself, then continue reading:

I take in a deep breath and let out a happy grin as I refold the note and slide it into the back pocket of my jean shorts. The ring of the first bell makes me jump, but before I can start my hike to my last class, I catch the number on the locker right next to mine. It’s his locker. The number on the little, metal door is 92—our anniversary. We don’t really have a real date — a date when we first started going out or dating or whatever. I guess because we just kind of always were. Andrew picked the day we would use though. It’s the first day we ever had lunch together — September 2—in a little cafeteria at Cedar Elementary. He says I traded him my milk for his cookie. I don’t remember the trade, and I have no idea how he remembers the exact date — I barely remember it was even September when I moved here — but he swears he does.

I pull my books closer to my chest. God, sometimes I still can’t believe I fell for that messy-haired little boy with the plastic Wiffle ball bat slung across his shoulders. But more so, I guess, I can’t believe just how much I love him because in the end, I absolutely love that crazy boy with everything I am.

“Marry me,” he whispers.

His hat and tassel are long gone, but his black gown is still draped around his body.

“What?”

I keep my eyes planted in the black sky and the sea of stars as I lace my fingers in his and make myself comfortable against the metal grooves of the truck bed.

“Marry me,” he says again.

I don’t say anything. I just smile. And out of the corner of my eye, I watch him turn over onto his side and play with the quilt beneath us.

“Logan, remember when we were kids, and I always used to say that even if you were the last girl in the world, I’d never marry you?”

I laugh softly.

“Yeah,” I say, meeting his eyes.

“Logan, I said it, but…”

He pauses, then reaches behind him and pulls out from the darkness a little journal and holds it out to me.

I stare at it for a second before I slowly reach for it. The journal is small, and its edges are worn away, and down the front of its soft, leather cover in big, block letters are the words: KEEP OUT OR DIE!

My eyes dart to his. “Andrew, I don’t have a death wish.”

He rolls his eyes and sighs playfully.

“It was for the little brother. It worked…I think.”

I watch his gaze wander off as he seems to get stuck on a thought. Then, all of a sudden, his eyes snap back to me.

“Go ahead,” he says, gesturing toward the book.

He’s wearing a boyish grin. I keep my stare in his for a second or two longer. Then, I slowly pull back the journal’s faded cover and look back up at him for further instruction.

“Read.” He holds his phone’s light to the book.

I turn the first, blank page and then stop. I stop at the big, sloppy handwriting that scrolls crooked down the next page. There’s a date at the top. It reads September 2, 2000. I take a second to add up the years. He was nine. We were nine.

“Andrew, is this really yours?”

I just can’t bring myself to believe that Andrew Amsel kept a journal. I mean, he had his moments — those moments when I could maybe find it believable that the spirited, little boy I knew when we were nine wrote his thoughts down. But a journal?

I watch his eyelids fall over his eyes as he lowers his head.

“My mom made me keep it. Believe me, I protested. I even tried to flush the first one she gave me down the toilet.”

He stops and laughs.

“I flushed it six times without it going anywhere before she caught me. And in the end, Mom won, and I remember her telling me that someday it would be fun to read it. I didn’t give a shit about that back then, but now that I think about it, I guess she was talking about today — that maybe today, it would be fun to read it.”

I can’t help my eyes from turning suspicious.

“Go on.” He gestures toward the little journal again. “Read it.”

Again, I force my eyes to his little-boy words barely hanging on the page:

There’s this new girl in my class. She lives down the road. Her name is Logan. It’s a funny name. Anyway, she can’t hit a ball. Her hair stinks like flowers, and she’s too tall.

I finish reading over the words and look back up at him with pretend narrowed eyes.

“My hair stinks…like flowers?” I ask.

He laughs.

“And apparently, you could be too tall,” he says.

“There’s still more.” He gestures with his eyes toward the bottom of the page.

I look closer. I wouldn’t have noticed the tiny letters scribbled upside down along the bottom of the page if he wouldn’t have pointed them out.

I turn the journal upside down and squint my eyes to see the writing:

She can hit a ball. Flowers don’t smell that bad, and I wish I was as tall as her.

I peek at him through my eyelashes. I’m pretty sure there’s a questioning look plastered to my face.

“I never wanted to find out what my mom would do to me if she caught me being ugly or worst yet, in a lie,” he explains. “She promised she wouldn’t read it, but you know my mom.”

I shrug my shoulders and then nod my head in agreement. Over the years, Mrs. Amsel has become like a second mom to me, so I do know her. And I know she loves her boys, but I also know she could never resist the temptation to learn more about them if an opportunity in the form of, say, a discarded, open journal presented itself.

“Go on, keep reading,” he says.

I laugh and turn the page. It’s dated the next day, September 3, 2000:

I told Logan today that I wouldn’t marry her even if she was the last girl in the world. She’s annoying, and I hate her.

I suck in a big breath but then notice the tiny letters again at the bottom of the page and quickly train my eyes to them: