don't say a word.
"Estella ecstatic" is the first thing he ever calls her.
It's because, she laughs upon realization, he incorrectly assumes she is tripping like all her new Cultist friends. She is seventeen (plus one half) and he is twenty-two, with his smoke rings so close they touch her lips, and from then on she likes him the most of the rowdy boys who don't come within fifty yards of her Catholic high school. Rich-girl, brat-girl, don't-you-know-you-aren't-old-enough-to-be-here-girl, those names come after, and she doesn't mind that he's mocking her because she does it right back, hands on his knees, skirt high on her thighs: wishin'-he-were-tough-boy, loudmouthed-white-boy, little-boy. His friends wear their jeans too loose, their dads are in jail, they sell pot, they don't respect authority. They're not stylish about it, either. Nobody here has enough money to be James Dean.
They're essentially children, but whatever; Dylan is her type. He grew up too fast, like her, and he always had wolves at his back and nowhere to go to escape them. He's built solid and steady, not gangly and lean like a teenager. He is also a smart-mouthed jerk, most of the time, the way angry boys from his economic bracket and circumstances are - cunning-clever, but mostly he just uses that cleverness to satisfy immediate, self-serving goals, because he doesn't like to let himself dream.
On her eighteenth birthday, her actual boyfriend gives her a bracelet with little ruby flowers along the gold leaves, and it ends up on the school drug dealer's bedroom floor. She does the right thing, despite suggestions otherwise, and tries to give it back unsuccessfully, and from then on her wrists are bare but nothing else about her life is empty. By the train tracks and behind bars she can't get into legally, they make plans, steal moments where her stepfather can't see, and she brings Dylan's mother the newspaper every morning because otherwise the lady of the house is usually a little too drunk to remember.
The day she graduates from high school, they meet at dusk.
Estella balances on the edge of the train's ledge, the door swung open 'til the conductor comes to summon her into her seat. She could be flying away instead of sticking down on the ground, but it's much safer out here by their train tracks, and there is less chance that someone they know will see them. "Estella ecstatic," he calls her again, and where once the contrast between them was oceans wide - her old-fashioned dress costs more than what he wears in a week, to begin with - today she just curls her hand into the hair of the boy she is going to leave behind.
These are the instructions: don't call, don't write. Don't talk about me. Don't mention us. Don't show anyone those pictures we took in a hotel room outside St. Paul. There are people watching, and they are waiting for a chance to take us apart.
(This is the price for their worlds crossing.)
There is no reason to reiterate any of that, so all she says is, "Don't give up on me. Okay?"
He never trusts anyone, but she asks him this, dark-eyed and more plaintive than a girl who once had gang letters tattooed on her hands, and she doesn't make him answer. (Sometimes, for some boys, it's just too hard to say what's true. Estella knows those boys; they are the other half of girls like her.) Instead, she kisses him hard and furious with the world, but it's brief because otherwise she won't be able to let go of his hand.
Because he's contrary, and because that's why they're suited, he tugs her down far enough for a repeat performance.
"Okay," Dylan says, finally, and her eyes light up at even that small concession. Her faith in him is absolute, but none of it means much unless he believes in her back. His knuckles are scarred from fistfights, and hers are tattooed from days before she could afford the price of train fare, and for as long as they're touching neither of those things really matter.
When Estella lets go, it's just with her hands.