Mind the Gap, Dash & Lily

For Dash and Lily, it's beginning to look a lot like...distance! Just in time for the series release of Dash & Lily on Netflix comes a new helping of love--this time across the pond as best-selling authors Rachel Cohn and David Levithan send Dash and Lily to England.

Dash and Lily were feeling closer than ever...it's just too bad they're now an ocean apart. After Dash gets accepted to Oxford University and Lily stays in New York to take care of her dogwalking business, the devoted couple are struggling to make a long distance relationship work. And when Dash breaks the news that he won't be coming home for Christmas, Lily makes a decision: if Dash can't come to her, she'll join him in London. It's a perfect romantic gesture...that spins out of Lily's control. Soon Dash and Lily are feeling more of a gap between them, even though they're in the same city. Will London bring them together again--or will it be their undoing?

Leseprobe:

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Lily

December 21st

I can t be happy unless Dash is miserable at Christmas. It s like it s my job to turn his holiday scowl into a smile.

A happy-looking face doesn t come naturally to Dash. Things that I think should provoke a grin, like a great dog, or cute toddler twins stumbling around a sandbox like drunken pirates, or a rained-on person finally hailing a cab, won t turn his frown upside down. Things that will: a hipster Instagramming their walk through the park and then slipping on that great dog s poo; toddler twins using their yogurt tubes for a sword match that quickly escalates into a not-so-cute food fight involving a lot of sand and angry parents; or a cab discharging an arrogant Wall Streeter directly into an ankle-deep puddle of water.

I don t want to seem like a needy girlfriend, but I kind of live for those rare moments of Dash s smile. It s so pure, maybe because it s so unexpected, and never forced. Dare I say, it cou ld light a whole Christmas tree. (If he heard me say that, it would instantly disappear and threaten never to come back.)

I am determined to bring him some smiles this Christmas. It s too long since I ve seen his face, in any expression! He had two great choices last spring before we both graduated high school. He got into Columbia, which would have kept him in New York City and made me very happy, and he got into Oxford University, which, as an Anglophile and a book lover, made him very happy, with the ocean s distance from his parents a big bonus. (They re nice, I guess. But complicated. Not in the fun way.)

Dash and I have been together two years, and although I m not usually selfless when it comes to letting go of the people or animals I love, I actually encouraged him to go to Oxford. It had always been his dream--he should live it! I deferred admission to Barnard College so I could take a gap year and focus on my dog-walking business and volunteer at my grand pa s assisted living facility. The big bonus for me--for us--and what made the separation feel okay at the time of the big decisions was that I d have more free time to travel to England to visit Dash since I wasn t in school.

That s how it was supposed to work out, at least. My business grew beyond my wildest expectations and occupied more time than I ever imagined. I haven t seen Dash in person since August. I want to run my hands through his mop of hair, which has grown even longer since he s been studying so hard he hasn t bothered to get it cut. He also hasn t bothered much with shaving. I never thought an unkempt look was my guy type, and it s not just how hard I ve been missing Dash--I like it. I can t wait to kiss his scruff.

His new life in England is not what Dash expected, either. I ve gotten the sense he doesn t like it as much as he thought he would. Or maybe it s Oxford, with all its rules and traditions. Dash is vague about it, but I m his girlfriend. I sense these things. (His mumbling that maybe he ll look into transferring elsewhere next year was also a clue. I m not a clairvoyant. I d like to be, though!)

I figured we d talk about it more when he came home for Christmas, but a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, he dropped a bomb on me. He called me for a talk. The kind that required a text announcing the talk ahead of time, so I knew it wasn t going to be a good talk. Luckily, it turned out not to be the kind of talk that one of our favorite singers, Robyn, suggests some boys have with their girlfriends. Or the maybe we should see other people talk. Instead, Dash dropped a Christmas bomb. The I M GOING TO STAY AT MY GRANDMOTHER S IN LONDON OVE