It was the only way I could bear the idea of her leaving. She promised that she’d be back and we’d do all our favorite things, that come summer it would be like nothing had changed.
I’m making more money here, I can save more, and my roommates need— Ciara!
—and Ravi—
You said!
I’m sorry.
I squeezed my eyes shut and listed my schools in my mind. Community colleges. State schools. Private universities.
Likelihood of acceptance. Likelihood of financial aid.
Distance from Acadia.
August was standing in the hall when I emerged from the bathroom.
“Everything okay?” he said.
“Never been better.”
He smiled a little, tentatively. “Yeah?”
I smiled too, because what else was there to do? Cry? What would that accomplish? I’d feel some kind of release maybe. August would just feel awkward.
“Yeah,” I said. “This is the peak of human existence right here.”
“Right here in this hallway.”
“Right here, in this hallway, at the best party currently happening on planet Earth.”
“Is it?”
“You didn’t know?”
His smile slipped a little. Maybe mine wasn’t as convincing as I thought.
“You sure you’re okay?”
I shrugged. “Brit’s just drunk.”
“That’s not an excuse to be a dick.”
“She just says shit sometimes. She doesn’t mean any harm.”
“That’s not an excuse either, if what you’re saying still hurts people.”
I looked off down the hall. I didn’t know what to say to that.
He took a step closer. “Sophie …”
I met his eyes. He looked so serious. It drew a real smile from me this time, small but genuine nonetheless. “August.”
He was regarding me closely, a complicated look in his eyes. “You have something on your face,” he said finally, and I touched my fingers to my mouth, but he shook his head. He moved closer and reached out a hand, resting his fingertips lightly against the side of my face, looking intently as he brushed his thumb against my cheek.
“Did you get it?” I murmured.
“I might have made it up,” he murmured back. “Sorry.”
I huffed a laugh. “At least you’re honest.” My voice was hushed, even though we were all alone, even though there was no one around to listen. “Or. Half honest.” I swallowed, and my gaze dropped to his lips. “You know … you have something on your mouth.”
His smile was the last thing I saw before my eyes slipped shut.
It wasn’t like that first kiss, the first of many on the blanket in the field. Just for research, okay? and then a switch flipped from Decidedly Not Kissing to Enthusiastically Making Out. I couldn’t catalog the start and finish of the first one, because it ran so fluidly into the second and the third and the fourth.
This one was a soft press of lips to start, barely parted, the lightest bit of pressure, and then we pulled back for a moment. I looked up at him, but his eyes were turned downward. His eyelashes were unfairly long.
Then we kissed again. And again. And so on, slow and deliberate, each one growing longer, each one spreading through me. This was kissing, but it felt a little like talking too. Like I like you and You make me laugh and I want you to feel good, I want to make you feel good— I threaded my fingers through his hair, and he wrapped his arms around my waist, and we talked, or didn’t, until a door opened up at the end of the hall.
We froze as a couple emerged, laughing and talking, and walked right past us.
August pulled back and looked at me, eyebrows raised in question.
I slipped my hand in his, and pulled him toward the open door.
* * *
It was happening again, the slow slide of time, same as the first time in that respect, but different in that this felt … purposeful. This was building, moving toward something.
The pillows on the bed were too soft; it was like sinking into a cloud. August slipped a hand behind my head—like he knew—and kissed me deeper, meanwhile his other hand slipped under my shirt, resting tentatively at the dip of my waist.
“This okay?” he murmured between kisses.
“Yeah.” My voice stuck in my throat. “Yes,” I said as he traced higher and higher on my rib cage. I didn’t know where I wanted to touch him beyond everywhere. I didn’t know how to narrow that down, what to focus on when it all felt like so much.
“August.”
“Hm?”
He pulled back. His lips were red, wet with spit.
I just wanted to say your name. Could I even say that? Was it too much? Jesus, I was in deep.
He looked at me for a moment, and then swallowed, and something was happening behind his eyes that I couldn’t decipher.
He rolled over suddenly and sat up, swinging his legs around and placing his feet on the floor.
“No, don’t stop,” I said. “I didn’t—That’s not what I—” I sat up too, scooted toward him. I wanted to reach for him, to press kisses to the line of his shoulders, but I didn’t. I rested my hands on my knees, just to hold off.
“I—” He didn’t turn around. “I’ll be right back, okay?”
“What are you—”
But before I could finish the question, he was across the room, slipping out the door and shutting it softly.
* * *
I waited.
For a while I still felt the pulse of blood through me, warmth high in my cheeks and elsewhere. I also felt, increasingly, the irrational desire to burst into tears.
I don’t know how people did it—making out, hooking up—because to me, being with someone that way seemed to bring every possible emotion right to the surface. I felt unbearably vulnerable in moments like that, whereas Brit viewed it more like a recreational activity. Like Ping-Pong, or online gaming. I envied her. I was an open nerve. I didn’t know how to be exposed like that.
I adjusted my shirt. Fussed with my hair in the mirror over the dresser. The longer I waited, the more I knew August wasn’t coming back, but I also knew that the moment I went downstairs, it would be an actual fact that actually existed, a thing that genuinely happened. August Shaw kissed me. And then he left me.
Eventually I opened the door. Stepped into the hallway and moved to the top of the stairs. The floorboards creaked under my feet, but it was too loud downstairs to draw any notice.
August was there, right there in the front hallway at the bottom of the stairs, standing at the half-open door with Terrance and a few girls from the color guard.
Terrance had his arms raised in the air, in the middle of some story, and the girls were laughing. August grinned, and I wanted to say it looked distracted, like it didn’t quite reach his eyes, but that would be a lie. It looked the way it always looked—happy and roguish, almost too big for his face.
He leaned into Terrance and said something to him, and Terrance turned and clapped one hand into August’s.
My thoughts battled it out:
He’s heading this way. He’s coming back up.
No he’s not. Fuck that, call his name, make a scene.
I just wanted to say your name.
I just wanted …
I watched as August left, the front door shutting behind him with a definitive click.
thirty-one
I watched Megan Pleasant videos that night.
I wasn’t in the mood for performances—didn’t think I could handle a lovesick ballad—so I focused on interviews, bouncing from one to the next in the recommended-videos section.
I eventually came across a clip of a sixteen-year-old Megan at some minor award show red carpet.
“My first red carpet ever. Ever! Can you believe?”
“Megan, you look incredible, tell us about what you’re wearing.”
Megan described her outfit, and then smiled at the presenter. “You look really pretty too.”
The presenter, stick-thin and bigheaded, turned to the camera, blinking heavily smoky-eyed lids. “Isn’t she just a sweetheart? That’s what everyone says about you, honey. You are so genuine, and it’s so refreshing, lemme tell you.”
Megan beamed at the camera. “Thank you.”
“Now, your new single, ‘Always You,’ from your debut album is out now. Loved the video for that, by the way. Gorgeous stuff.”
“Thank you. You’re so nice.”
“I’ve got some lyrics here—‘Dreaming of you always, thinking of you always’ … ‘You say I’m your queen, I say you’re my ace of hearts’ … Now we all know, you write all your own stuff, you’re this amazing singer-songwriter, so I gotta know … who’s the inspiration behind this? Who’s your ace of hearts?”
“Oh, you know. Creative license and all that.”
“Somebody back home? Hometown sweetheart?”
Megan just gave a little shrug, one dimple popping out on a smile.
The video for “Always You” came up next, autoplay cycling right into a scene of Megan in a beautiful white flowing dress, walking through a misty field. Strumming a guitar at the base of a tree. Standing at the edge of a pond, her bare feet in the shallows as she sang:
“‘Thinking of you always, looking for you always, your laugh on the wind, your light in the sky …’
“‘Hoping for you always.’”
I shut the video off.
thirty-two
Ciara:
I saw another mullet!!!!!!!!!
It wasn’t even 10% ironic
Amazing
Ciara:
Work is sooooo boring.
How’s band stuff going?
Ciara:
Okay new idea: