As she ran her tongue over her teeth, they suddenly felt sharper to her. Her incisors were so pointed, she nearly pricked her own tongue on them.
“It’s okay.” Alex rubbed her leg, trying to comfort her. “It was an accident, and I’m fine.”
Her stomach growled, audibly rumbling. Gemma put her hand over it, as if that would silence it.
“I’m starving,” she said, sounding confused by her admission.
He laughed. “I heard that.”
She shook her head and didn’t know how to explain it. Kissing him had somehow made her incredibly hungry. And though she didn’t remember doing it, she wasn’t convinced that biting him had been an accident.
“Harper should be home soon,” Gemma said, looking for an excuse to end their encounter. She climbed off of Alex and sat down on the bed.
“Yeah, of course.” He sat up quickly and shook his head, as if clearing it of something.
Neither of them said anything for a minute. They both just stared down at the floor, confused by their recent actions.
“Listen, I’m … I’m sorry,” Alex said.
“What for?”
“I didn’t mean to come over and … and…” He stumbled over his words. “Make out like that, I guess. I mean, it was nice. But…” He sighed. “I didn’t want to rush you or pressure you, and … That’s not me. I’m not that guy.”
“I know.” Gemma nodded. She smiled at him, hoping her smile didn’t look as pained as it felt. “I’m not that girl, either. But you definitely didn’t pressure me into anything.”
“Okay. Good.” He stood up and touched his lip again, checking for blood, then looked back at her. “I guess, um, I’ll see you when I can.”
“Yeah.” She nodded.
“I am really glad that you’re okay.”
“I know. Thank you.”
He paused, thinking for a second, then bent down and kissed her on the cheek. It was a little long for a kiss on the cheek, but it was still over too quickly. Then Alex was gone.
Of all the kisses they’d shared that afternoon, that one before he left was Gemma’s favorite. It may have been the most chaste, but it was also the one that felt the most genuine.
TWELVE
Pearl’s
The library was slow today, thanks to the pristine weather. The sun shone brightly in the sky, and it was warm without being overly so. It was the kind of day that would make Gemma kill to be out on the bay, and even Harper would’ve been happy to join her.
Not that Gemma could go anywhere. As predicted, their father had grounded her when he came home from work last night. He’d yelled in a way that almost made Harper stand up for her sister, but she didn’t. She hid out on the steps and listened to him rant about how he’d always given Gemma freedom and trusted her, but those days were over.
In the end, Gemma had begun to cry. Brian had apologized then, but Gemma just went up to her room. She spent the whole night up there. Harper had tried to talk to her a couple of times, but Gemma just sent her away.
Harper had hoped to talk to her this morning, but Gemma had already left for swim practice by the time she got up. On the upside, Brian had remembered to take his lunch to work with him.
Although that was starting to seem like less of a positive now that Harper was sitting at the front desk of the library without much to do. She absently leafed through Judy Blume’s Forever.
She’d read it before, but that was a couple years ago, so she wanted to refresh herself with the text. It was part of their summer reading program for middle schoolers, and on Mondays Harper met with the ten or so kids in the book club to talk about their weekly reading.
“Did you know that the principal of the high school has had Oprah Winfrey’s biography out for the past six weeks?” Marcy asked, clicking on the computer next to Harper.
“Nope, I didn’t know that,” Harper replied.
Since it was slow, Marcy was going through the computer to search for people who had overdue books, then calling to remind them. Marcy had actually volunteered to do it. Even though she hated interacting with people, she loved calling to tell them that they’d done something wrong.
“That seems weird, doesn’t it?” Marcy peered at Harper from behind a pair of black horn-rimmed glasses. Not that she needed corrective lenses—she just thought they made her look academic, so she wore them sometimes.
“I don’t know. I heard it’s a really good book.”
“It’s like I always say—you can tell a lot about a person by the books they check out.”
“You just like to snoop on people,” Harper corrected her.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing. It’s always good to know what your neighbors are up to. Just ask Poland about that after World War Two.”
“There’s never a good reason to invade somebody’s—”
“Whoa, Harper, isn’t that the kid you know?” Marcy interrupted her and pointed to the computer screen.