It was a fine line to walk.
I mean, I could have asked him with the result being he immediately said no and went home to do his routine as he did every other night.
Or, I could tell him to come, but risk feeling like I was forcing him.
I was an utter wreck by the time I pulled up to his house the next morning. It wasn’t something I wanted to ask him over the phone. Not that it mattered all that much if he could see my face when I asked. It mattered that I could see his.
Mrs. Neely ushered me through the front door and I greeted her as I did every morning. But instead of heading straight up the stairs to the art room, I decided to run it by her that I was planning on inviting Colton to stay afterward for the bake sale meeting. She seemed initially shocked, and almost a little worried.
“He may not like it, Lilly. Be prepared to have to leave. Quickly.”
I was pretty sure I understood what she meant. “I know. I just want him to be able to do things other than his PEERS class and his art after school. You said he wanted to make friends . . .”
Her expression got really soft and she leaned in just a little closer than normal. I remember how gentle her fingertips felt against my cheek before she tucked a piece of hair behind my ear and then slid her palm under my chin to look into my eyes.
“Thank you,” she’d murmured. “But, Lilly? Remember this is all new to him. And he’s younger than you.”
I couldn’t hide the stupid blush in my cheeks as I’d replied, “This is new for me, too. And trust me, Colton’s only younger than me in age.”
She laughed and seemed satisfied I wasn’t going into anything blindly. When I went up to his art room, I pushed the nerves aside and clenched my sweaty fists to gather my courage.
He was at the desk, packing his books. I knocked lightly on the open door and he gave me a small smile before zipping his bag closed.
It sounded so damn loud over the heartbeat in my ears.
“Colton?” My voice was shaking and I hated it but I pressed on. “Harper has asked me to bring you with me to work on some items for the bake sale after school today. Your mom said it was okay.” He was just staring at me. “Will you come with me?”
He nodded. He decided he wanted to. It was enough for me.
School crawled by at half speed and I thought I would die if the last bell didn’t ring because I was so worked up over how things could potentially go. I had made up a million scenarios in my head: good and bad.
But I knew Harper and there was nothing inside me that thought she would be anything but nice to Colton. He seemed more tense than usual when I met him at my locker, and as we moved toward the Home Ec room, I had to fight the urge to grab his hand and link our fingers.
I didn’t know if he even liked holding hands.
It was so frustrating not knowing what he was thinking.
He was quiet as we walked into the room, and suddenly it felt like all eyes were on us. Scratch that. They totally were on us.
Harper raced over and pulled me in for a hug. And then she took a step back and looked at Colton, offering a genuine smile. “Glad you made it,” she said.
“You’re glad I made what?” Colton frowned and looked at her for explanation but she just shook her head and laughed.
“I’m glad you’re going to be helping us ice these cupcakes,” she corrected herself. And I was so effing proud of her for listening to the small tidbits of information I had given her the night before. She led us over to our table, where a few people were busy working on the sweets. Some were decorating and some were wrapping things in colorful plastic wrap. Others were boxing and writing on tags and I had to wonder what Colton would be most comfortable doing.
“Do you want to help put icing on the cupcakes?” I asked him as quietly as I could.
He said no because it was too sticky.
“What about gloves?”
“Plastic and latex make my hands sweat and it’s uncomfortable.” His usual calm demeanor was starting to crack.
I leaned over and picked up a shaker of edible glitter for the tops of the colorful cupcakes. “Hold this,” I whispered and watched as his fingers looped around the plastic container. “Is that okay?”
His eyes slid to mine briefly. “Yes.”
“Good. Then, I’ll ice the cupcakes and slide ‘em to you so you can shake some glitter on top. But only a little bit. Like this.” I showed him with my hand over his and my heart stopped beating when he started to pull back slightly. But he endured and I continued, knowing full well he would catch on fast. Which he did.
Within thirty minutes, we were lost in the redundancy of me icing and pushing the cupcakes over so he could sprinkle. Somewhere during that time, Harper came over to check on us. Then I noticed more of the girls were coming over to compliment Colton on his glitter shaking ability. Like he needed it. Frankly, it felt a little condescending.
He didn’t really reply, given he was focused on the task at hand. But it didn’t escape my notice the other girls seemed to be just a tiny bit too interested in him. Whispering a little too low at the other tables. When Harper came by again a few minutes later, I asked her what the hell was going on.
She leaned in close and told me all the girls were talking about how cute Colton was. How none of them had ever paid attention to him before, but his quiet nature and good looks were making the girls circle like sharks.
“‘Cute’ and ‘hot’ have come up at least twenty times.” She chuckled, nudging my shoulder with her own.
And because I am me, I lost my footing and fell backward. Into Colton.
A shower of edible glitter rained down on my head and I looked up to see him staring down at me, his hands pushed up over his ears, as if he had no idea what to do. They were covered in pink sparkles, his palms leaving trails of it across his cheeks and up into his hair. It made me laugh because I knew I had to be a mess since the shaker had lost its top and bounced, showering me with the Herpes of Arts and Crafts.
It was such a damn disaster, and I started to laugh harder than I had in a very long time, struggling to stand and apologize to Colton. But by the time I made it up on my feet, I only saw the back of his head as he rushed out of the room.
I broke into a run, a trail of glitter falling from me with each footstep. “Colton!” I yelled down the hall for him, but he had his chin tucked and his button up shirt was open, flying behind him like some sort of super-hero cape.
When I finally made it to him, I jumped in front and held out my hands to stop him from walking away. He tried to move to the left, but seemed to be just as uncoordinated as I was, so he ran into me instead.
“You were laughing at me,” he said, his neck veins bulging and jaw locked as his eyes avoided mine.
“No, I wasn’t.” I was trying my hardest not to raise my voice at him, but the lump in my throat made keeping my voice low almost impossible.
“You were.”
I couldn’t handle him thinking that of me, and in a moment of rash judgment, I did take his hand in mine, pulling us toward our lockers as he tried to back away. But my grasp only tightened further, and only once it reached an almost painful grip, did his hand stop trying to fight mine. It was like the harder I touched him, the less he tried to pull away.
Finally reaching my locker, I used my unoccupied hand to open it and pointed to the vanity mirror hanging inside. “You,” I pointed to his reflection, “are covered in glitter.” My hand pointed to my face and I finished. “Just like me. I did this. I fell onto you. Remember how I used to be?”
He blinked at his reflection and looked at me before nodding.
“It hasn’t changed. I just don’t get hit by lightning anymore.” With every shake of my head more glitter spilled to the floor.
And suddenly he smiled, his gaze raking over the sparkly shit all over my head, face, arms and hands. It traveled the length of my torso until it landed on our sparkle covered palms. Clasped tightly together.
With a small sigh he squeezed my hand tighter. “I wish you were like me.”
The breath in my body just rushed out all at once as I asked him why.
His gaze traveled my face again before he focused on my hair, saying exactly what he had on his mind. “Because then you would understand.”
* * *
It was those words that made me fall in love with him. Right there in that spot. Because he wanted me to be like him. That was his normalcy.
And I knew exactly what he meant.
When I drove him to his house, I didn’t wait to be invited inside. I just went. His mom looked like she was about to shit a brick over the amount of glittery fairy dust we trailed in. But his dad, Rick, just laughed. I’m sure I had a guilty look on my face or red cheeks or something because they kept staring at me as I told them about what had happened while Colton was busy upstairs taking a shower, washing stuff off to the best of his ability.
Mr. Neely, dark hair and kind eyes, finally took advantage of a pulse of silence to clear his throat and asked me what I had been up to over the past seven years. It caught me off guard and I did that weird mouth thing I’d been doing around Quinn the day before, which only made Mrs. Neely laugh harder because her son, the one who was diagnosed with having a disorder of some kind could speak eloquent sentences and I couldn’t even make my lips work.
The reason I was so flustered was because I knew there was something great starting between me and Colton and I wasn’t sure how his parents felt about that. There’s always the off chance they know that something more is progressing. And while I wasn’t about to pull out a business card with my name and “Certified Virgin” printed on it, I almost wanted to just so they would feel comfortable with me being alone with him. Seriously. I was giddy and rattled from holding his hand.
I imagined kissing him would probably send me to the hospital. Again.
They ended up asking me to stay for dinner but I wasn’t quite sure Colton would like me messing up his schedule even more that day. So I hedged a little, telling them I needed to check with my parents. And right when I was about to excuse myself to call my mom and get her stamp of approval before approaching Colton about it, he appeared at the bottom of the stairs.
“Colton? We’ve asked Lilly to stay for dinner,” Mrs. Neely called to him.
It was like I did one of those cool-ass slow motion tricks from the movies. You know, the kind where I would turn and my hair would fan out all around me and land beautifully on my back as sparkle dust plumed outward and onto their fine cherry floor. I’d lock eyes with Colton and he’d smile and nod, extending his hand toward me like we were in some fairytale.
Well, it was kinda like that. But not really. Okay. Not at all. Instead, I turned too fast and tripped over my feet, sending my elbow into the banister next to the door. Hard.
Mr. Neely was on his feet immediately and rushed over to see if I was okay and I shrugged it off while trying not to look as embarrassed as I felt. I rubbed my elbow and tried not to cry.
Colton gave his mom an animated look and nodded his head. “Then I’ll hide all the scissors and chewing gum.” It made the entire room grow quiet before he looked over at me. “I know how upset you were last time when I had to cut your hair.”
My jaw was on the floor. He’d totally cracked a joke.
“Then I guess you should hide the mattresses, too,” I shot back playfully.
The silence that followed that statement made me want to crawl in a hole and die. Because Colton may not have gotten the innuendo . . . but his parents sure did.
That started my weekly dinners with the family. I didn’t push him into inviting me, but waited on one of his parents to extend the invitation instead. He never objected and I really loved seeing him at his house because he was so much more relaxed. I saw a side of him there I didn’t get to see at school when he was trying to focus on what he was expected to do.
The impressive thing about school was the more I hung out with him, the more people started to really see him, too. Especially the girls. Because, let’s face it, a cute boy is a cute boy, whether he’s all that different or not. This made it easier for him in his other classes, since people were warming up to him. But it made it all that much harder on me because I was constantly wondering if he enjoyed their company and conversation more than mine.
Though, once he started holding my hand, he never really stopped. Our palms were like ultra-strength magnets that just slapped together every time we were in each other’s vicinity. We held hands. Hard. Always. Up and down the halls of the school. After school. In the car. Hands and fingers.
Always touching.