I hear my mom’s voice in my head. You’ve always known what you want, and you’ve always gone for it without even hesitating.
So I’m in a book. So Lucy Keating is writing my life. So she thinks Will is the one for me.
Swiftly, I stand up from the toilet seat and smooth down the skirt of my dress.
Who says I can’t write my own story?
“Look,” Elliot says when I open the door, “I’m sorry if I freaked you out down there. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you how hard it was to get here. Or that I came to see you. I understand if that’s not what you expected. But I was starting to go insane, and—”
I am barely listening as I pull Elliot inside the bathroom with me. And before I can stop myself, I wrap my arms around his neck.
“What are you doing, Bellybutton?” Elliot asks in a low voice, his eyes becoming heavy lidded.
“Authors can’t see characters in the bathroom,” I say.
“What are you—?” Elliot starts to ask.
“Later,” I tell him, pressing a finger to his lips. And then I kiss Elliot Apfel hard on the mouth. Our lips meet easily, and I feel like I’m being pulled against him by an electric current, my hands reaching up to hold on to the sides of his face as he kisses me back without hesitation.
13
Because I’m with You
IF ELLIOT is surprised when I kiss him, he doesn’t show it for very long. Within seconds he drops the empty beer can he’s holding and wraps his arms around me, too. And when he pulls away, he rests his head against mine.
“Annabelle,” he says with a kind of laugh. Like he’s just woken up and seen me there. Like he has things to say but all that he can manage was my name. I don’t mind this very much. It turns out the one thing you could do to shut Elliot up is kiss him.
I should be more focused on what I’d just done. I’d kissed my brother’s best friend. I’d kissed a person who half the time I couldn’t stand, and genuinely seemed to loathe me in return. I’d kissed someone who wasn’t Will, and I’d done it at Will’s party. In Will’s house.
Elliot leans in and nuzzles my cheek.
But I don’t care. Because all of a sudden I realize something: I’d kissed the person I’d wanted to kiss all along. For once, I wasn’t thinking about my plan or Lucy’s plan. For once I was just doing what I wanted.
“You wanna get out of here?” Elliot voice crackles in my ear.
Things whirl in my mind. What will tomorrow be like? What will people say? Is there even any future here?
Then my eyes meet Elliot’s, and they are smoldering. And all that ends up coming out is “Yeah.”
I had my bike parked at Will’s house, and after we snuck down the back staircase and out the side door, Elliot borrowed another from the garage. I didn’t want to see anyone, talk to anyone. Not Will, not even Ava. I didn’t want anyone disrupting this perfect moment.
On our way home we stop at a taco shop on Rose Avenue and devour a couple of carnitas as we sit on the edge of the sidewalk. Elliot has his arm draped around my shoulder, and it feels different than it did with Will. With Will it felt good, too, but I was so aware of his presence, about whether he was the right fit for me. With Elliot I don’t care how we look to anyone, or what anyone thinks. I just want to listen, to hear his weird stories. This is not about anyone but us.
There is magic in Venice no matter what, but you really feel it at night, especially when you’re riding a bike. The streets empty out, and the warm air whips around you as the lamps and patio lights fly by. You think the world is yours. As if you can do anything. As if you could ride your bike to Mexico if you felt like it.
We’re almost home, and Elliot rides up ahead, his arms open wide, no hands. I giggle. He loops back and circles around me.
“I like your dress,” he says. “Did I tell you that yet?”
“No, but thank you,” I say, struggling to keep my tone even as I look straight ahead.
“I like your face,” he says, still circling. “Did I tell you that yet?”
“No, but thank you,” I say again, and this time I smile.
We stop at a light, and Elliot gets a text on his phone.
“Who is it?” I ask.
“Lenny,” he says without responding to the text, and tucks it back in his pants pocket.
“What did he say?” I ask.
“He’s at a party, wanted me to stop by.”
“Oh,” I say, trying to sound easy. “Cool. Did you want to go?”
“Nope,” Elliot says.
“Why?” I ask, teasing him, smiling slightly.
The light turns green and Elliot shoots off on his bike.
“Because I’m with you!” he calls back, and my heart swells.
I don’t know where we’re going, but I follow him down Rose Avenue, right to the beach. Elliot hops off and wheels our bikes across the sand to one of the lifeguard towers. He climbs up through the railing and then offers me a hand. I hop up and sit next to him, and a slight shiver runs through me, even though it’s not cold.
Next thing I know an Elliot arm has encircled my shoulders, and my head is resting in that place in his neck, below his chin, where I’ve been silently dying to be.
Neither of us says anything, and finally I gaze up at him.
He’s smiling.
“What?” I ask.
He keeps smiling.
“What?” I ask louder, but I’m starting to smile, too. Not because I get it necessarily, but because he just makes me giddy.
“Well, well, well” is all he says.
“Oh, shut up.” I give him a shove.
“I knew you had a thing for me,” he squeaks, still laughing, and when I shove him again he grabs my arm and wraps both his arms around me tightly while I squeal.
“I had a thing for you?!” I cry in between giggles. “You’re the one with the whole um, uhhh, hey, here I am at a show I know you were already going to.” I make my voice low like Frankenstein’s monster when I say it.
“Oh, is that what I sound like?” Elliot laughs.
“As a matter of fact, you do,” I lie.
“Why didn’t anybody tell me?” he plays along, pulling back to look at me.
“We all talked about it,” I say solemnly. “That’s why we’re here tonight.”
I’m proud of my joke, but Elliot doesn’t seem to be listening anymore. He brushes a piece of my hair and tucks it behind my ear.
“I am forever grateful,” he says, staring at the lock of hair, then back to my face, and neither of us is laughing anymore.
Even though we’ve kissed already, even if I’m pretty sure he likes me, looking into Elliot’s eyes is hard. But he’s holding my gaze, and I kissed him first the last time. So I do the only practical thing possible. I start counting. The first time I hold his gaze for two seconds, then look down at his chest. Then I hold for four seconds. The next time I hold for five, and when I go to glance down again, his lips find mine in a kiss.
This kiss is not like the bathroom kiss, with my awkward pounce, up against the sink with the hair dryer clamoring to the floor. This one is slow and deliberate. It’s all Elliot’s doing. I am thinking I have never in my life been kissed like this before.