I nod too many times. I need to get out of this house.
He’s watching me the way someone would watch an injured cat—not wanting to leave it alone but scared to get too close too quickly. “Are you okay?” His eyes darken with concern.
I feel my jaw shake. I nod once.
He stands up and his lip-glossed companion keeps her eyes glued to the two of us. “I can give you a ride home if you’re not feeling well. My car is right outside.”
“No,” I blurt out, and he looks startled. “I mean, thanks, but I can’t leave my car here. My mom would kill me.”
The skin in between his eyes scrunches deeply. “Okay. Well, at least let me walk you out. You look like you’re about to pass out.”
The girl with the braid and lip gloss stands up. “I’m going to get another drink. See you out back?”
Jamie nods. “I’ll just be a minute.”
I start to object—I even think of trying to find Emery. But I don’t want to stay here any longer. I want to go home. My stomach is rotating in so many directions I think I’m going to be sick.
“See you later, Kelly.”
I glance over my shoulder—Adam is standing outside the hallway with sleepy eyes and an unlit cigarette in his hand.
Oh my God, I can’t believe I let a smoker kiss me. I want to claw off my own face.
I ignore Jamie even though I’m sure he’s staring at me. When we’re standing in front of my car, I dig through my bag clumsily until I find the keys. When I pull them out, the metal glint of the Batman key chain dangles from my fist. It catches my eye. It catches Jamie’s, too.
I feel myself shrinking into the ground.
“It’s weird seeing you again,” Jamie says all of a sudden. The corner of his mouth dimples when he smirks. “You look the same, but . . . different.”
I’m shaking, and I can’t tell if it’s the aftershocks of the horrible kiss with Adam, or if it’s because Jamie Merrick is standing in front of me with the streetlight pouring across his face like a moonlit mask. His eyes are such a piercing blue. They stand out even more because he has thick, heavy eyebrows. On anyone else, his eyebrows would look like a Muppet character. But on him, they don’t look weird—his face just makes sense, quirks and all. Maybe because he’s always made so much sense to me.
“Yeah, I guess that’s what time does to you,” I say lamely.
Jamie looks like he wants to say so much more. It wasn’t always awkward between us. We used to be effortless together.
Maybe time has something to do with that, too.
I straighten myself up.
I want to ask him why he stopped talking to me. I want to ask him why we didn’t stay friends forever, when we promised each other we would.
I want to ask him what happened after he moved away that turned us into strangers.
But I don’t have the time or the courage.
“Well, I hope you feel better. It was nice to see you again.” He presses his lips together and looks down at his feet. When he brings his face back up, he looks at me the way I feel—like something inside of him aches. “Good-bye, Kiko.”
Good-bye. Not good night. Why does it feel so final?
“Good-bye, Jamie.” I turn for the car door, and when I look back over my shoulder, he’s already making his way back to the house and his pretty friend inside.
I don’t know what any of it means, but it doesn’t matter. I feel weightless.
? ? ?
I paint a girl with wings instead of arms, flying along the border where darkness becomes light, unsure of where she’s supposed to be.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Emery calls to ask why I disappeared last night. At first I think she’s mad about it, but then I realize she’s just groggy and hungover. I try to tell her about Adam and Jamie, but both stories are on such drastically different ends of the emotional spectrum that I can’t seem to get the words out without downplaying one or the other.
Kissing Adam was horrible.
Seeing Jamie again made the world feel whole.
So I don’t tell Emery about any of it. I push my thoughts into a small corner of my brain to deal with later, and I ask about her night instead.
I spend the weekend working on my portfolio. I fill four pages of sketches until I settle on a painting of a woman with a shaved head dancing in a swirl of fire. It takes a long time because there are about a hundred layers of fire all around her. It keeps me busy until Monday morning, so I don’t have to think about kissing Adam. It also keeps me from thinking about Jamie’s probably-girlfriend.
But it doesn’t keep me from thinking about Jamie. He is literally all I think about, even when I’m painting, and usually painting is how I shut out the rest of the world. It’s my sanctuary from the thoughts that cloud my head.
But with each burst of color on the canvas, I see dark eyelashes and blue eyes, dimples and a gentle smile, and light radiating from his olive skin, like he’s secretly a star that fell down to earth by accident.
By Monday morning, I forget about everything but Jamie.
Until I see Adam at school.
He’s standing near his locker, hiding a pack of cigarettes in between a folder covered in black Sharpie drawings and an English textbook. My nerves are making me feel sick—I don’t know if he’ll even remember me or what happened, but I also don’t know how he’ll act if he does.
Part of me wants to just get our inevitable encounter over with, but as it turns out the universe isn’t interested in what I want, because Adam doesn’t notice me by the lockers at all.
Later on, in government, I feel like there are tiny bugs crawling all over my body. It’s so hard to sit still. I pick my nails under the desk because it’s only a matter of time before I see him now. I’m nervous to speak to him for the first time since that night.
He walks in with his friend, and when he sees me, his smile disappears like someone’s erased it from his face.
He spends the rest of class looking embarrassed and avoiding any direct eye contact with me, intentional or otherwise.
He is embarrassed of me.
Of course.
I feel angry. Really, really angry.
I spend the next two classes on the verge of tears. My hands are shaking so much that I can’t hold a pencil still enough to sketch.
That part makes me even angrier.
And then I see him for a third time, right outside of the gymnasium. He sees me too, but this time he doesn’t seem in a hurry to get away, even though there’s only five minutes until the bell rings.
Five minutes doesn’t seem like enough time to say what we need to.
“Hey,” he says when he reaches me. He’s wearing a red-and-gold-striped shirt. It reminds me of Harry Potter. I’m still mad about his reaction in government, but if he apologizes, I might be able to forgive him if he likes Harry Potter.
“Hey,” I reply quietly. I look down at my feet. I’m wearing black Converse sneakers and a Legend of Zelda T-shirt. Maybe he’ll like video games, too. Maybe I didn’t waste my first kiss on a smoker—maybe we have a lot in common that I don’t know yet.