I started back toward my car, pushing past him, close enough for our arms to brush.
Then Enzo’s hand was on my shoulder, and he was spinning me around, and the next thing I knew, his lips were on mine, pressing hard, hungry. It was a better answer to my question than I’d hoped for.
My body relaxed. He pulled me closer, held me tight against his body, the two of us radiating heat in the cold October night.
I had kissed boys before, but not like that. I’d never been on autopilot, my body doing things without checking with my brain first to see if it was OK. My entire body was buzzing, and I was sure Enzo could feel it, an electric current passing from me to him. The tension had been building up, and finally, there was a release. We were melting into each other.
Enzo suddenly pulled back, leaving me cold and vulnerable where he’d been pressed up against me.
“Goddammit, Hawthorn.” He ran his hands through his hair and looked up at the sky. “This is fucked up. What are people going to say?”
“Since when do you care what people say?”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his tobacco and rolling papers. After a moment, he spoke. “Maybe you should take me home.”
So I did. When we got to his apartment, he climbed out of his car and told me good night as if nothing unusual had happened. Neither of us mentioned the kiss or what it meant. But I knew we were both thinking about it.
It wasn’t something we could erase. We couldn’t pretend the kiss hadn’t happened—nor did I want to. As I drove home, my heart rate still hadn’t returned to its normal speed. I ached to kiss Enzo again. I wanted to live in our moment in the woods forever.
Chapter 28
Terrible Everything
I needed to tell someone. I needed to find someone I could be a hundred percent honest with, someone who would listen to the whole story—from the day I met Enzo in the diner until the previous night’s kiss. But I was pretty short on friends.
I spent all of Saturday wandering aimlessly. I picked up the phone to call Emily, then realized how absurd I was being, because Emily and I weren’t friends anymore. So I hung up and walked to the backyard to see Sundog, since he’d listen to anything I had to tell him. But talking to him about werewolves was one thing. I couldn’t gush to him about a kiss and what it might mean. Our relationship wasn’t that personal. I wished I could tell my mom or even Rush, but I’d never even talked about my crushes with them, and it seemed weird to suddenly start. So I stayed quiet and shrugged when anyone asked me why I was acting so weird.
I didn’t call Enzo, and he didn’t call me. I wondered if he was sitting in his crappy little apartment, thinking of me and our kiss. I wanted to know if he’d replayed it in his head about eight billion times like I had. I felt weak when I thought about it, like those girls in Victorian novels who are always swooning. One kiss had turned me into a stereotype I’d always despised. I was losing my mind.
I hung Enzo’s painting on the wall next to my bed. He’d put so much work into it. He’d spent hours fixated on the painting and nothing else. Which meant he’d spent those hours thinking of me. The same way he’d once spent hours painting a picture of Lizzie. She was gone though, and maybe she wasn’t coming back. Now I was Enzo’s muse. Maybe I wasn’t as beautiful or charming as Lizzie, but Enzo wanted me. I affected him so deeply that he had to put his emotions on canvas, and that made me feel as if I’d drift away if I didn’t tether myself to the earth.
There was a knock on my door Saturday evening. I was lying in bed, looking at Enzo’s painting, wishing I was scheduled to work so I could babble to Christa.
“What?” I shouted.
Rush swung open the door without waiting for me to say it was OK. “Mom wants to know if you’re eating dinner here.”
“What’s she making?”
“I don’t know. Some sort of Tofurky wraps or something.”
“Gross.”
“I know.”
Rush looked around my room, not meeting my eyes, like he wanted to say something but didn’t know where to start.
“What’s your problem?” I asked.
“No problem. I was just thinking—” He cut off his sentence when he saw the painting. “What’s that?”
“Surely, you’ve seen paintings before. You know, often found in museums or as decorations in homes?”
Rush ignored my sarcasm and walked into the room, uninvited, to get a closer look. “Where’d it come from?”
“Enzo did it.”
My brother’s jaw tightened.
“It’s good, isn’t it?” I asked.
“I guess so. It’s weird.”
“It’s supposed to be weird.”
“You don’t need to get upset.”
“I’m not.”
Rush shrugged, then sat down on my bed, again uninvited.
“What?” I asked.
“I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but Enzo isn’t the only guy out there, you know. He’s not the best you can do.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“The guy’s a loser, Hawthorn. And you’ve got your whole life ahead of you.”