I sniff again, and though his scentprint plays like a chord to my nose, I can still barely make out the miso.
I laugh nervously. “Don’t mind me.”
Hesitantly, I slip my arms around his slim waist and press my cheek against his chest. He takes in a short gasp of air and his chest clutches. The perfume of honeysuckle, heady and narcoleptic, escapes from him, the note of desire. Then again, we’re so close, it could be coming from me. Court doesn’t shrink away, but I feel him fidget as I hold him. His fists clench at his sides and his face is a tight mask. The two-step of his heartbeat chases after mine. I close my mind to the confusingly hard yet comfortable pillow under my cheek, and hone in on the miso note.
The scents are there, playing for you. Listen to them.
The miso note creeps, rather than sails into my nose, and I open my mind to its character, its essence. The saltiness doesn’t have a lick of bitter, unlike table salt, and reminds me of seashells. It has to be a marine plant or a plant found near the ocean. I shut down thoughts of Court, shirtless and surfing, almost as soon as they crop up, and refocus. There’s a buttery roundness to the scent, like it’s used to sunshine. I inhale one more time.
Five years old, the beach. The fog sits on the ocean thick as cotton batting. Mother is wearing a floppy hat and sorting through a shiny black plant with floats that resemble lightbulbs. I close my fist around the clam and trudge over to a little girl about my age with daisies on her bathing suit.
I hold my clam out to the girl. “It smells like sea grass.”
She scrunches her nose. “No, it smells like clams.”
“Old oranges, too, and sunshine, and the lint trap. See?” I push the clam farther toward her nose. She backs away, her face crumpling. “Stop it! You’re gross!”
I sway as all the ugly scents swoop in through my nose and pour down my cheeks like hot fire.
That was the day Mother explained to me how our noses differed from everyone else’s. The day she began to train me to objectify those emotions into scents, to protect myself the way a scientist can study diseases without getting infected. The day I began to wall myself into the brambles.
Tears prick my eyes, and as I look up into Court’s confused gaze, his face softens.
I inhale his scent for the third time, and this time I don’t let myself linger. My mind’s eye zooms out from the beach to the cliff overlooking the beach. The water was peacock blue, frothing into a crescent of sand. Marine scents hung in the ocean’s misty breath, which swirled all around me.
I remember where I was. “Playa del Rey.” I slowly release Court. “I need to go there.”
“Playa del Rey? In Las Ballenas?” He sounds short of breath, and his eyes look pinched, like he’s in pain. I think I catch the fleeting note of wisteria, but wistful notes have always been quick to hide.
“Yes. That’s where I’ll find the missing plant.”
“The missing plant. Right.” He sags against a tangle of branches. “That’s an hour from Santa Guadalupe in the other direction. Can you find it in the dark?”
It’s already late afternoon. “Yes, but”—I chew on my lip—“Mother’s supposed to call this evening. If she doesn’t reach me, she might worry.” She might even call the police. Plus, I need to get my plants home and properly stashed. “We can’t go until tomorrow. Is that okay?”
“Yeah,” he murmurs. I’m distracted by his chin, rounded like a guitar pick. I distract myself by focusing on a cluster of dark berries above his head.
His mouth opens, soft as the petals of a sweet pea. I can’t stop staring, wondering how it would feel to kiss him. And the more I think about kissing him, the closer he comes to me. Or maybe I’m falling into him.
His physical proximity is screwing up my emotions, the way the Bermuda Triangle can make compasses malfunction. But I can’t add kissing to my rap sheet. Remember Aunt Bryony. No falling in love.
His face hovers just inches from mine, drawing me in like a bee to a patch of sweet Williams. I try to fight it, distract myself with the berries, but now it strikes me that the sprigs look rather like mistletoe.
I tear my eyes away from his mouth just as he catches my wrist.
I gasp. No one besides Mother and Kali ever touches me. It’s a strange sensation, the warmth of his hand on my skin. His fingertips slide to my grubby palm, then stop. Oh, sweet marjoram, I may never leave this tree again. As he holds my hand, we gaze at each other, so close now that I feel his breath graze my forehead and the happiness scent of sugar maple tickles my nose.
I break into a sweat as a chilling realization settles on me. I’m already in love. I don’t know when it happened, but it happened. Invisible threads of attraction sewed him to me when I wasn’t watching, trapping me tight. That’s why I feel so sick every time he’s near. I tug my hand away, and it’s as painful as ripping out my own heart.