He pressed my hand gently between both of his, staring at our entwined fingers. Then he leaned in for another kiss. And maybe it was because I’d seen him do this countless times before, but my hand slipped out of his. I backed away and said for the first time the same seven words I’d been telling him ever since.
“I think we should be just friends.”
Mac looked at his now-empty palm, laughed dryly. “Hermosa, you and I will never be just friends.”
I expected him to go away after that. Instead we ended up talking on our Docs every night and meeting up every morning. He’d run to see me between classes, so he could walk me to mine even though it guaranteed he’d be late to his. Every Saturday, no matter how busy we both were for the rest of the day, we’d grab food and chill in the park for a bit. He came to my debates. Before I knew it, I’d become the president of the Mackenzie Rodriguez fan club while remaining its only unaffiliated member. I’d thought I’d proved him wrong about us not being able to be friends. Right until he called me a slut outside Park Prep.
Now we were sitting across from each other on his bed. Mac had worried his curls into a puffy ’fro.
“You know that isn’t me in the video, right? I tried to tell you. Someone is messing with me.”
He nodded. “I probably knew when I saw it, but Channing Gregory showed it to me with this mierda-eating grin, and I just got so pissed. At you and him and me.”
“You called me a slut.”
“Kyla.” His expression crumpled. “What can I say? If I could take it back I would. I mean, lo siento mucho, but, like, I think that was the only reaction I was capable of in my state of massive disintegration. I felt like someone used an expansion ray on my heart and then, like, set it to pulverize.”
“Isn’t that how you killed the final boss in KillCrush Seven?”
“Yeah, remember all the blood? I’m really, really sorry.”
He wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his hoodie. I put my feet on top of his. When I got upset, Mac said cálmate, tranquila; then he made me play-wrestle or dance with him. Mac was so even-keeled, I’d never had to repair his mood before. I scooted forward so our knees were touching. Putting a hand on either side of his head, but like over half his face, my thumbs right under his eyes, I forced him to meet my gaze.
“Question,” I said. “If I’m not allowed to plan after-school snack with you anymore, what point is there to life?”
Rolling his eyes, he lightly clonked his forehead against mine. Then he gathered my hands and held them in his lap.
“Kyla, can we be serious for a sec? Because there’s something I’ve wanted to ask you for a long time.” He gently skimmed his thumb over my cheek, and I couldn’t help thinking, Is this the thing he does?! Because it caused more of a pleasant static shock than a melty sensation. “And maybe this isn’t the right time, considering that whole I-don’t-ever-want-to-see-your-face-again bit, but I strongly believe, like more strongly than I believe that Manchester United will win the cup this year, that you should go out with me. Or you know, in question form: Will you be my girl? Por favor. Y gracias.”
As Mac traced a line from the curve of my jaw to my neck to my collarbone, a thousand different emotions surged through my body. Excitement, giddiness, nervousness, por supuesto, but the largest percentage of me felt annoyed. For nearly four months, I’d waited for Mac to ask me to be his girlfriend. Anytime we were particularly cuddly or he said my name in that serious way he had or he rubbed his nose against mine, I held my breath, expecting to be kissed. And on any of those occasions, despite his past, and my trepidation, and my hard-line—correct!—stance that we’d last longer as friends, I would have said yes.
But he hadn’t asked me in those nice, appropriate times. He asked me now. When I’d spent the last thirty-six hours being eye-groped by everyone who saw me. And maybe it wasn’t fair, but having Mac ask me out right at that moment didn’t feel much different from the hundreds of times that request had been made to me online over the last two days. I couldn’t have felt more physically dirty if I had slept with my teacher all-caps PLUS every stranger who had propositioned me. The very last thing in the world I was thinking about was pairing off with someone.
“Macky, I’m not sure now’s the right time.”
“Okay, so when is? Six more months? Right when we’re about to go away to college? A year? How about just one more month?” He took my Doc and tapped in my password. “By then we’ll have figured out this video mess, and your college apps will be in, and you’ll realize I don’t like you any less; I only like you more.”
I watched him set a reminder on my Doc for January 23 that read: Say yes to Mac asking me out.
“How did you know my password?”
“It’s a simple equation, actually; all you have to do is…” He rolled his eyes. “All you have to do is know you even a little, hermosa, to know your password is Malin’s inauguration date. And you wonder how someone hacked into Scholar?”
“But I use Shield.”
“Yeah, but Shield doesn’t update your Doc password. Plus, what’s your Shield password? Let me guess. Malin’s inauguration date.”
“It is not,” I sniffed, but only because I intended on changing it as soon as I left.
Mac’s eyes met mine. They burned with resolve. “Be my girlfriend, Kyla.”
“I won’t be bullied into going out with you, Mac. I feel like you’re only trying to claim me because the video made you jealous.”
“No, dummy, I’m trying to ask you out because I like you.”
Hey, fellas, a quick word about trying to convince the girl you like to go out with you. Maybe don’t call her stupid as a persuasive tactic.
“And if I thought we’d last more than a week, maybe I’d say yes.”
As Mac’s shoulders rounded in hurt, I let out a rush of air and tried to laugh. Kyle liked to remind me that not everyone chose to argue as an extracurric: i.e., not everyone enjoyed heated discussions or was able to walk away from them completely grudgeless like I was. We’d only just made up. I didn’t want to be fighting with Mac. Not about this.
“Come on, Macky. You know you don’t do relationships. You pillage and then move on.”
“Let me ask you something: You think before we went on that date this fall, I had a reason to be up on three every afternoon freshie through junsies? You know all my classes are on one.”
After a click of hesitation, he lightly bit my pointer-finger knuckle. I’d prefer not to describe the tingles that this created. Just please know they existed. He smiled. I didn’t.
“That’s called infatuation.”
“Or maybe it’s called just the sight of you made my days bearable. I think this”—he motioned to the space between us—“is a little different than pillaging.”
“My point exactly: You think it’s different. And what if it’s not? In a few weeks’ time this”—now I motioned to the space between us—“could be nothing. Macky, do you know what everyone says about the girls you hook up with?”
“That they’re awesome?”