95% of reported UFO sightings can be attributed to airplanes, weather balloons, or satellites, a figure skeptics cite as conclusive proof that aliens are not, in fact, among us. But for true believers, that 5% chance is just enough hope to believe that we’re not alone.
—AlienHuntress, 2015
“WHY DO YOU NEED to go right now?” Lincoln asks. “They haven’t even played the Cupid Shuffle yet, and you know you want to watch me kill at that.”
“Because!” I shout, then lower my voice and lean in closer. “Jake.”
Lincoln looks smug as he puts his arm around Scott. “So you’re finally realizing what everyone else has known the whole time.”
“Oh, shut up. Don’t act like you knew.”
Lincoln looks offended. “Have you even seen the way he looks at you?”
“Like he wants to eat your face,” Scott offers, concerned.
“But in a good way,” Lincoln adds.
I wince. My palms are tingling, remembering the look in Jake’s eyes the night before. “I have to go now, before I lose my nerve.”
They cheer for me as I dodge the slow-dancing couples and run through the gym. I see Jenni and Brad with their arms wrapped around each other and their foreheads touching, but I keep going right through the double doors and into the parking lot.
And I run. I run through the parking lot, where a girl hanging out the sunroof of a late-arriving limo yells, “Go, Mallory!” as I offer her a wave. Thank God this dress isn’t floor length or tight. But, as I hobble and almost trip over a crack in the sidewalk, I realize that these shoes just aren’t working. I pull them off my feet and tuck them behind a bush, silently apologizing to Jenni for temporarily hiding her silver heels in the dirt. “I’ll come back for you,” I whisper.
I keep running toward the Kirkpatricks’, pushing a million thoughts out of my mind. What if I step on a rusty nail and get a tetanus infection? What if a pack of rabid dogs attacks me? What if a freak storm occurs and I get struck by lightning and become the topic of a Buzzfeed article? This Girl Was Homecoming Queen … Until Tragedy Struck.
Until I realize that this time, I do have something to be afraid of. What if Jake hates me and never wants to talk to me again?
But I keep running. I push the thoughts out of my brain and focus on putting one foot in front of the other, dodging rocks on the sidewalk. When I finally reach Jake’s house, I stop and place my hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath.
“Mallory?”
Jake’s standing inside his garage, bent over his motorcycle. My heart skipping, I stand up and walk into the light that spills onto the driveway.
“Sorry,” I say between inhales. “For showing up. Unannounced.”
“Are you okay?” Jake stands up straight and looks at me.
I take another step toward him. “Yes. I mean, no. Well, sort of. I will be, I hope?”
Jake just stares at me. I can’t read his face or tell if he’s still angry or just confused. So I go for it.
“I’m sorry,” I say. To my embarrassment, tears start to form in my eyes. “I’m sorry I was a jerk to you, and that it seemed like I was using your brother. I guess I sort of was, but he’s really my friend. But I mean, he’s just my friend. I don’t have a crush on him.”
Jake fidgets a bit, switching his wrench from his left hand to his right hand, but he doesn’t say anything.
“I know you’re not just some guy hiding out at his dad’s. I know you’re a physics genius, and I know that you’re a lot more than one stupid mistake. And I hope I am, too. Because I know you’re BeamMeUp. And I just hope that I haven’t messed everything up forever, because listen, I know I’m not perfect. I’m just figuring out how to leave my house, for God’s sake. And sometimes I talk too much when I’m nervous or else I don’t talk enough, and I love my family but we’re a mess, and that one time I puked in front of everyone—”
“You won,” Jake interrupts.
“What?”
He tosses his wrench down on the concrete floor. I don’t flinch at the sound or try to run when he takes a step toward me. “Your crown.” He reaches up to touch my tiara and I feel like my head might seriously burst into flames.
“Yeah,” I say. I’d like to say something more intelligent or at least something that involves a few more syllables, but he moves his hand a little bit lower to stroke my cheek.
“Wait here,” he says, cruelly pulling his hand back and jogging inside. Standing in his driveway, wearing a dress and a tiara, it hits me how weird this situation is. Weird and completely wonderful.
Jake pops back out the door and jogs over to me, holding a bunch of Twizzlers wrapped with a green ribbon. “For you.”
I take the bag delicately and run my fingers over the ribbon.
“You know on We Are Not Alone, when I told you a hug wasn’t all that romantic?”
I squeeze the Twizzlers to my chest. “And I said I’d hold out for a bouquet of Twizzlers? You remembered that?”
“Yeah, well,” Jake says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ve had them since that day. I was going to put them in a vase, but I thought you’d be at the dance longer.”
I never thought I’d get choked up over a bag of candy, but here we are. “This is perfect.”
Jake nods toward the backyard. “Come see something.”
He grabs my hand and curls his fingers around mine. We walk around the house. All I can focus on is the sensation of his rough hand … that is, until I see what’s in the middle of the yard, illuminated by the light on the Kirkpatricks’ back porch.
Our physics project. Finished.
“Did you do this?” I ask, kneeling beside it.
“Yep.” Jake puts his hands in his pockets.
“Oh my God,” I say, afraid to even touch it. “I can’t believe you did all this work for us.”
“I have a slight confession to make,” Jake says, and I stand up to face him. “I helped Brad a lot when you weren’t around.…”
“I knew it!”
“But honestly … I made it a little bit harder than it had to be. I just wanted an excuse to hang out with you.”
I let it all sink in. “You did?”
He nods.
“Even though I called you a pompous asshole?”
Jake looks confused. “You did?”
Whoops. “Um … that might’ve been in my head.”
Jake laughs, but the smile fades from his face quickly. “Listen, I’m sorry BeamMeUp ditched you. That guy’s kind of a jerk.”
I shrug, wrapping my arms around myself. “He’s okay. I’m sorry AlienHuntress tried to make her life sound a lot cooler than it really was.”
Jake raises his eyebrows. “I think she’s always been pretty cool. Maybe that’s why BeamMeUp had to stop talking to her—he wanted to see her in real life instead of on a screen.” He points to the project. “Speaking of being a pompous asshole, I took the liberty of naming the rocket for you. Not sorry.”
“It’s more of a parachute,” I start, but then I see what is painted on the side—AlienHuntress, in big, bold, red letters.
“You named it after me.” My voice shakes.
“I like you a lot, Mallory,” Jake says, stepping even closer to me so that our bodies are touching and our faces are just inches apart. His voice saying my name sends a shiver down my spine. “It’s like a guy on the Internet once said, ‘Everyone exerts a force.’”
“You more so than others,” I finish.
He closes the gap between us and presses his lips against mine. I wrap my arms around his neck, and this is absolutely, positively better than being homecoming queen. This is better than any dumb plastic crown. It’s at least as good as an X-Files marathon. Kissing Jake is even better than I thought it would be last night in the driveway. It’s like a parachute expanding in my chest and a million rockets going off all at once.
Jake Kirkpatrick is a lot of things: physics nerd, forum member, pretend juvenile delinquent, and now I can say with full certainty that he’s also a very, very good kisser.
He pulls back and I wobble a bit. All of the words I had in my head are suddenly gone. He smiles and it’s so cute that I just want to grab his face and kiss him again, but then he says, “So you want to launch this rocket?”
It takes me a second to realize that this isn’t some weird sexual euphemism. “But … won’t Brad be mad if I finish our physics project without him?”
Jake gives me a look. “Has Brad ever actually cared about physics?”
I think back to Brad’s sad, confused class notes. “Good point. We’ll make another project tomorrow.”
Jake kneels and tinkers. I stare at the back of his neck, the skin I touched just a minute ago, and I feel my whole body blush.
“I put a message in it,” Jake says without looking at me.
“A message?”
“Yeah.” He turns and looks up at me. “To the aliens. I mean, I know that wasn’t the point of the project. I know this is for physics class, but I thought”—he shrugs—“why not?”
I kneel beside him. “What’s it say?”
“‘We’re here,’” Jake says. “I was going to try to do something clever, or use a Ray Bradbury quote or something, but…”
“I like it,” I say, taking it all in. The dirt of the Kirkpatricks’ backyard on my bare feet, the electric warmth of Jake’s arm lightly touching mine, the way his face looks half-illuminated by the back-porch light.
As those two little words repeat in my head—we’re here—I let everything go. Maybe Brad and I won’t get the highest grade in the class on this project, and maybe it doesn’t matter, since I’m going to try going back to school. Maybe our project will crap out and fall into some trees two blocks away without recording anything. Maybe I can’t protect Lincoln from everything—and maybe he doesn’t even need protecting. Maybe I’ll puke in front of everybody again (God, I hope not).
I know my life isn’t suddenly perfect, that totally making out with Jake doesn’t fix everything. It’s not like I’m Anxious Beauty and the touch of his lips is going to cure me. I still have my problems, and he still has his. And things with my dad aren’t ever going to be perfect, even if I do ask my mom to tell me where he is.
But I know where I am. Here. Here with Mom, here with Lincoln, here with Jenni. Here with the classmates who don’t dislike me as much as I always thought they did, the ones who chose me to be their homecoming queen. Here with Jake, the guy I really thought I hated until I found out that I really, really didn’t.
“You ready?” he asks.
I lean over and give him one quick kiss. This is it. This is where I belong. This is home.
“I’m ready,” I say.
AlienHuntress Is Out of This World