UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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Luke Dawson. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him since yesterday. I glide from class to class to the hot-lunch line. I have been transported to a world where only Luke and I exist. The sound of mystery meat and gravy splattering from an ice-cream scoop to my tray can’t touch me.
I remain in my Luke-filled fog as I grab a skim milk, pay for my food, and slip into a chair at our table. I always feel like people are watching me while I eat lunch. It’s because Megan is a cheerleader and blond and waiflike and the most popular girl in school. Our friends Amberly and Britney cheer too, which means every girl at this table except me is in a cheer uniform. Amberly’s wearing the regulation uniform like everyone else, but it just looks different on her. Like it’s a stripper costume. She can’t help how curvy she is.
And Britney, well, it’s not like we’ve ever had a fight or anything, but I’m just not as close with her. Maybe it’s because she’s my best friend’s other best friend, or maybe it’s because she’s always so quick to take Megan’s side. Maybe I’m not okay with that.
“I don’t see how you can eat that,” says Megan, poking at my Jell-O. “Oh! But that reminds me. We’re doing an eight-tier wedding cake today at the bakery. Eight!”
She gets to leave school early to go to her internship with a local cake designer. Her college-professor parents grudgingly allowed it because they’re hoping she’ll “get it out of her system.” They don’t get that food is more than just a hobby for her. It’s everything.
She and Amberly and Britney talk about the bakery, about clothes, about boys, but I’m too busy scanning the lunchroom to pay attention.
“. . . so hot.”
Megan rattles on about whatever guy she currently likes. I drink my milk and daydream about Luke and forget to make my usual comments about how the school meat is made from roadkill.
“. . . and he has the most adorable dimples.”
“What’s his name?” asks Britney.
“Luke Dawson,” Megan says dreamily.
My eyes bulge, and a chunk of whatever animal I’m eating becomes lodged in my throat. I have to force it down before I can ask, “What did you say?”
The bell rings, but nobody moves.
I’m dying to scream, Back off. I saw him first! but before I can say anything, Amberly points across the cafeteria.
“Isn’t that him?”
Megan’s eyes follow her hand.
“Oh, there he is. He must have second lunch. Luke! Luke, over here.” She waves him over to our table even though the bell already rang. “This is the guy I was telling you about. This is Britney and Amberly. And Claire,” she says, almost as an afterthought.
“Hey.” Luke gives an awkward little wave. He’s wearing a shirt that says “Optimus Prime says stay in school,” and I’m relieved to note his nose is only the tiniest bit swollen.
“You should come to the football game this Friday. I’m cheering,” says Megan.
“Um, yeah. Maybe I’ll check it out.”
“Cool. See you later.” She smiles at him with the tip of her tongue tucked between her teeth, radiating one million kilowatts of mesmerizing Megan energy.
And so it begins. She already likes him, and it’s only a matter of time before he likes her back, so that’s settled. I’m not going to make an idiot of myself chasing after a guy who likes my best friend and not me. I’m used to guys picking Megan. It sort of comes with being her friend. The thing is, I thought this guy might be different.
“I gotta get some lunch,” Luke says. Messy reddish-blond hair that is a touch too long falls into his eyes, and he brushes it away. “Bye.”
“Bye,” they coo back at him.
“Bye, Claire.”
I’m so startled by him saying good-bye to just me I can barely say it back. I start to think/hope/desperately wish things might work out after all. Until I see that tiny wrinkle appear between Megan’s eyebrows.
After everyone else leaves, Megan catches me by the elbow.
“So. You like him too,” she says. It isn’t a question.
I blurt out everything I’m thinking. “Yeah. I mean, I know I just met him, but I really do. He plays soccer, and he’s traveled the world, and, well, he’s just different.”
“He’s different for me too,” she says softly. “He made me feel smart.”
“Aw, sweetie. You are smart.” I want to hug her right here in the middle of the cafeteria, but that would be weird. Plus, she might take the hug as permission to go after Luke, which I am so not giving her. “So, what do we do now?”
“Have the catfight of the century?”
“Ha-ha.”
“How does this always happen to us?”
You call dibs on everything in boxer shorts. “We both have impeccable taste in boys?”
Megan giggles. “True. Seriously, though, what are we going to do?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want this to mess things up with us.”
“Me neither.” She sighs. “So, that’s it then. We both back off.”
I blink. Seriously? Megan never backs off of anything. But her eyes look a little sad, and I realize she means it. Saying those words goes against everything in her nature, so even though I don’t want to, I force myself to say, “Okay. I guess I can do that.”
But I don’t really believe either of us will be able to stay away for long.
I also don’t expect to be tested in my very next class. Luke is there. In AP English. On top of everything else, he’s smart too? Of course he is. I’m sure I’ll uncover some sort of deal breaker if I talk to him long enough (I’m pretty picky), but for now I’m basking in the feeling you get when you’re instantly attracted to someone and you haven’t found anything wrong with them yet.
I take my usual desk, and as soon as he’s finished talking with the teacher, he sits next to me.
“Hey, your, uh, nose looks better.”
“Yeah, it pretty much is,” he says. “I’m thinking of demanding a rematch, but I don’t know if my face can take it.”
I laugh. “I swear I’ll keep my elbows to myself next time.” If I’m allowed to have a next time. I’m not sure what exactly constitutes staying away.
We’re silent for a minute, and Luke begins twirling his pencil around on his fingers. “So, that football game. Are you going?”
“Yeah. I always go to them.”
He smiles. “I’ll probably go too.”
Even though I know I have to stay away from him, that smile makes me feel all floaty for the rest of the day.
Kiss #3 xoxo
Sometimes you have to take the flying leap. Swallow your fear. Kiss that boy you’ve been thinking about every night for the past month. I don’t have the luxury of wading into the shallow end by degrees. Ryan Bond is moving to Wisconsin tomorrow. In less than twenty-four hours, he’ll be riding away in a moving van, and I’ll never know what could have been.
He’s one of the only cute guys at our school who doesn’t have a girlfriend. And while the girls in his grade (eighth) can flirt with impunity, there’s a reason none of the girls in seventh are stepping up to fill the vacancy: Chessa. His fourteen-month-younger little sister. She’s always been defensive about anyone liking him, because she’s had girls use her as a way of getting close to him in the past. But when someone started a rumor that Chessa only got picked for the Crownies because the older girls liked Ryan, something inside Chessa snapped. She decreed vengeance on anyone in our grade who would dare have a crush on him, and one time, when Amanda Bell passed him a note in the hallway, Chessa ripped the note into tiny pieces and sprinkled them over Amanda’s lunch. She even did the thing where she pointed two fingers at her eyes and then pointed them at Amanda.
So if Chessa ever found out I go on an imaginary date with her brother every Saturday morning, I’d probably wake up with a horse head in my bed.
I lace up my sneakers and, just like I have for the past six Saturdays, I take off running down the quarter-mile loop at the park. I wonder if he’ll be here today. It is his last day before he moves. But it’s also our last run, and I hope that means as much to him as it does to me.
I’m twitchy as I fly past crackling pine trees, hoping every sound will turn out to be his footsteps behind me on the path. That he’ll pull up beside me and grin as he shoots past. That’s how it happened that first Saturday, anyway. And I watched him run and I thought about it, and then I pulled up and passed him with a grin of my own. We went on like that until we were both all-out sprinting and collapsed, laughing, at the finish line. The next Saturday, I ran at 10:00 a.m. again, hopeful, but not really expecting anything. I got the biggest butterflies when Ryan fell into step behind me.
We did it the Saturday after that. And the next. And the next. And I feel like there’s this connection between us, even though we’ve never even spoken to each other except to yell “Last lap!” before the beginning of our all-out sprint race. Every week, I would tell myself, If he shows up today, it means he really likes me. This week I’ll do something to show him how I feel. But every week, I chickened out.
I plod through my run, feeling more dejected with each lap but still refusing to admit to myself that he isn’t coming. I’m almost done and he still isn’t here yet. As I’m making the curve past the parking lot, I hear what I’ve been waiting for—the magical thump of footsteps against packed dirt. I peek over my shoulder and start to yell “Last lap!” only to realize that the person behind me is an older woman sporting hot pink leg warmers. I slow to what is practically a stop and she gives me a dirty look as she power walks past.
He didn’t come.
I walk home with my head down. I’ve probably been imagining this whole thing, probably—
“CJ!”
There, across the street, is Ryan Bond, holding a cardboard box and trying to wave at the same time and nearly dropping everything in the process. He is as adorable as it gets. I flit onto his front lawn, drawn to him like a moth to a bug zapper. He sets the box down and a football bounces over the side and rolls to a stop in front of the McQueens’ bushes next door. He doesn’t move to go get it.
“I’m sorry I didn’t make our run today.”
Our run. I love the way it sounds when he says it. It means he did want to be there.
“That’s okay. I know you guys are really busy.” I glance at the mostly full moving van in their driveway. “I can’t believe you’re really leaving tomorrow.”
“Me neither.”
He takes a step closer. I wait, hoping something will happen, like maybe he’ll declare his undying love for me. But it’s like every other Saturday together—neither of us makes a move, even though I feel like our shy glances at each other have to mean something. If one of us doesn’t act soon, we’re going to miss our moment again, and this time we won’t have another. Ryan coughs and stares at the cracks in the cement. It’s not going to be him.
So maybe it has to be me. I take in his sun-bleached hair and the little gap between his front teeth for what may very well be the last time and take a deep breath. I am standing at the top of the high dive, scared senseless, and I know I will regret it forever if I don’t jump. So I do. Well, not literally, but I place my hand lightly on his shoulder and plant a soft kiss on his cheek. I’m struck by how warm his skin is to my lips. I mean, I’m sure he’s 98.6 like any other human, but between the sun and the heavy lifting, he feels warmer. Before I can ponder the mysteries of his thermal regulation any further, I hear a voice say, “What are you doing?”
Chessa stands in the doorway, peering at us through narrowed eyes. My first instinct is to vault over the bushes and sprint until I reach the state line. She slinks closer, and I scan the perimeter for sharp objects.
“Hey, Chessa,” he says.
Her features rearrange themselves so she looks almost innocent. “Hey. What are you guys talking about?”
Ryan’s cheeks turn a little pink. “Nothing. Just the move and stuff.”
“Yeah, I’m really gonna miss all my friends,” she says with a dramatic sigh. “That reminds me. I really need to talk to CJ. Do you mind?” The smile she flashes us is all sweetness and light.
“No, that’s fine.” He turns back to me while Chessa shoots menacing looks over his shoulder. “Bye, CJ,” he says, giving me a little wave and disappearing into the house with his box.
She waits until he’s gone and then she pounces. “Why were you talking to him?”
So she didn’t see me kiss him. I might actually live to see my thirteenth birthday.
“I, um, I—”
She continues to hover over me like some sort of jungle predator.
“I said, why were you talking to him?”
My brain cells fire feebly. If I don’t spit out an excuse soon, she’ll go all release-the-kraken on me. She reaches into her pocket, no doubt for a set of brass knuckles. Why can’t I think straight right now?!
“Calm down. She was just returning a football,” says a voice that turns out to belong to Megan McQueen.
Megan? Holy crap, these girls are like velociraptors; ones I didn’t even know were there are swooping in from the sides.
She tosses the football to me with a surprisingly good throw for someone with a French manicure before returning to her backyard.
“Yeah. Football,” I say.
Chessa gives me one last lingering glare before saying, “I’ll give it to him for you.” When the door closes behind her, I can finally breathe again.
“Thanks,” I say, leaning against a nearby pine tree for support. “You totally just saved my life.” I can’t even believe she did it. She’s much closer to Chessa than she is to me. I wonder why she would—
“No problem,” she says.
It’s then that I realize I’ve never seen Megan McQueen look so sad. She’s always the center of attention, and she’s always smiling. I suspect she even Vaselines her teeth. But today she is sitting on her patio with her back to her house and her knees tucked against her chest. Her eyes are the kind of bright that means she’s thinking about crying but wants to tough it out.
“How come you’re sitting out here by yourself?”
She shrugs. “I just felt like it, all right?”
I sit down beside her.
“You look kind of sad. Are you sure everything’s okay?”
“No.” She shakes her head. “My parents have friends over for brunch, and they brought their obnoxious smart kid, and they’re all talking about science and art and politics, and there’s so much witty banter it makes me want to throw something. They were talking about the possibility of an HIV vaccine, and I was sick of just sitting there like a slug, so I said I’d be scared to get the AIDS vaccine because I heard it had weak versions of the AIDS virus in it and I’d be worried about getting AIDS. And everyone stopped talking and they all looked at me funny like they were trying not to laugh, and finally my brother was like, ‘Megan, you know all vaccines have weak and dead versions of viruses in them, right? That’s how vaccines work.’” Her eyes tear up and she presses the heels of her hands against them. “I’m not stupid. I just don’t know everything about everything the way they do. I’m not going back in there.”
I’m trying to decide whether to pat her on the back when there’s a faint beeping from inside the house.
“Crap. My soufflé!” She grimaces. “I guess I am going back in there.”
She darts into the kitchen, not even bothering to close the door behind her. A minute later she’s back with two spoons, a tiny pitcher, and a round white dish bulging with what looks like a very puffy chocolate cake sprinkled with powdered sugar.
“It’s my best soufflé yet,” she says. Her eyes are still red, but at least she’s smiling now.
She sits back down beside me and places the dish between us on a pot holder. Handing one spoon to me, she breaks the top of the soufflé with another and pours on a chocolaty-looking sauce.
“Well, go on. Try it.”
I start to dip my spoon in, but hesitate. “Isn’t this the dessert for your parents’ brunch?”
“It’s okay. There are three more inside. They’ll only stay puffy like that for a few more minutes, and after they fall, they don’t look as cool, but people who think I’m dumb don’t deserve the splendor of a perfect soufflé.”
I spoon up a bite. Holy unbelievable goodness. If clouds were made out of chocolate, this is what they would taste like.
“Oh my gosh. It’s amazing. Did you really make this?”
She grins. “Yep.”
“Wow. I had no idea you did stuff like that.” Oops. That came out harsher than it was supposed to.
“You mean stuff that’s not cheerleading?”
I nod.
“It’s okay. Most people don’t.”
Megan digs in too, and we eat until we’re scraping the bottom of the ramekin.
“So, we should do stuff like this more often.”
“Steal food from your parents’ social events?”
“Ha-ha. I mean, hang out.”
Before today, if you had told me Megan McQueen would want to hang out with me and I would want to say yes, I’d have said you were crazy. But to my surprise, I actually find myself saying, “I’d like that.”