Chapter Nine

Emmett

I opened my email and scanned down to the message Bryn titled Thoughts Viscous. She sent it yesterday, when they were on the road. It was strange and surprising and raw, all the things I had been craving.

I reread the message slowly, savoring each word like it was poetry. Finally, this was the inspiration I needed. The more she let me into her head, the more I wanted to see. I settled back against my pillow and typed a response.

Emmett: You think in quotes. I think in music. Instrumentally.

Lately, I’ve been fixating on you. I don’t want to come off as creepy, but you’ve become my writing muse, and it’s a nice diversion from memorizing football plays and regurgitating class notes. I’ve been trying to write you, as a song. That’s how tightly you’ve wrapped yourself around my thoughts. But I need more material. I see what’s on the surface, but it’s too clean. Too pure. I want to know your faults. I want the dirt on you. Get messy with me.

I hit send. I couple of minutes later she responded. She was online. A shot of adrenaline ran through me as I opened the email.

Bryn: What instrument are you using to write me?

I smiled and started typing.

Emmett: You are definitely piano music. Smooth, slender keys. You would respond to my every touch. Mostly high notes. Smooth crescendos.

She responded in a few seconds.

Bryn: Sounds a little too perfect.

I nodded. It’s like she already knew the problem.

Bryn: Try this. In the middle of the song, there would be this unexpected turn, this chaotic, wavering climb building up to something explosive.

I nodded and typed, almost frantically. I had her in my grasp. I needed her to let me in.

Emmett: Then it would settle back into its original tempo. Confident and strong and light. That’s what you sound like to me.

I hit send.

Bryn: Nothing that is blown apart settles back into its original form. It is transformed.

Her words amazed me. Why couldn’t she talk like this in person?

Emmett: You should write the words to my song.

I hit send and smiled. Obviously, there were no lyrics. But I wanted to see what she came up with. I didn’t even expect her to take my dare seriously, but in less than a minute she replied.

Bryn: Your eyes.

Pressed on mine.

Could sink me.

Like heavy stones.

Or lift me up.

Molecules of Helium.

Shot into my blood.

I read the words with surprise. I started to type a response and then she hit me with another message. I opened it.

Bryn: I’m a forgotten tower.

Waiting to be used or torn down.

In a silent city.

Under a brilliant sky.

Thunderheads in the horizon.

I stared at the words. My fingers froze on the keys. Now we were getting somewhere. I wanted to pull this girl out of the screen.

She continued to message me, like she finally let an anchor go that had been holding her back.

Bryn: It’s like the sun in my eyes, staring too long, but half in shadow I can bear it.

I typed a message back.

Emmett: I wish this side of you would come out in person. Why do you hide it all behind a screen? Why do you save the best parts of you for when I can’t see you?

…

CeCe

I stared at his question and hesitated.

This was so wrong. Overbearing curiosity made me log in to Bryn’s email tonight. Or maybe it was temptation. I just wanted to see if he responded to my message. But I let it go too far. Once I started writing, thoughts began to pour out of me. Suddenly I had an outlet—a way of telling Emmett how he made me feel with unabashed honesty. Well, how he made Bryn feel, technically.

I looked at our string of emails. What was I doing? This girl wasn’t me—brash, emotional, exposed. All the layers around me that I had coarsely woven together over time and experience, Emmett was starting to unravel.

I remembered the way Emmett looked at Bryn, like she was some kind of sacred artifact, or a blossom continually unfurling with color. He watched her as if he couldn’t look away, afraid he would miss a stunning moment. I remembered the feeling it gave me. It wasn’t jealousy or anger. It was a purer, duller ache.

I reread Emmett’s last response. I wish this side of you would come out in person. Why do you hide it all behind a screen? Why do you save the best parts of you for when I can’t see you?

I wanted to come clean. I started to type.

Bryn: Because you wouldn’t listen to me. You wouldn’t see me. This is the only way.

I deleted the message, and I was about to log out when another message appeared.

Emmett: Is it too late for a visit?

I started chewing on the side of my nail. Shit. Double shit. I looked at the clock.

Bryn: Curfew Nazis are out.

I hit send and blew out a sigh of relief. I was saved by the Edgelake 11 p.m. weeknight curfew. The volleyball team knew how to dodge the two security vehicles that combed the campus on a predictable route every night—but I assumed Emmett didn’t know his way around security yet.

Emmett: I want to think about you in person. Let lips do what words do.

I stared at the sentence. Did he mean Bryn, or me? What had I done? Bryn’s face suddenly filled my mind, like a haunting ghost. I sure as hell couldn’t show up at his balcony. I could never be his Juliet. Could I?

I picked up my phone and sent Bryn a message.

Me: You awake?

My phone buzzed and I looked down at the message.

Bryn: Yeah, why?

I texted fast, before I could rethink what I was doing.

Me: Emmett messaged me. He wants you to come over to his house. Tonight.

Bryn: Squeee! That can be arranged.

I cringed at her response.

Me: Don’t worry, he’s not in the mood to talk.

Bryn: Waahooo! Tell him I’m on my way.

I turned off my phone and looked at the computer. I slowly typed.

Bryn: Can one desire too much of a good thing?

I hit send and waited, testing him.

Emmett: Never.

I nodded, a little disappointed. Or, perhaps, he simply acknowledged a truth I wanted to deny.

Bryn: Then wait for me outside.

I hit send and stared at the screen.

I felt like an actor, standing in the shadows, calling out all the lines but never taking the stage.

…

Emmett

I shut my laptop and sprung out of bed. I pulled on a hooded sweatshirt and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror over my dresser. I almost didn’t recognize the guy looking back at me, all bright eyed and alive.

Bryn woke me up. Her words kicked my life back into gear, as if it had been thrown off track for the past year, grinding away, but never catching hold.

Now words weren’t enough.

I grabbed a black baseball hat with our school logo, a red cardinal, and put it on my head. I opened the door and took the balcony steps two at a time. I saw her silhouette in the moonlight, floating toward the house like a piece of starlight. I met her on the grass, next to the oak tree in front of the house.

She had obviously run here, her cheeks were flushed with color and her breaths were deep.

“Hey,” she said. Her smile was sweet and sultry at the same time. “You wanted to see me about something?”

I bit my lips together and hesitated. I was suddenly shy, star struck by this girl who had been stampeding through my thoughts the last twenty-four hours. She was finally tangible.

Do this, do this, do this, I coached myself.

“You okay?” she asked.

She looked confused, regarding me. I took a step closer to her, tracing my eyes over the face that I had been fantasizing about. I pulled my baseball cap backward and reached for those cheekbones. They felt warm and soft in my hands, but her lips, oh my God. Her lips took all my words away. They fused my heart with my mind. Like two atoms in a molecule.

She dug her hands into the back of my neck and pulled me closer. Our tongues intertwined. It was all feelings now, speaking with movements, just connecting on this completely other level. It was the reaction I had been craving.

The kiss that started out slow turned into something harder. Deeper. I gripped her face tighter. I let all my thoughts pour into that kiss. All the messages we exchanged, all the secrets she unveiled, I needed her to know how her words made me feel.