KISSING KAI HENDERSON IS exactly like Cake said it would be.

Plush.

Kai Henderson and I have been kissing for at least one billion hours under the white and perfect stars of Mesa Luna, leaning against the tentacled beast of a playground structure we all call the Command Center. It sits right smack in the middle of Thunder Park Elementary and has tube slides shooting out in eight different directions and a kind of high gazebo in the middle that you can hide in. Cake and I used to like to huddle up there together and tell each other stories while the other kids ran around at recess.

It took a little bit, and he was more awkward and shy than I would have liked, but I finally just kind of did it myself, because I remembered some girls in the bathroom at Field this one time, huddled up against the sinks winging their eyes with liner, asking each other why girls always wait for guys to kiss them first, to make the first move. And one girl, I think her name was Bettina, gave a sharp laugh and said, “ ’Cuz if a girl moves first, she’s a horny sluuuuuuuut,” and the way she dragged it out made the other girls laugh. One girl sighed, “Yeah, but if the dude goes first, he’s all that, right?”

Maybe there was a dance that night, or a party somewhere, because another girl said, “Fuck that. Ima go get it myself tonight, am I right?” And they all fived down low, by their butts, and bumped hips. They weren’t that much older than me, but they seemed so much more comfortable in their bodies.

I thought of those girls as Kai kind of weaved back and forth in front of me, his hands shoved way down in his jean pockets, and I got a little mad at him, and myself, for always waiting for other people to start doing the thing I want to be doing, like I have to ask permission, so I took matters into my own hands.

I did blurt out, “Can I kiss you?” to be on the safe side, and when I saw his face slide into relief, and start to lean down to mine, well, welcome to Plush Life.

I went out and got it myself.

His lips tasted like sugar from the cookies, which seemed perfect, and the way a first kiss, and all the kisses after, should taste. I’ve figured out where to put my hands, how to press against him slightly, how to breathe, all of it.

I never want to open my eyes again or come up for air. I want to spend the whole summer kissing him. Here, at Thunder Park Elementary.

There are things happening inside me that I don’t even have words for, and I usually have words for everything, even if I don’t say them out loud.

A shiver suddenly breaks us apart. A sharp chill rushes through me, when just a second ago, I was warmer than I’d ever been. My teeth start chattering.

Kai breathes heavily, his eyes unfocused. “What’s wrong?” he asks. “You okay?”

“Fine, I guess. Cold. Weird.” I wrap my arms around myself, but it feels odd, not so much cold, after all, as…well, weird.

The next shiver runs through me so hard it knocks the breath out of me.

I gasp. “Whoa,” Kai says. He steadies my shoulders, his eyes crinkling in concern. “What was that?”

I try to catch my breath. “I don’t know,” I say, wheezing. “Maybe I should go home.”

Maybe it is time to go home and make up with my mother. It’s been all day and most of the night, after all. I mean, I’m not wearing that dress, ever, but still.

I lean down and paw through my backpack for my phone. Four missed calls from my mom, the last one just as we were starting to walk here from The Pit. Two calls from Cake, which is weird, since she usually texts. She didn’t leave messages, which, also weird.

I listen as my mom’s phone rings and rings. Finally, her voice mail picks up. “June here! Tell me something good, or don’t say anything at all.”

“Hi, Mom.” I take a breath. “I’m sorry. I am. I’ll be home soon, and you can yell at me all you want, okay?” I slip my phone into my backpack. Done. I’ve had my freedom. We can go back to our beeping, whirring machine now.

Kai’s phone buzzes. It’s been sounding on and off since we got here, but he’s been ignoring it. He takes off the flannel shirt he’s wearing over a T-shirt and wraps it around me. “Here. Just in case.”

He kisses me gently, then pulls the phone from his back pocket.

I turn away, touching my lips with my fingers. I can still feel the heat of his lips on mine. I feel like people do in old books, you know, like when the writer says, “She was stirred by his actions,” or some such thing.

I feel stirred by Kai Henderson. Plush and Stirred. That sounds like the name of a Victoria’s Secret panty line or something. I make a note to mention that to Cake; she’ll think it’s funny.

I blow into my hands. It shouldn’t be this cold in Mesa Luna in May. Maybe I’m getting sick. Maybe that means Kai will get sick, too, and we can lie around together, huddled under blankets, reading magazines, snuffling together, only I don’t know where we’d do that, since my mom is so difficult—

Behind me, Kai makes a weird sound, like someone’s punched him in the gut.

I turn.

His face isn’t like it usually is, open and goofy and smiling, all Kai-like, glasses slipping down his nose, hair in his eyes.

His face looks like he’s seen a ghost, or been told a terrible secret.

He says my name, and then he says three awful, horrible words that cut through me, make me cry out.

I beat his chest as hard as I can, until my fists start to ache, but I can’t stop making him say those words.

I don’t understand how he can say such cruel words to me, after what we were just doing, after all the plush-ness of us.

Out in the desert, the coyotes start up, one by one, howling and wailing, lonely in the dark, and they do not stop. They don’t stop.

They never stop.