JUNE 21
I feel a tap on my shoulder.
“Do you want to dance?”
I turn around and Léo is there, all six feet of gorgeousness, and I swear I swoon in French.
“I am dancing,” I say, even though I’m standing dead still.
He makes a face. “Well, that is very sad because I was hoping you would dance with me.”
“I don’t want to make you sad.”
An old song from the eighties starts to play, “Time After Time.”
If you fall I will catch you—I’ll be waiting. Time after time …
He steps toward me and puts his hands on my waist, and I set mine on his shoulders. I don’t know how kids dance in his country. I hope he doesn’t start waltzing or something. But we do the ubiquitous high school slow dance, shuffling around in a circle, swaying back and forth. Bea, dancing with Mateo, gives me a look that says I told you so. The song ends, and I remove my hands from Léo’s shoulders, even though I really don’t want to stop touching him.
“Do you want to go outside?” Léo asks.
I would go anywhere with you, I nearly blurt out, but I catch myself. “Sure,” I say as casually as I can. Léo takes my hand and leads me through the crowd. I’ve held hands onstage with him tons of times, but this is not the same thing. I like the way he holds my hand—palm to palm, instead of threading his fingers through mine.
“I hate closing night,” I say. “I hate saying goodbye to my character.”
“Me too,” he says. He casts a glance at me, shy, or maybe uncertain. “I am very glad you are going to Willow.”
“I’m glad you’re going to Willow, too.” I wonder how long he’ll hold my hand or whether I should drop it or let him decide.
We’re a little way from the theater when he stops. “I like your hair like this,” he says, gently tugging my braid.
“It’s Ophelia’s hair,” I say. “I only borrowed it.”
“I’m sure she doesn’t mind lending it to you.”
“No, I don’t think she’s rolling over in her grave.”
“And this flower thing you’re wearing. You smell like a pixie.”
“That’s some line. You’ve smelled a pixie before?” I say.
“Of course,” he says. “Hasn’t everyone?”
“Not that I know of,” I say, laughing. “It must be a French thing.”
He shrugs. “Perhaps.”
We stand there for a moment, and I try to find something else to say. “Um, do you want to see the creek?” I ask.
He taps his finger on his chin, pretending to think. “A ‘creek’?”
“It’s like a stream. Or a brook. A small river.”
“Ah, oui. Un ruisseau. I would like to see a creek, yes.”
He follows me down the path. The creek runs behind the theater, bordered by a band of woods. There’s a steep path, and I’ve never seen anyone but me there.
The path opens up down a little hill and to the edge of the creek. The wind is waving the tree branches around, and the creek rushes over a bundle of sticks and logs jammed against the side of the bank, making that babbling noise that everyone loves. Air from the day mixed with air from the night creates weird pockets of warm and cool.
“Camille! C’est très formidable,” Léo says, looking around. “It’s like Ophelia’s water, where she drowned herself.”
I like how Léo says my name. His accent makes it sound romantic. Special. His face glows in the moonlight.
We sit on a patch of grass on the bank. A cool breeze cuts through the cotton of my dress, and I nudge a little closer to Léo.
“Where do you live in France?” I ask.
“I live in the Dordogne, way in the southwest of France. There we have troglodyte dwellings and cave paintings and a cathedral where the stone steps are worn in the middle from pilgrims climbing on their knees.”
“That sounds painful,” I say. “Have you climbed the stairs on your knees?”
“No. Only on my feet.”
“What’s a troglodyte dwelling?”
“A place where troglodytes dwell.”
I shove him, and he falls backward onto the bank and rolls into a ball, pretend-moaning in pain.
I pull up some grass and fling a handful at him. “Seriously, what is it?”
He sits up and runs his hands through his hair, making it stand up. He laughs. “I told you already.”
I clap the dirt off my hands and take my phone out of my dress pocket. “It sounds like you don’t know, so I’ll just google it.” I go to nudge Léo with my shoulder, but he’s turning toward me and I end up against his chest. I stay there, like it’s perfectly normal, and start searching online for troglodyte dwellings.
He puts his hand over my phone. “I’ll tell you. These are houses that are built into the front of caves.” Léo drapes his arm around my shoulders. Everywhere his arm touches feels like a kiss. He holds me close. I can hear his breath, feel his chest rise and fall under my cheek, hear the thump of his heart. I wonder if this is what falling in love feels like—comfort, safety, excitement, and desire for that one person, all bunched up together.
“Tell me a story about your home,” I say.
Léo thinks for a moment. “I’ll tell you about a cave in the Vézère valley called Grotte de Rouffignac.”
“Okay, tell me about the Grotte de, uh, what you said.”
“You go in a little electric train. At the beginning of the cave you see hollows of clay big enough for an elephant, but these are dens of cave bears.”
“Cave bears? That sounds made up.”
“And then there are pictures of mammoths drawn into the clay walls with fingers, and handprints pressed into the wall over thirteen thousand years ago. The train goes, and the dark takes over so you can’t even see your hand in front of your face. And then suddenly the train stops, a light comes on, and you look up.” He snaps his fingers. “And there on the roof of the cave you see them—hundreds of drawings of mammoths, ibex, woolly rhinoceroses, and horses painted in red, tan, and black.”
“Who painted them?”
I feel Léo shake his head. “No one knows.”
“I want to see it.”
Léo plays with a piece of my hair. “I’ll take you.”
I imagine myself doing things in France with Léo like characters in a romantic comedy. We carry balloons, eat croissants at a café, and kiss on bridges while French accordion music plays in the background.
His fingers brush against my cheek. “I would very much like to kiss you, Camille,” he whispers. I can feel his breath on my face, his nose touching mine.
“I would very much like you to kiss me.” I say this in a French accent, and then immediately regret it, hoping he doesn’t think I’m making fun of him. But he smiles. And then he kisses me.
His mouth is soft, his kiss gentle. He doesn’t press me back or shove his mouth on mine with all tongues and smashing lips like some boys do.
Léo stops kissing me, but he doesn’t move back. He keeps his forehead against mine, his fingers light against my cheek. My heart melts into a puddle. “Kiss me again,” I say. He does, and I never want it to stop. I want to stay on the bank forever, Léo holding me, hearing nothing but his breathing and the rush of the creek and the sound of the wind in the trees.
And then nausea hits me. My stomach starts to feel like a piece of paper being crumpled up into a ball, and I pull away from him.
“Camille?” Léo tries to take my hand, but I shake him loose. I sprint to the tree and throw up in the grass, puking my brains out to the point of tears. Léo is there at my side, patting my back.
“I’m okay,” I say. “I’m sorry.” I’m beyond embarrassed. I never puke, ever. Even when I’m sick.
“I think we should go to the … the clinic … what’s the word? Hospital?”
“No, no, I’m okay,” I say. I literally almost just threw up in this French boy’s mouth. “I must have eaten something bad at the party. I have a really sensitive stomach.”
Léo doesn’t look convinced. “Still, I think I should take you, Camille.”
“If it happens again, I promise I’ll see a doctor.” I’m trying my damnedest to sound casual.
He takes hold of my hands and rubs them between his own. “What can I do?”
“Gosh, I don’t know? What’s a guy to do after a girl pukes right after he kisses her?” I try to joke, but it falls flat and Léo doesn’t laugh. “Um, you can walk me back?”
I try to act like it’s no big deal. Like hey, this happens all the time, it’s an American thing. But if it’s possible to die of embarrassment, then I don’t have much longer to live.