THE RUNAWAY

Since boy-girl parties were a brand-new thing for me, I’d never played Spin the Bottle before, but I did know that it usually involved—well—spinning a bottle.

And kissing the person it’s pointing to.

Don’t get me wrong. The idea of kissing a girl was fine. The idea of kissing a girl I might not even know or like while all the cool kids in school were watching?

But like with all the un-fun stuff in my life, I didn’t have a choice. I shuffled over to the middle of the circle, knelt down, and grabbed the bottle. I closed my eyes and spun it before I could even let myself think about who I did or didn’t want it to land on.

Because I had to keep being the person everyone wanted me to be. The MVP. The cool kid with all the right moves.

I opened my eyes when all the whistles and claps started ripping through the room. The bottle was pointing at someone… a girl.

Page.

You’d think I’d be relieved to kiss a pretty girl like Page, but I wasn’t. Not by a long shot. Just the thought got me sweating in places I’d never sweated before. Even my earlobes were getting drippy.

Oh, man… oh, man… oh, man! This was supposed to be a good thing, right? I’d been wishing for a pretty girl to kiss me since about day one of middle school. And now it was happening. My first real kiss.

So then, if this was such a good thing, why was I so… freaking… SCARED?

Sometimes my life is unbelievably confusing. On the one hand, I just wanted to be smooth Rafe and kiss her and have fun like everyone else.

On the other hand, I was feeling about ready to barf all over her shoes.

“Hello? Rafe?” Page asked. She smiled.

Which, I reminded myself, meant that she was not totally disgusted by the idea of a kiss from me.

I turned to face her and she closed her eyes. But I could feel a zillion other laser eyes on me.

I leaned in.

And then I froze.

I couldn’t do it.

Not like this.

After a few decades went by, Page opened her eyes again. She looked confused. I know I had a dumb, deer-in-the-headlights look on my face, which probably didn’t make her any less confused.

I thought—SAY SOMETHING, RAFE!SOMETHING FUNNY. SOMETHING SMOOTH.

ANYTHING!

JUST… OPEN YOUR STUPID MOUTH AND SAY SOMETHING RIGHT NOW!

“Um… I have to go to the bathroom,” I said, and a wave of giggles and chortles zipped right around the circle of kids staring at me.

“Um… okay,” Page said. Now she was kind of looking at me like I was starting to grow an extra limb.

“I’ll be right back,” I told her. Even though it was totally possible at that point that she was hoping I wouldn’t be back.

Everyone was still staring and cackling as I slowly backed out of the Circle of Agony. I couldn’t look Page in the face, or anyone else. Flip was nowhere to be seen—he was probably upstairs raiding the refrigerator and had missed the whole thing.

I wish I’d missed it too. Raiding the refrigerator with Flip sounded like heaven right about now.

As I scrambled up the basement stairs, every good feeling from my touchdown and being on the team melted away like a snowman in the Sahara. I heard laughter and squeals behind me as someone else spun the bottle and did what they were supposed to do.

So why couldn’t I?

I swerved away from the hallway where the bathroom was, opened the front door, and walked out without once looking back.

Right before I started running.