Kissing Lessons

by Sophie Jordan

  Her gaze met his. “Train to Busan,” she explained, as though that would mean something to him.

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s a movie.”

  He shook his head. “I’ve never heard of it.”

  She gave him a look that conveyed a decided lack of surprise.

  “What kind of movie is it?” he asked for some reason, interested.

  She sank down on her couch, tucking her legs under her, and reached for a bag of popcorn resting on the scarred wood surface of a coffee table.

  “Horror . . . and it’s brilliant. Truly.”

  “Horror? You don’t seem like—”

  “What? The kind of person to watch horror films?” She angled her head sharply, popcorn lifted halfway to her lips. “Is that because I’m a girl or because I’m me?”

  Staring at her, he wondered if he’d ever met someone so blunt.

  She answered her own question for him. “I think we already established you don’t really know me.” She tossed the popcorn into her mouth and chewed, her eyes sparking with challenge, ready for battle if he contradicted her or said anything else she could take as criticism or a verbal attack.

  “So tell me why it’s brilliant.”

  She blinked, the battle-fire fading from her eyes. After a beat of hesitation, she waved him inside, motioning to the space beside her on the well-worn sofa. “Come on. Let me convert you then.”

  “Convert me to horror movies?”

  “Not just horror movies. You shouldn’t get so hung up on labels.” Her gaze held his and he felt, in that moment, that she was talking about something more than movies.

  He closed the door behind him and entered the house. Right away he noticed how flat and matted the carpet felt under his shoes, like it was centuries old.

  “I’m only fifteen minutes in or so.” She briefly gave him a recap, extending the bag of popcorn toward him as she talked, all at once relaxed and casual—like having him beside her in her living room was nothing unusual.

  He accepted the popcorn, realizing he hadn’t eaten and remembering that Mom was holding dinner for him. Oh, damn. He hurriedly dug his phone out of his pocket and sent a quick text to his mom, letting her know to eat without him and asking if she had heard from Emmaline yet, as he hadn’t found her.

  Lowering his phone back down, he watched as a variety of characters boarded onto a train that was presumably heading into disaster.

  “So let me guess,” he began. “There’s a serial killer on the train.”

  She cast him a disgusted look. “That’s not even creative.”

  “What then?”

  She looked at him as though it was obvious. “Zombies.”

  “Ah. And that’s creative?”

  At his implication that it wasn’t, she looked outraged. “And a guy in a hockey mask is?” She snorted. “The boogeyman in the dark has been around before the written word. There’s nothing creative about that fear. Zombies have only been around a generation or so, and only thanks to Romero.”

  “I can see you’ve given zombies some thought.”

  She shrugged. “The subject of zombies always leads to interesting ethical questions . . . dilemmas you’re never going to get out of some stupid slasher movie.”

  She was smart.

  Not that he thought her less than intelligent in their recent encounters, but it was exactly as she had said: he didn’t really know her.

  His phone vibrated and he glanced down at the text from his mom. Emmaline is here. When are you going to be home?

  He quickly typed back. Be home soon. Bumped into someone who is helping me with a . . . He paused and looked at Hayden on the couch next to him.

  Project, he finished typing. Yeah, that felt like the right word. He’d claimed it his mission to find out what was going on between his sister and Hayden.

  His mom replied back with an okay and he returned his attention to the movie, watching as an obviously wounded/infected person snuck onto a train when no one was looking.

  “And so it begins,” Hayden announced with some satisfaction as the infected person secured herself in a bathroom on the train.

  Despite his general disinterest in horror movies, and his belief that he was here only because of his sister, he found himself getting sucked into the story.

  By the time all hell broke loose on the train, he was fully invested.

  “Wow,” he mused as he watched a human die and turn zombie. “The cracking sound really adds a certain something to it.”

  “Right?” She nodded. “I mean, it’s a little reminiscent of the way zombies turn in World War Z, but this is somehow more basic . . . primitive. Less elegant.” She nodded once as though in agreement with herself.

  “I haven’t seen it.”

  “You haven’t seen World War Z? That’s awful. Truly unforgivable.” She stood up and moved into the tiny kitchen. Her gaze remained glued to the screen as she walked. She opened the mustard-colored fridge and took out two cans of Coke.

  Returning, she gave him one without comment and resumed watching the movie, tucking her legs under her on the couch.

  “Thanks,” he murmured, popping the can open and swallowing the sweet burn of soda.

  They watched for another few minutes. She interjected, pointing out things for him to notice. “And there’s your villain.” She waved at a middle-aged man in a suit on the screen.

  “Still gotta have a baddie in addition to the zombies, huh?”

  “Of course. The zombies aren’t evil. They’re us . . . mindless us. Ourselves without free will. Without conscience. They simply exist. That guy—” She stabbed a finger at the pinched-lipped man in a business suit. “He’s the worst because he still has free will and he chooses evil. He’d throw a baby to the zombies if it saved himself. He’s who we should fear being like more than the zombies.”

  She looked back at the screen, but Nolan found himself staring at her, wondering if he ever had a conversation with Priscilla—with anyone—like this. Over a movie, no less.

  At one point in the film, the lead child actress started crying.

  She dropped her fist on the couch cushion between them. “Casting that girl was genius. She’s so cute. There’s nothing like throwing in an innocent, sweet-faced child to really highlight the . . .” She paused, searching for the right word, her gaze still fixed on the screen.

  “The hopelessness,” he provided, “when the most innocent are in danger and in danger from their own loved ones . . . that’s the greatest horror. I mean, your father or best friend or spouse could be the one to kill you.”

  She snapped her fingers. “That’s it exactly.” She smiled at him then, her lips a wobbly, awkward curve. “You get it.” Clearing her throat, she shifted on the couch as though he had impressed her and she didn’t quite know how to handle that.

  Gaining a little bit of her respect shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. A warmth spread through his chest.

  They watched the havoc on the screen in silence. She inched closer to share the popcorn. He was aware of her arm brushing with his, but that was so they could share the popcorn. There wasn’t anything deeper to it than that.

  He glanced at her, then back to the screen for a split second, and then back to at her again. She was fully invested in the movie. She might have seen it before, but that didn’t seem to matter. Her whole body was alive, leaning forward like a vine reaching for the sun.

  He ate more popcorn. As far as dinner went, he was used to eating more. He had a big appetite. Still, he could not seem to move from his spot on her couch.

  After he finished off the bag they were sharing, she got up and popped them another one. She settled back down beside him and Nolan pointed to the screen. “Okay, the rope of zombies hanging off the train—”

  “Clever, right?” He nodded as she added, “We have to watch World War Z next. It has some really smart zombie scenarios.”

  He did not let himself think about the fact that they were both in agr
eement that he would be staying—that he would be watching another movie with her. Somehow, they had already both reached that assumption.

  The movie was winding down.

  He felt her breathing change beside him as one of the main characters, the father, died in a grand gesture of sacrifice and love.

  Her inhalations came deeper. A quick glance revealed her eyes were brighter, glassy.

  He fixed his gaze back on the movie. It was a pretty emotional scene. As someone who had lost his own father, his mind went there, thinking how his father would have done anything for him. Dad would have embraced death to save Nolan and the rest of his family.

  As the credits rolled, Nolan rubbed his hands up and down his thighs. “I’ll have to tell Emmaline about this movie. She’d love it.”

  “But not your girlfriend?” she asked as she hopped up from the couch to tap on the keyboard of the laptop connected to her TV. Her dark bun bobbed on her head with her movements. “She won’t like it?”

  He hesitated, thinking about Priscilla and realizing it had been easier to sit here when he had not been thinking about her. “She’s not into horror movies—”

  She sent him a reproving glance over her shoulder.

  “Yeah. I’m labeling,” he admitted. “I know zombie movies are more than horror. They beg grand existential questions. You’ve educated me on that. But Priscilla would consider them horror. She’s more into rom-coms.”

  Hayden said nothing to that, but he felt a certain level of disdain radiating from her. She didn’t approve of his girlfriend, which was kind of funny considering his girlfriend didn’t approve of Hayden either.

  “You’re not into rom-coms?” he asked.

  “I’ve liked a few, but mostly they feed into false expectations.”

  She stood back as the opening credits for World War Z appeared on the screen.

  “False expectations?”

  She returned to the couch beside him. Reaching up, she pulled her hair loose of its constraints and then worked to reknot the mass. He watched the fascinating dance of her fingers in the inky mass of her hair.

  “Um, yeah. Happily ever after with another person.” She snorted like it was a joke.

  “That’s a false expectation?”

  She crisscrossed her legs and dropped her hands down into her lap. “I haven’t seen much proof of happily ever after.”

  He thought about his father’s death and how, at the time, it had seemed the end of everything—how nothing could ever be good or right again after that. His mother had been broken, and even though life was better now, there were still nights when Nolan heard her crying through the walls.

  “Yeah, but there’s happiness out there.” He’d come to believe that again. Priscilla had actually helped him believe in that. “You can have happiness some of the time, which is better than not at all. And rom-coms highlight the existence of it. They give hope.”

  Never had it occurred to him that he had an opinion on rom-coms, but apparently he did. Hayden Vargas was teaching him things about himself.

  Her expression was cool as she looked him over, and he got the sense that she didn’t believe a word of it. “Happily ever after with another person is a lie. Contentment and happiness comes from yourself. Not other people.”

  She looked back at the TV and lifted the remote, turning up the volume and effectively ending the conversation.

  What made an eighteen-year-old girl such a hard cynic that she didn’t believe happiness existed outside of herself?

  As Hayden watched Brad Pitt make breakfast for his movie kids, Nolan looked around the cluttered living room, observing her home. An old recliner, the fabric worn so thin the white stuffing peeked out of its arms, sat beside the sofa they occupied.

  His mother would have had the chair reupholstered long ago. Or simply bought new furniture. They weren’t rich, but they were comfortable. They had nice things. The nicest thing in this room was Hayden’s laptop.

  Except it wasn’t the shabby surroundings that made the place feel . . . off. He looked around the space, trying to pinpoint what it was that felt wrong about this house.

  And then he figured it out.

  It was the lack of family photos. There wasn’t a single photograph on a wall or sitting anywhere. No pictures to capture a moment or immortalize an event.

  Photos of Nolan with his sisters lined the walls of his house. Last Christmas his mom had forced them into matching sweaters and posed them for a family photo that now loomed in a sixteen-by-twenty-four-inch frame above the fireplace. Because they were still a family. Mom never stopped reminding them of that.

  It didn’t seem like a family lived here.

  “Are your parents home?” he asked.

  Her gaze shot to him, her dark eyes suddenly wary. “No.”

  Nodding, he looked back at the screen, watching Brad Pitt and his family drive through traffic.

  “Here it comes,” she said.

  “What?”

  She nodded at the movie, reminding him that he was supposed to be watching it with her and not dissecting her. “All hell is about to break loose.”

  True to form, it was a zombie rampage. Quick and breath-stealing. Spectacular effects.

  It wasn’t until things slowed down in the movie that she spoke into the humming quiet between them, revealing that she was still thinking about his question. “I don’t have a dad. It’s just my mom, and she isn’t here right now.”

  “Oh.”

  “My dad died, too,” he volunteered. “Three years ago.”

  “Oh, my dad isn’t dead. At least not that I’m aware.” She gave a single-­shoulder shrug as though her lack of knowing was no big deal. “Not dead. Just a deadbeat. He and my mother split before I was even born. I’ve never seen him. He’s never seen me.” Nolan watched as she helped herself to more popcorn. “Sorry though. About your dad. Emmaline mentioned your father died. That must suck . . . losing a dad that way. Was he a good dad?”

  “Yeah. The best.”

  Chewing, she nodded, watching the movie. “Then maybe I got off easier. Never had to deal with the pain of losing a good dad.”

  “Maybe,” he answered, glancing around at her naked walls, staring at the absence of good memories, and thinking she was wrong, but not wanting to contradict her. He wasn’t about to explain to her how her situation was worse than his. That he would never trade in the time he had with his father just to escape the pain of losing him.

  Instead he settled deeper on the couch beside her, wondering if this was the kind of thing that she talked about with his sister. Existential rhetoric and zombie movie commentary?

  “Have you watched this movie with Emmaline?”

  She smirked. “You’re fishing.”

  “Just wondering.”

  “We haven’t hung out that much. No movie nights.”

  Nothing like this then. Nothing like what they were doing right now.

  “Yet,” she added, still smirking.

  He frowned. “You’re planning on movie nights with my sister?”

  “I don’t plan these things.” She motioned between them with a shrug. “Definitely didn’t plan for you to be sitting on my couch.”

  “Me neither.” He glanced down at the now empty bag of popcorn and gave it a few shakes, rattling the handfuls of kernels. “You want to order a pizza?”

  “You buying?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Lesson #11

  Attraction might exist, but that doesn’t mean you should act on it.

  x Hayden x

  She woke with her neck at an awkward angle. Wincing, she moved her head, forcing the stretch, fighting through the pain shooting up the side of her throat.

  Stifling a moan, she reached for her pillow, hoping to adjust it more comfortably under her head.

  She couldn’t find her pillow. Her fingers searched, but nothing. It must have fallen on the floor.

  Frowning, she opened her eyes and studied the old popcorn ceiling wi
th its stains and cracks. For a moment her gaze fixed on the stain in the shape of Michigan. She knew it well. Her frown deepened.

  That stain wasn’t in her bedroom. It was in the living room.

  Huh. She’d fallen asleep in the living room on the less-than-comfortable couch. That wasn’t like her. With all the strays her mom brought home, she liked to be locked up in her room safe and sound every night in her own bed.

  The air was a shade between purple and gray, soft and swollen like a bruise on skin.

  She knew about bruises, knew all their many shapes and sizes and colors. Mom was frequently peppered in them. Hard living did that to a person—cast you in a rainbow of shades.

  Hayden had suffered her share, too. The times when Mom lost her shit over something and Hayden took the brunt of it with a slap or an object that flew and caught her before she could dodge it. Those were the early days, though.

  Now she was older. Wiser. She knew how to avoid. How to duck. How to be gone before the fight even broke out.

  Of course, there were the bruises you couldn’t see. They were the worst. They never fully healed.

  She glanced at the time on the analog clock on the distant kitchen oven. It was a little after five in the morning. She didn’t need to be up for another hour and a half, but she didn’t think there would be any going back to sleep.

  She swung her legs off the creaky couch to the floor, still working her neck, pushing down on the couch with one hand, preparing to stand.

  Except the surface under her hand didn’t feel like the sagging couch cushion. It felt too firm for that. Solid, but with a little give.

  Turning her head, she looked down. That definitely wasn’t the couch under her hand.

  She was touching Nolan Martin. He was sprawled asleep on her couch. They’d slept on the couch together. Side by side.

  Like a couple.

  Except not. Not like that at all.

  She wrenched her hand off Nolan as though burned—as though she were touching a hot stove.

  Because. Yeah. Hot.

  He slept on, his features serene, unaware. She screwed her eyes shut tight in a pained blink and tried to rid herself of the sight of him. It did no good. Opening her eyes, he was still there.