The First Kiss Hypothesis

by Mandelski, Christina

  And I pass. With flying colors, as the stranger with the halitosis puts it.

  Mom is thrilled. I am, too. My plan worked in one way—Eli doesn’t need to drive me anymore—except I’m not even close to being free of him, and I don’t want to be.

  A tired-looking woman processes my paperwork and takes my picture. It’s the worst picture ever, but apparently there are no retakes in DMV land. I’m still going to show Eli as soon as I can find him. Mom and I leave, license in hand, and I’m in the driver’s seat, officially, legally. I start the engine.

  Mom is beaming. “I’m so proud of you,” she says, and asks if I want to stop for pie.

  I don’t. I want to see Eli. I need to see him, now. I go over the last few weeks in my mind. The moment at the beach. The garage. Silver Springs. Now the butterflies are at it again. In my stomach it’s total chaos.

  That’s it, that’s what I’ll tell him. His theory was right. Mine was wrong. There might be a science to love, but it’s not predictable. Mr. Chaffee said a good scientist follows her instincts, and my instinct tells me my hypothesis was wrong and Eli should get another chance. They also tell me that he’s thinking the exact same thing. That he wants me as badly as I want him.

  We pull into the driveway, and I’m out. “I’m going to talk to Eli,” I say, my heart racing. I feel hot and a little dizzy and I don’t care, nothing’s going to stop me. I run over to their front door, ring the bell, and Ari answers.

  “Hey, bud, how are you?” I ask him.

  He smiles, like always. “Hey, Nora Reid, how are you?”

  I hold up the license. “So good! Look! I can drive!”

  “Oh,” he says, and peeks over my shoulder. “Did you bring Marie?”

  He loves that cat. “No, not this time. You can come see her later, though, okay? I need Eli. Is he home?”

  Ari nods, puts his hands on his waist, elbows sticking straight out. “Yes.” He rolls his eyes.

  I step inside. “What?”

  “Bad mood.”

  “Why’s he in a bad mood?”

  He curls up one corner of his mouth. “You know why.”

  I have no idea what he’s talking about. “Well, whatever is bringing him down, this will make him feel better. Where is he?”

  “Backyard.” He moves away from me. “He’s in a really baaaaad mood.”

  I’m not worried. I bound through the house, out to the yard where he’s practicing throws on the bounce back, or trying to.

  He’s shirtless, wearing the glasses, and my whole body comes alive at the sight of him. My whole. Entire. Body. God. I’m not wrong about this. I step closer, but he has earbuds in and hasn’t seen me.

  The lacrosse shaft is in one hand and he’s trying to balance on one crutch. It doesn’t look like it’s going well.

  I run over, eager to help him and even more eager to be with him. “Eli!” Forget chemical reactions, forget lightning strikes and earthquakes. What I feel right now is bigger than all of those things.

  This is magic. This is right.

  He raises those eyes to me, bluer today than ever, but something is different.

  “Hey. What’s up?” He doesn’t take out his earbuds, he just bends awkwardly with the crutch, trying to pick up a ball that he dropped. I move closer, pick up the ball for him, and hand it over, grinning.

  His face is a blank. “You need something? I’m kind of busy.” The ball drops out of his hand again and I reach for it.

  “I’m fine. Leave it!” he yells.

  I hold up my hands and step back. “Okay, fine. Wow. Ari wasn’t kidding, you are in a bad mood.”

  His upper lip curls into a snarl. “So? I can be in a bad mood. What do you want, Nora?”

  I don’t know why he’s acting like this, and I don’t care. I can change his mood. I know I can. I take a step toward him, and another. God he’s handsome. Why did I ever say no to him?

  It ends now, the saying no. Every step I take forward feels like a step toward something new. Something chaotic, maybe. Something unpredictable, for sure, but also something good. I’m ready to set aside everything I thought was true about love and what makes it work. Seeing him, now, even grouchy, I know it’ll be worth it.

  My hypothesis was wrong. Every step I take toward him is the right step.

  My heart is beating fast, but steady. “I got it!” I hold out my license and throw my arms around him, ready to tell him everything.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Eli

  Her arms are around me and she squeals. “I got it!” She holds out the license for me to take, a huge smile on her face.

  I nod and don’t reach for it, maintaining the disinterested look on my face. “Great. I’m happy for you, but like I said, I’m busy.” It’s not true. I’m not busy at all, and it’s hard to be such a dick to her. It needs to be done, though. I need to put some distance between us.

  Her forehead crinkles up. “Eli?” She’s finally catching on. This isn’t just Eli being grumpy. This is Eli, changed. I don’t say anything. I don’t want to talk to her. It hurts to be this close to her.

  I try to turn on my one crutch and almost fall. She steps close and takes my arm to steady me. I make the mistake of making eye contact. Now I’m screwed.

  The smile flickers again on her lips. “Listen to me,” she says.

  She’s got me hypnotized. Must look away. Can’t. “What?”

  “These last few weeks. With you.”

  You mean the last few weeks when I fell in love with you? Yes, I’m aware of them. “Yeah?”

  Her face is turning red. She’s blushing. “Yeah,” she says. “You have to admit. There have been…” She scrunches up her nose, like she does when she’s thinking.

  My breath catches in my chest. She’s still holding my arm. “What?”

  Her head tilts toward me. “Um. Moments? Things have happened. Right?”

  “Moments?” There. I break her gaze, pull myself out of her grip. “What are you talking about, Nora?”

  She moves closer. “I’ve been thinking. About. Well, about my hypothesis, I guess?”

  This makes me laugh. I scratch my head. “Oh, good, let’s talk about the hypothesis! That’s just what I want to do.” I hop toward the garage where my other crutch leans.

  “Eli…” She follows. “No. I mean I’ve been thinking about what you said. About chaos theory.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She beats me to the other crutch and hands it to me. I hate that she’s helping me. I hate that she’s so beautiful.

  She cranes her neck, trying to meet my eyes again. I won’t let it happen. “It means—well, the other night, at Silver Springs…”

  I let out an exasperated puff of air. “Yeah. That was a stupid idea. To go there.”

  Her hand reaches out, she touches my arm. Those fingers sear my skin and I swallow hard and there they are, her eyes.

  Her mouth curves up, just a little. “No. It wasn’t stupid.” Her voice is so soft. “It was perfect. It made me think, Eli. About us.” She clears her throat. “I was thinking maybe we could try again.”

  Now she’s the one to look away, tucking that crazy hair behind one ear. I almost reach up and touch it. Wake up, Eli.

  “Us?” I sneer. “What us?”

  She takes a small step backward. Which is good. I need this space. I shake my head to clear it.

  Is she saying she wants there to be an us?

  “Are you saying you’re gonna let me kiss you again?” I ask. “Because of the last few weeks?”

  She looks surprised that I’m calling her out. “Eli. I…”

  Meanwhile, I’m stumbling through a minefield of anger and confusion, and there are mines exploding all around me. She wants us to kiss? Is she insane? No fucking way—I saw what I saw.

  “That’s great,” I say. “That’s just awesome. We’re having these moments, and you’re feeling these feelings, and you loved Silver Springs so much, but you still—you still go to the
game with him?”

  Her eyes flash—aha, didn’t see that one coming. “No. That’s not what. I mean, I didn’t want to go.”

  My body quakes, my blood is boiling in my skin. “No, see, that’s the thing. All the years I’ve known you, you’ve never done anything you didn’t want to do. You make the rules, Nora. You always have.”

  Her face turns red. “Eli, no. I just went with him because…”

  “Because you had to be sure that Tex wasn’t the guy you’ve been looking for? No, I understand. You covered all your bases. Nice.”

  Her body deflates, just a little. No way can she explain this away, because I just hit the nail on the head. “I’ve got stuff to do, Nora.” I drop the extra crutch and grab the lacrosse shaft, drop the ball in the net, and turn away.

  “Eli…please.”

  I lift the shaft up over my shoulder, line up my shot. She’s still there and I want her gone. “I said I’m busy.” I glare at her, then at the bounce back. I aim then throw. Not even close, which feels really symbolic right now.

  “But Caleb and I—” She touches my arm and I flinch.

  “Nope. No. Don’t say his name, okay?”

  “Eli,” she says. Then, after a long pause, “I want another chance.”

  My muscles freeze, my brain stalls. I straighten my spine and let myself look at her. She’s about to cry. I don’t care. As long as there are guys out there that she hasn’t kissed, I’m not safe. I can’t trust her.

  I scowl. This is like playing in a big game, when the score is tied and the gloves come off. There’s no way I’m letting my defenses down now.

  It’s time to go for the jugular.

  “I knew I could do it!” I blurt out.

  She bites her bottom lip. She’s worried. I know so many of her faces. I know her better than I know myself. “Do what?” she asks.

  I make myself keep eye contact. She’s not getting off easy. “I knew I could prove that the kiss has nothing to do with it.”

  “What are you talking about?” Her voice is almost inaudible. I hope she doesn’t cry.

  Wait. No. I hope she does.

  “What, you think all these ‘moments’ over the last few weeks, you think they were an accident?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  I put on my biggest douchebag game face—I know exactly how to do it—curled lip, looking down my nose—talking serious smack. “Yeah, the beach. The garage. The boat. That was my plan. To make you fall for me, to prove that even with a crap first kiss, you could fall for someone, even me. No lightning, or thunder, no fucking earthquake. Just me. And it worked.” Cue total asshole sneer.

  She scrunches up her nose like she smells something bad. The tears are ready to drop. “Why would you do that? You’re my best friend.”

  Tears don’t stop me, though. The pleading in her voice doesn’t stop me. “I am, and I didn’t want you to end up miserable and alone. So I changed your mind, right? You’re willing to give me another chance? What, did Tex kiss you and it sucked? Probably made the decision to forget your theory a little easier.”

  “No!” Her voice cracks. “That’s not what happened. I didn’t even kiss him.”

  She’s hard to look at, with the tears now rolling down her face. I dip down and pick up my other crutch. “Good, so you kept him in your back pocket. What a relief. I’d hate to think you missed out on the perfect guy.”

  I turn away and stumble toward the back door. I’m done with this—done with her.

  She says nothing, but I hear her crying. I’m hobbling faster now. I’ve got to get inside; I can’t stand making Nora sad. As mad as I am, that hasn’t changed. I reach for the doorknob and she lets out a heaving sob, which is more than I can take. When I turn around again, she’s a blur across the driveway. Like a bolt of lightning, she’s there and gone.

  The next day, Saturday, something begins to make itself clear to me: mostly, that I’m a giant wang. Even though I had to be. I was protecting myself. Even with her telling me she didn’t kiss Tex, she would have rejected me again, and it was hard enough the first time.

  At least I’m man enough to admit I lost my shit with her. I didn’t know what I was saying, and didn’t believe what she was saying. She wanted another chance. There’s no way.

  I’m glad it’s spring break, and that I can sit in the house and do nothing. The surgery is on Monday, and it’s an outpatient thing, so I’ll be home that afternoon, hopefully mellowed out on some major pain meds, and then it’s back to rehab the next day. Rehab sucks so bad. The only good thing is they don’t let you sit around feeling sorry for yourself.

  Neither does Mom, who comes into the living room with a basket full of clean laundry and dumps it at my feet. She has no respect for the fact that Ari and I are on vacation, and we’re currently busy lying around in our underwear watching old episodes of SpongeBob on Netflix.

  “Fold, boys!” she orders.

  It’s a full five minutes before I move myself to a sitting position and grab a towel. “Come on,” I say to Ari, who has his knees pulled up to his chin, mesmerized by that yellow sponge. “Help me.”

  He laughs at something that happens on screen, then reaches over half assedly and grabs a washcloth.

  For the most part he just sits there, not taking his eyes off the TV. “Hey. Fold!”

  Suddenly, he turns my way, and like he’s telling me what’s for dinner, says, “You made Nora sad.”

  I frown. “What the heck are you talking about?”

  “You made her very sad. You yelled at her. I heard you.”

  I stop and gauge how upset he might be. He doesn’t like yelling. I didn’t realize he heard us yesterday. I wish he hadn’t.

  The towel I’m folding is a mess, so I start again. “Ari. She’s fine.” But who am I trying to convince—my brother or myself?

  “No.” He turns back to SpongeBob, crumpling the washcloth into a ball. “She’s sad.”

  “Well, there’s nothing I can do about that.”

  His head snaps back to me. “Yes there is. You can get married.”

  I snort. “To Nora? Why would I do that?”

  He eyes me, offended. “You love her.”

  “Ari…it doesn’t work that way.”

  “It does. Mom said.”

  “Okay, let me tell you something, little brother.”

  He pulls his knees tighter under his chin, waiting for me to speak.

  I lower my voice. “Mom doesn’t know everything.”

  “She said that when people love each other they get married, and you love Nora.”

  I start folding the towel again, third time now. “Right. Okay. Look, Ari, that’s enough. I know you think Nora is perfect, but she—”

  “She loves you, too.”

  I press my lips together, not sure what to say. I don’t want to upset him. “No. She doesn’t.”

  “Yes she does.”

  “No she doesn’t.”

  “Yes she does.”

  I know when I’m fighting a losing battle. “You gonna fold that washcloth or marry it?”

  He turns the fabric around in his hands, then looks at me, totally confused. “You can’t marry a towel.”

  “And I can’t marry Nora. Got it?”

  He nods and goes back to the show. It’s the episode where SpongeBob goes to boating school. Hilarious.

  If only I could stop thinking about what I did to Nora, I might actually enjoy it.

  One episode later, all the laundry is folded, no thanks to my brother. I grab the pile of dish towels and put them away. The kitchen is quiet. Mom is upstairs, Dad’s at work, Ari’s in front of the TV.

  I look out the window above the sink and stare at her house. Not long enough to get caught. I don’t know if she’s home.

  I don’t care. I did the right thing. Probably.

  I glance around the kitchen. There’s a bag of Granny Smith apples on the counter that are starting to get soft. There’s no one around to bother me, so I do the onl
y thing a gimpy attackman who might have just made the biggest mistake of his life can do: I go get Gigi’s recipes and make a fucking pie.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Nora

  Friday night I was so mad at Eli I couldn’t see. Blind. Blind with rage. When I went back into the house, Mom knew something was wrong, but how could I explain? I wasn’t even sure what happened, and I’m still not sure I want to know.

  It was like he was accusing me of doing something wrong, when literally all I did was fall for him. Hard. Too hard to get up again easily.

  So I didn’t. I stayed in bed most of the day on Saturday. Somewhere between episodes of Gilmore Girls and napping with Marie Curie, I realize:

  Eli didn’t disprove my hypothesis, he totally proved it. We had a bad first kiss, and he was and is still totally wrong for me, which means my theory is sound. Yes, okay, I let myself fall for him. I let myself forget the science. I did that. The rest was all him. He said it himself—these last few weeks were all about teaching me some sort of sick lesson. I didn’t stand a chance.

  I just wonder what he thought was going to happen next. He was only pretending to care about me.

  Unless he wasn’t…?

  I don’t believe that, though. Not as cruel as he was to me in his backyard.

  Clearly, he doesn’t care, and he certainly doesn’t love me. In fact, now we’re not even friends.

  On Sunday I know I need to get up. No more wallowing. I’m an intelligent woman with a bright future, even if it is at Citrus State. I have homework to do, the Science Olympiad to study for. Cat poop to scoop.

  My life is nonstop adventure and fun.

  Abby texts me and asks what I’m doing Thursday. Apparently there’s a bonfire at the beach. She’s grounded, and she really wants to go, which I now know is Abby code for, I need to tell my parents I’m at your house.

  At least she invited me this time.

  There’s still no word from Emory, which isn’t bad news—yet. They start handing out money in late March, although I’m trying to not get excited, because I probably won’t get enough. If I don’t, I’m staying here. There’s no way I’m going to watch Mom sink into debt because she thinks that’s where I should go. Money from Dad is not realistic. I love him, but he’s the biggest cheapskate ever. State is cheap, and I can live at home. Why would I want to do anything different?