by Derek Milman
Okay, so one weird thing, and you’re not going to believe this.
Darren Cohen.
He sidled up to me as I was walking toward my dorm a week or so after we got back from break. His hair was all wet and he was carrying a soccer ball, wearing white Adidas shorts, a plain gray T-shirt, red high-tops, and black Nike socks pulled up right below his knees. “Jamison,” he said, dropping the ball, kicking it around while I watched him, and certain parts of him.
When I didn’t answer, he stopped kicking and turned around. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Want to take a walk?”
“Um. Okay.”
We wound up at the empty football field at Lynch Stadium. I looked up at the bleachers. I saw, in the distance, all the old brick buildings on campus I soon wouldn’t be seeing anymore. Darren juggled the soccer ball for a few minutes, letting it bounce off his feet. “Uh, so you had like a lot of shit go down after we met at the Mandarin, huh?”
“You heard?”
He laughed.
“Thanks for keeping things discreet,” he said. “Between you and me, I mean.”
I nodded, not sure where any of this was leading.
“How are you doing now?”
“I’m okay.”
“Listen, I’m sorry.”
“For?”
Darren stopped juggling the ball, resting it under his foot. He puffed out his cheeks, forming a thought that looked more and more painful as it coalesced. The way the light caught the ends of his hair made them look like spun gold. He looked down at the apple-green turf. “I didn’t treat you right. It’s been bothering me.”
I looked at him, slowly nodding, unsure how to respond.
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I was an asshole.”
“It’s okay. I mean… are you just saying this now, though, because you feel bad about everything that happened to me?” I realized, all of a sudden, none of it would have happened if things had gone better that night with Darren. I never would have gone back on DirtyPaws, or found Benoît. I laughed at this fact, softly, to myself.
He took a step back. “What? What’s funny?”
I waved him off. “Nothing. Nothing, man.”
He got a jittery, vulnerable look in his eye. “Look. Can I make it up to you?”
“How?”
He juggled the soccer ball a little more, then kicked it away. “Want to go see a movie or something?”
“A movie?”
“Yeah.”
I scrunched my mouth around. “Uh. Sure. We could do that. Sure.”
“Cool.”
We both nodded at each other for a full minute in the middle of this field.
“What about Ashley?” I asked.
“Uh, we’re taking a break. Plus… I meant… let’s hang as buds. You know?”
“Sure. Buds.”
I thought about it some more, then decided to give Darren a second chance.
I signed out with my housemaster that Saturday night, and Darren and I went to see an indie movie at an art-house theater called the Post Office, fifteen minutes from campus. The movie was a quiet, syrupy drama about a family with an alcoholic father and a manic-depressive mother on vacation in Nantucket.
The mother is a famous photographer known for snapping her family, and her kids, at their worst moments. Their teenage son has just come out as gay. She wants to capture his confusion and despair rather than really be there for him as a mom. She’s kind of a self-involved, horrible person. The movie was a little slow at first, but then it got kind of engrossing.
Halfway through the movie, Darren put his hand on my leg.
I sat back in my seat and exhaled quickly through my nose. Obviously, I didn’t expect him to do that. Darren kept his hand there and I put my hand on top of his. Then he moved his hand off my leg but kept his hand intertwined with mine, so we watched the rest of the movie holding hands.
After the movie, people filed out of the theater and Darren and I were left standing alone on a quiet, darkening street lit from the golden glow of the box-office window, not saying anything. The late-spring evening felt like blue cotton.
I said we should probably head back, but Darren pulled me aside, past the movie theater, in front of a closed stationery store, and put a hand on each of my cheeks, smushing up my mouth. He went in for a kiss, but I pushed him away.
“I’m not sure,” I said.
Darren looked at me, his eyes buzzing, and sort of nodded internally. “Okay.”
“I thought you wanted to be buds.”
“I thought that, too,” he said. He looked down at his feet.
“You’re not… you need…” I finally just said it. “You’re not a very good kisser.”
“Ashley said that, too,” said Darren.
“She did?”
“Yeah, she did. So I guess I’m not. But… I can get better at it. Right?”
“I’m not sure… if it’s one of those things people are just good at or not.”
Darren looked a little sad. “Oh.”
“But, uh, if you want…” I looked behind and around me, not sure why, not sure what I was looking for. “I mean, I…”
“It’s okay,” said Darren. “I don’t care if people see us together anymore.”
“Okay.”
“I want to kiss you,” he said, firmly.
Back in my dorm room, ignoring the “three feet on the floor” rule, we did kiss. It was rough going at first. I gave him a lot of direction, tilting his jaw, saying stuff like: Too much teeth; relax your tongue; go slower; but we got there. Eventually he got gentler, there was intention behind what he was doing, and it was kind of nice being with him and forming a connection I never thought could happen.
We binge-watched a show on Netflix, lying next to each other. By the end of the night his head was on my chest, his arms wrapped around me. This time he wanted to be near me. It wasn’t simply because I was there. And he never changed his mind.
Oddly enough, Darren and I have stayed in touch. It’s just one of those things in life that surprise the hell out of you, I guess.
I’m in my freshman year now. I love college. I’ve made friends. I love my classes. I love the freedom. College is about learning how to think in different ways, not just learning how to take tests or memorize stuff. It suits my brain better, even if there is a shit-ton of reading.
I even met a dude I like. His name is Christoph; he sits behind me in my Introduction to Medieval Literature class. We’ve been on a few dates, and so far so good. Darren teases me about him. I think Darren is jealous. Darren, weirdly, has been texting me more than Jackson or Leo lately. Sometimes I think about Darren, too. And what might have been if we both hadn’t been heading off to college just at the time when we connected, in the right way, and I taught him how to kiss properly.
And I think, too, what might be. Because you never know. You really don’t.
And hey, I get a little jealous, too, thinking about Darren using my top-notch kissing skills on someone else. I taught that boy well. I should reap all the rewards. He’s doing well at Dartmouth, too.
Everyone at college knows who I am; there’s no getting around that. I’m the kid who: Saved Quest Gardens, or Took Down the Swans, or Was Exploited by the NSA. I’m the Collateral Damage Kid, the Preppy Suburban Gay Reluctant Hero or… whatever you want to believe about me. There’s been so much written and discussed about me by people who don’t know me, that I’ve nearly regressed into Mr. Preston again—a fiction outside myself, dissembled and manipulated by forces beyond my control… but whatever. No one really cares here. I’m just another college kid trying to fit in. People are cool. And that’s a relief.
I don’t know who I am yet, either. I want to find out.
The nightmares, gradually, faded away.
And, since I’ve been so busy with schoolwork and acclimating to college and being in a new environment, everything that went on during that crazy-ass spring break is starting to seem l
ike a distant memory, too. Sadly, that also includes Shiloh. But I’ll meet so many people yet in my lifetime. I like meeting new people. Every new person is like a different world to me.
Sometimes, though, late at night, lying in bed, about to fall asleep, I’ll think about storms. And I’ll think about what Scotty said to me on that roller coaster:
The storms never come for me. Not when I’m awake and not when I’m asleep.
My storm never came, either. The one that was supposed to come when I was eleven, the one that caused my fight with Neil that awful night. It never stormed. The fight we had was unnecessary. Pointless. We could have easily had two car rides the next morning—one to his basketball game, and one to GameStop. It would have been fine.
I sulked in my room for the rest of that night and I sulked the next morning, after I woke up. By the time I finally got over it and saw the Christmas card shoved under my door, Neil was already gone—off to his game—and most likely, gone from this world, too.
I saw the sunlight glowing behind the corners of my window shades and I laughed, feeling like a total jackass. Then I sat on the edge of my bed, fought back a smile, and read Neil’s card:
Aidy, don’t be mad at me. I love you. You’re my brother no matter what you say, you dumbass. It didn’t rain! It didn’t hail! The storm never came.
Be happy. Smile, for God’s sake. Look out the window! There is so much sun! There is so much light!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you, with all my heart, to:
Jenny Bak, my deeply intuitive, funny, courageous, and brilliantly talented editor. It was a joy working with you on this book.
James Patterson, for all the kind support.
The whole Jimmy Patterson team for their incredibly hard work and passionate commitment to their authors: Julie Guacci, Sabrina Benun, Erinn McGrath, Diana McElfresh, Tracy Shaw, Stephanie Yang, Sammy Yuen, Elizabeth Blue Guess, Lisa Ferris, Aubrey Poole, Sasha Henriques, Linda Arends, Allan Fallow, and Josh Johns.
Everyone at Little, Brown and Hachette.
Victoria Marini & the folks at Irene Goodman Agency.
Lia Chan & ICM.
Brian Murray Williams.
Jordan & Lorin Milman.
Evelyn & Harvey Milman.
My deepest gratitude to:
April Henry, Lindsay Champion, Kara Thomas, Kit Frick, Maxine Kaplan, Cale Dietrich, Emily Wibberley, Austin Siegemund-Broka, Lissa Price, Karen M. McManus, David Levithan, Melissa Albert, Penelope Burns, Beth Kingry Northington, Henry Kessler, Fernando Hernandez, Sarah Henning, and Naomi Grossman.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DEREK MILMAN has worked as a playwright, screenwriter, film-school teacher, DJ, and underground humor-magazine publisher. A classically trained actor, he has performed on stages across the country and appeared in numerous TV shows, commercials, and films. Derek currently resides in Brooklyn, New York, where he writes full time. Swipe Right for Murder is his second novel for young adults.
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Maximum Ride Forever
The Confessions Series by James Patterson
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Confessions: The Private School Murders
Confessions: The Paris Mysteries
Confessions: The Murder of an Angel
The Witch & Wizard Series by James Patterson
Witch & Wizard
The Gift
The Fire
The Kiss
The Lost
Nonfiction by James Patterson
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Stand-Alone Novels by James Patterson
Hawk
Crazy House
The Fall of Crazy House
The Injustice
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First Love
Homeroom Diaries
For exclusives, trailers, and other information, visit jimmypatterson.org.
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