I squinted into the sun that was finally peering through the clouds. "Can I ask you a question?"
Jess shrugged his shoulders once. "Sure."
"Are you popular?" I hadn't been able to lose the image of the girls at the dance, how they had watched him and hung on his every movement. Even the guys were impressed by him.
"What are you talking about?" Jess's voice became higher suddenly, like he was embarrassed. He knew exactly what I was talking about.
"Are-you-popular?"
"Gemma, you need to forget that word popular. It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't even exist."
"I knew it." I folded my arms roughly around my chest and scowled at the ground in front of me. "You are popular. You're just trying to deny it."
"Where is this coming from?"
"The way you talked to that Conrad guy at the dance and the way all the girls-even the pretty ones-were swooning over you! It's so obvious! I can't believe I never saw it before!"
His hands smacked against the sides of his legs with exasperation. "Popularity doesn't mean anything."
"It means that you're cooler than everyone else."
"Says who?"
"Says the other cool people," I fought back.
"What makes them so cool?"
"Nicer clothes, good looks, lots of money." I could have gone on.
"Look at me, Gemma. Do I wear nice clothes?" I looked at his un-tucked blue button shirt that he had on at the dance. His brown tie was now tied around his head like a bandana. Before I could answer, Jess continued, "The reason a lot of people know me and talk to me is because I talk to them. It's not about nicer clothes or money or looks."
"No one wants me to talk to them. Everyone thinks they're so cool."
Jess sighed. "Nobody in junior high thinks they're cool."
"Humph." I twisted some hair between my fingers. "I don't care anyway. I don't need any of them."
Jess squinted at me. "Sounds like you have it all figured out."
We were approaching the hole in the fence, so Jess reached for my backpack while I climbed clumsily through the hole. When Jess made it through, he stood right in front of me and watched me with serious eyes.
"We've sort of been having some serious conversations lately, haven't we?" His eyes traced the lines of my face as he spoke.
I nodded, but I was physically unable to do anything else. The way he looked at me so closely, putting the rest of the world out of focus, took my breath away, and I couldn't find my voice to speak.
Jess hesitantly lifted his hand toward my face and cleared a stray piece of hair that had blown against my cheek.
My heart was pounding in my throat as I memorized the feel of his skin against mine. His eyes were locked with mine as he tucked the hair behind my ear. But as he lowered his hand, his eyes brightened with a new thought and he stepped around me while saying, "It was kind of sad when Clarissa cut in like that."
I recomposed myself and turned to follow him. "Sad? Why?"
He cocked his head to one side. "Clarissa and that hairspray." He forced himself to cough. "I wonder if it could cause damage to my lungs."
"Plus, you were probably sad that you weren't dancing with me anymore, right?" I was dying to know, but I laced my words with a hint of humor in case the answer wasn't what I wanted to hear.
Jess pursed his lips and nodded with a reciprocating hint of sarcasm. "Really sad."
"I bet it was my mismatched reds that made you miss me so bad. Guys really go for that kind of thing." I resorted to joking because I was nervous-no, terrified-that he actually wasn't sad to have had our dance cut short at all.
Jess let his head fall back. "Yes," he agreed with his lips lifted into a half smile. "Mismatched clothes are irresistible." We were approaching our houses. I hoped that Jess would follow me onto my lawn, but he began heading in the direction of his driveway.
"You shouldn't feel too bad," I spoke louder as Jess continued to widen the gap between us. "I did give you half a dance."
Jess swung around and continued walking backwards as he nearly yelled at me across the street, "Yeah, and maybe one of these days I'll ask you to dance for a reason besides feeling sorry for you."
I knew he was joking-or rather I hoped he was joking-but his words stung, and my shoulders fell with disappointment.
Jess smiled at my response and waved his arm in my direction as he stepped up onto the curb and walked across his lawn. "I'm only joking, Gem."
He turned back toward his house to watch his footing on the porch steps, and as he did he said something that I couldn't quite make out. Because what he said wasn't meant to be heard. What he said almost sounded like-for a moment I thought I heard-he couldn't have possibly said it-but I thought I heard the words, "I asked you to dance because I love you."
Before I could blink it was nearly June, and the energy level throughout the school was rising. Teachers were collecting the last of the make-up homework. Students were cleaning out their lockers, and orange cones were spontaneously showing up around the courtyard awaiting the big summer project of expanding the faculty parking lot. I usually lived for these last days of school. I loved how the hallways always smelled like cleaning liquid from students wiping down the desks and chairs. I loved the scattered boxes in all of the rooms being filled back up with used textbooks and rented calculators. I even loved the cafeteria running out of food because the lunch ladies didn't want to buy more food just to have leftovers after the last days of school. But this year these things made me feel a twinge of sadness. This year wasn't just the end of a school year; it was the end of Jess and me walking to and from school together-again.
I had already encountered this heartbreak once before when he'd gone to junior high without me three years before. Though when I was only eleven, the fact that Jess and I weren't walking to elementary together didn't occur to me until I was getting ready to leave for school the first day of sixth grade. I had been eating my breakfast when I looked at the clock and realized that Jess was late (and he was never late). I slurped down my cereal and hurried to put my shoes on as I casually mentioned to my parents that I was going to go to Jess's house and make sure everything was okay. I remember Mom and Dad looking at each other with concern in their eyes. Dad looked so casual when he told me, "Jess isn't going to be walking you to school this year." He had said it so nonchalantly, as though it was no big deal. Now, I think he knew how big of a deal it really was; he just didn't know how else to say it. My parents had watched me with pained eyes as I melted to the floor, tears streaming down my face. Mom had called the school nurse and told her that I was going to be late for school that morning. I think she felt guilty for not warning me about it earlier. The next nine months of sixth grade had been a lonely time for me, and I was not excited to relive those years again.
But when the final bell rang on my last day as an eighth grader, I was so excited to get out of the dark, dingy school and into the sunshine that I nearly forgot about the tragedy that I was facing. Hoots and hollers rang through the halls as excited kids ran out of the classrooms and into the warm air. Summer vacation had begun. But I was reminded of the sadness when I saw Jess, leaning against the brick school wall with a thick manila folder in hand.
"What's that?" I said when I got close to him.
Jess looked down at the folder. "It's just a bunch of test scores and special projects that I've done over the past three years. I guess they save them for us and give it all back when we graduate from junior high."
"Don't remind me," I said.
"What's the matter, Gem? You're supposed to be happy on a day like this. You're free from school for a full three months."
I shrugged and quietly headed toward the main wooded road while he fell in line beside me. The sun was beating down on our heads. It was the hottest day of the year so far, and the smell of the hot pine made it feel so much more like summer. I couldn't bear to think that this was the last time Jess and I would be walking home together from this sch
ool. It would be the last time we'd run through the soccer field and throw rocks at the old goal posts. It would be the last time we'd crawl through the fence into the cement jungle. We stepped silently onto the soccer field when Jess turned to me and said, "Seriously, what's the matter?"
I stared at him with narrow eyes. "You don't know?" It made me angry that I was the only one realizing how horrible our separation was going to be. "Next year you're going to high school, and I'm still going to be here in this lame school, and I'm going to have to walk here alone. This is the last time we're going to walk to school together, probably ever! Next year you'll be driving your own car to school and you'll probably have a girlfriend."
Jess ducked his head and puffed out his bottom lip, but his eyes were smiling. "I tried failing my classes so I could be held back. But I'm just too smart." I didn't think it was funny. When I didn't laugh, Jess lightly punched me in the shoulder with his fist. "Hey. It's not like we're not going to see each other. I live right across the street. I'll be in your face all the time."
I was honestly surprised to hear that. "Really?"
"You'll be sick of me," Jess promised.
With that Jess leaped toward a nearby goal post, swinging from it like a monkey, then he pushed himself forward onto the grass. "Let's go check out our old fort!" he yelled. He was a good twenty yards away from me by then. "We haven't looked at it forever! I wonder if it's still there!" His last words trailed behind him as he started running to the far side of the field. I held tightly to my backpack straps-and his promise-and sprinted after him.
The summer break seemed much shorter than three months. I was finally getting old enough to realize that the "three-month" break that everyone talked about was not really three months at all. By the time school got out, it was practically mid-June, and it started up again in the latter part of August. That was barely more than two months! I figured it was just another way the adult population was trying to fool us kids.
I looked at the cell phone that my parents had given me as an early birthday present and saw that it was already eight fiftyseven p.m. It was the last night of summer. School started the next day, and Jess and I had gone out for one last walk to the snow cone shack. We were approaching our houses as he was telling me his class schedule. He must have noticed me look at my phone because he asked, "What time do you need to be home tonight?"
I glanced at my house and replied, "Nine." Sometimes my mom watched for me out the front window. But the windows were empty, so maybe I could stay a couple minutes longer.
He dropped his shoulders and slipped both hands into his pockets. "We're still going to see each other, Gem. Every day."
I looked down at the cracking sidewalk and shrugged. "I guess." I was terrified that high school would change him. That he would get busy with homework and sports and stop coming over to my house at night. That he would find new friends-or a girlfriend-and forget all about me.
Jess blew a raspberry through his lips and lightly ruffled my hair. "Don't get all melodramatic on me, Gemmalynn Judith." When I acted dramatic, he called me by my full name, which he was convinced would be my "stage" name someday. "You're going to get sick of me. I swear you are."
I bit the inside of my cheek and nodded in agreement, hoping with everything inside of me that he would really be around so much.
I looked at my house again. I was sure it was past nine. I had to go, but leaving meant it was the end of summer. Tears began building up in the corners of my eyes. I tried to stop, but the harder I tried the more they came. Soon the tears were streaming down my cheeks so fast that I swear I could hear puddles forming on the cement sidewalk beneath me.
Jess, clearly stunned with the reaction, pulled me into a hug.
Between sobs I said into his chest, "I hate this."
Jess breathed quietly into my hair and squeezed me even tighter. "You're going to be just fine. I'm the one who should be crying here. I'm going to be a dorky sophomore in a high school with all those older kids driving their fancy cars."
I let myself let go of the tight hold I had on Jess's torso. He was wearing his blue Cubs T-shirt, which he only wore during the summer. It smelled like dirt and pine and the lake. It smelled like summer. I sniffed and backed away from the hug while wip ing at my eyes. "Not to mention the fact that your best friend is an even dorkier ninth-grade girl."
Jess bent his head forward and cleared my soaked strands of hair away from my red cheeks. "Well, that I'm sort of proud of."
"Gemma!" The voice startled me as I turned toward my house to see Mom standing on the porch, watering a potted plant. She was looking closely at the leaves of the plant, but the way she said my name meant business. I looked back at Jess and grimaced through my tearstained eyelashes. "That's my cue."
Mom continued talking, though her voice was muffled as she dug deep into the plant to pull out a weed. "Thanks for walking Gemma home, Jessie."
"No problem, Mrs. Mitchell."
She finally looked up from the plant. "You start high school tomorrow, don't you?" She set the water pot down on the porch swing. "Gem, you can start making your way inside while Jess and I finish our conversation."
I smirked at Jess and then dragged my feet across my front lawn. Jess kicked at a leaf on the grass. "Yep, I just hope I don't fall for the elevator pass trick."
Mom laughed loudly at Jess's joke. She wrested her knuckles on her hips and looked up at the sky as if looking at a memory. "Do they still sell elevator passes these days?"
Jess looked up at the sky. "I guess I'll let you know after tomorrow."
"Well good luck, and tell your mom I'll call her tomorrow."
"Will do, Mrs. M. Goodnight." Jess's voice faded into the night as Mom followed me through the screen door.
"I sure like him," she said as she locked the door behind us. "And I wouldn't mind if he was my son-in-law someday."
A year ago I would have stuck my tongue out at my mom's hints toward me and Jess having a romantic relationship. But things were different now. We were different now. Jess was sixteen. I was almost fifteen. Jess wasn't just the kid across the street anymore. He was someone special-someone who made me feel things that I wanted to keep on feeling.
I sauntered gloomily into our front room, leaving the lights off, and sat down in front of the window. I watched Jess walk over his grass toward his front door with his hands in his pockets again and his head looking down at his shoes. I thought about the hug that we had just shared. How comfortable it had felt to have his arms around me and to be pressed up against his warm, firm chest. I thought about what Jess had said, how he would be around so much that I'd get sick of him. I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment and prayed that it was true. But as Jess opened his front door and slipped out of my sight, I couldn't help but feel that this night was the end of something.
My alarm clock went off at six thirty a.m. I hit the snooze button and rolled over into my pillows. But I didn't fall asleep again like I usually did. The hard reality of Jess starting high school without me sent a pain through my body. I decided that I was too sick to go to school. Maybe Mom would call the school nurse again and tell her that I was going to be late. I lay in bed motionless until my alarm flipped back on again. An old country western song that I had never heard before was playing-which only hindered my progress of rolling out of bed. I heard Mom flip on the hall light and knew that as soon as she realized I was still in bed, she would be knocking on my door.
"Gem?" She tapped her first two knuckles against my door as I had expected. I moaned. "Are you okay?" She peeked her head into my room.
"I don't think I can go to school today," I murmured, taking advantage of my groggy morning voice. "I'm too sick."
Mom stepped gracefully around the door and sat down on the edge of my bed. She put the back of her hand to my forehead. "Hmmm." She furrowed her brow while closely examining my face in the dim light shining in from my window. "Oh yeah, I know what the problem is."
"You do?" I asked, puzzl
ed. Did I actually have a fever?
"Yep. It looks like you have Missing-Jess-itis." She tugged on each of my ears. "It's very common this time of year. Found most commonly in girls named Gemma who have to walk to school alone."
I sneered at my mom then pulled my comforter up over my head. My words were muffled as I spoke, "I'm really sick, Mom! I need you to call the school nurse and tell her I'm not going to be able to go to school this year."
Mom breathed a tired laugh as she stood up and yanked my warm blankets off me. "Come on, kiddo. I'll drive you to school today."
She dropped me off in front of the school, and I dragged myself toward the front doors. When I entered the school, there were still a few students hustling through the halls, peering at their class schedules. I flipped my bag around to find my own class schedule, but I couldn't find it anywhere. Panic swept through my entire body, and I prayed silently that I would wake up from this nightmare. I wished that I had looked more carefully at my schedule. I was so concerned with Jess leaving me that I hadn't taken the time to memorize it. I tore my backpack off my shoulder and rummaged through it with the hope that I might be wrong. Being the first day of school, my backpack was basically empty except for one binder with blank paper, a calculator, and a couple of pencils. It didn't take me long to realize that my schedule was still sitting on my desk in my room a half a mile away. I ran back to the main doors and peered through the clear glass, searching for Mom's car. She was long gone. I squeezed my eyes shut, and I tried to bring back the words that I had read a week before when I received my schedule. My mind was blank. I was desperate. I walked as smoothly as I could down the hall until I came to a class with familiar faces. I entered the already open door naturally and sat down in an empty chair on the back row. Luckily the teacher was still talking with a couple students at the front of the class and hadn't noticed me come in. I looked around the class for Nina or Clarissa. Neither one of them was there. One person was there, however, and he was the one person that I wanted to see least of all. Trace Weston was sitting in the second row, but he hadn't turned his head when I came in the room.
Second Kiss Page 4