He smiled and ran a hand over his close-cropped hair. “You should see the vertical feats my hair is capable of when I let it grow.”
I grinned. “I like the way I look. But I don’t turn a lot of heads.”
“What is wrong with every guy you’ve ever met?”
Still smiling, I scooped up a pinecone from the cave floor and started picking it apart. “I don’t know. Boys are friends with me. They like me.”
“But they’re blind and also stupid.”
I laughed hard. “We’ve gone to school together since kindergarten. Some of us anyway. Maybe it’s difficult to think someone’s hot when you’ve seen them ugly cry at drop-off.”
He smiled. “Maybe. Their loss.”
I shivered.
He misinterpreted the cause of my shiver and reached over to rub my arm briskly a few times. “You’re also really kind. Most people think Ricky’s weird and just blow him off. But you listen to him. He likes you. He’s kind of my canary in the coal mine. If he likes someone, I know they’re good people.”
“Ricky’s easy to like.”
“He is not easy to like!” Jesse laughed. “But it makes me really happy that you do.”
We reached out for each other’s hands.
“Those are my reasons,” Jesse said, his voice sure. “Please note that ‘You’re the only girl I’ve talked to all summer’ isn’t on the list.”
“But it’s accurate,” I protested.
He shrugged. “You were bound to stand out anyway, Zelda.”
I peered at him, searching his eyes for the truth. He nodded.
Finally, I sighed, unzipped my backpack, and retrieved my detailed list of Ben’s crimes against humanity. “Maybe just read this. It explains everything.”
Gingerly, Jesse took the pages, and he began to read.
I watched his eyes dart back and forth across the page and grow darker the more he read. Sometimes he’d mutter under his breath. Twice, he swore. Finally, he folded the pages with shaking hands and returned them, his jaw clenched. The thunder boomed again. Into the thunder, he yelled a very satisfying curse word. On the next crash, I joined him. We yelled and cursed again and again until I started giggling.
“Why are you laughing?” he asked, fists at his sides.
I picked up a fist and unfurled his fingers, one at a time. I placed the heels of our hands together, fingers touching.
“You have long fingers,” he said. The rain was starting to let up.
“Or you have short ones.” I smiled. “Or they’re the right size to be fingers. Since we both have them.”
He stared at our hands. Then his eyes snapped up to meet mine. “Look. I’m really mad at that guy.”
I nodded.
“Cuz that guy is—he’s really—” He sighed.
“I know.” A corner of my mouth turned up.
“Why are you smiling?”
Why was I smiling? “Uh . . .” I laughed a little. “I think I’m just happy to be believed. You believe me.”
His mouth dropped open. “I—” He shook his head, then looked back at our hands. He dropped his fingers down, interlacing them with mine. “Everyone should believe you.”
“Yeah, well.” They didn’t. But for the moment, it was enough that Jesse did.
After a long moment, he took a deep breath. “You’ve never had a boyfriend?” he asked. “Or girlfriend? I don’t mean to assume.”
I shook my head. “You?” I asked. “Anyone?”
“A couple girlfriends. Nothing long lasting. But Micky—it was very important to Micky that she teach me how to treat women. My moms, too, but for Micky it was like a crusade.”
Giggling, I asked, “Then how are you single?”
He grinned. “No other girls have been interested in me. Maybe you’re right about that whole kindergarten thing. Plus, I’m nice.”
“And nice guys finish last?”
“I don’t know. Maybe?”
“So,” I teased, “when girls either dump or get dumped by everyone else, you’ll be there with open arms?”
He squinted, considering this. “Understanding arms? ‘Open arms’ makes me sound like an opportunist.”
I used the broken bits of the pinecone to scrape dirt out of the treads of my hiking boot. I wasn’t quite ready to meet his eyes. “So, you don’t think I’m stupid? Or naïve?”
He shook his head. “Funny. Pretty. Kind. Remember?”
I frowned. “So . . .” Was I really going to say everything that was on my mind?
You’re trusting your partner, remember?
I let out a shaky breath. “Micky told you everything about . . .”
“Everything about everything. Yes.”
“Did she . . .” I coughed. “Did she ever talk about people being bad kissers?”
He smiled softly. “Incompatible, yes. But kissing is communication. Expression. It’s art. No one is inherently bad.”
I frowned harder. “Please don’t tell me art takes practice.”
He smiled. “You don’t want to practice?”
My brow furrowed. Now my whole face was a pinecone. “Not with him. And he kept . . .” I shook my head, unable to put words to what I wanted to say.
Jesse clenched his jaw again. “I really wanna punch that guy.”
“Me, too.”
We were quiet for a moment. The storm had now slowed to merely a steady rain. Jesse turned to me again. “Did kissing him feel good?”
I paused, considering this. “. . . Nnnno? It was mostly wet.”
“When he kissed you,” he chuckled, continuing, “what did those kisses say?”
I wrinkled my nose. “What did they say?”
“Yeah. If kissing is communication, it’s saying something.”
My expression must have done something strange because his face quirked up on one side. “Just . . . I’m sorry,” he said and gestured to his torso. “This is what Micky made me into. If this isn’t—”
I touched his arm. “No, it’s . . . I’ve just . . . I’ve never talked about . . .” I swallowed and nodded. “Okay. What did the kisses say? They said . . . ‘I’m in charge.’ ”
His eyebrows lifted. “ ‘I’m in charge’?”
I crumpled a little. “Is that not a thing they can say? I—I can come up with something else—”
“Oh whoa, sorry—” He held up his hands defensively. “I’m not criticizing you. I’m criticizing those kisses.” He shrugged. “Sounds like he was the problem.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “I just felt so stupid.”
“According to the Gospel of Micky, kissing is never supposed to do that.”
The splatting of the rain gave us permission to be quiet for a while. It also gave me time to consider his words.
I sneaked a look at him out of the corner of my eye. There was tension in his jaw, and his eyes were closed. Emboldened, I turned my head more fully toward him.
“What . . . what would your kisses say?” I asked.
He smiled slowly, eyes still closed. “I like you. I have fun with you. Do you like me, too?” He opened his eyes.
“Do you want to kiss me?” I asked. I’m not sure even Jane Lloyd had this much Trust your partner in mind when she wrote that rule.
He coughed and rubbed the back of his neck. “You have no idea how much,” he said, and my stomach flipped. “But I want you to really want to kiss me back. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like if we kissed now, you’d be worried. And thinking about Ben.”
I nodded slowly. “I think you’re right.”
“That’s okay. You’ve been through a lot.”
I twisted my hands together. “One last question. Purely academic. Do you know how to take a bra off with one hand?”
He spluttered. “Uh, we . . . that is, Micky did not teach me the finer points of—I mean, my god, a sister can only—”
“Good.”
I leaned my head on his shoulder, and he wrapped an arm around me. He smelled like
coconuts. And even though the rain was still coming down, and we didn’t know when it would end, I felt safe.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
We ate (all) of our sandwiches in the cave and talked and talked, holding hands. I knew Ben was going to be furious, but occasional thunder still crashed and lightning lit up the sky—and he himself had yelled about a storm’s danger.
By the time the rain slowed to sprinkles, it was two o’clock. Jesse peered out of the cave and into the clouds. “Clear skies are coming,” he observed, “I think we can emerge from hibernation.”
We clambered out, slung our backpacks in place, and reached for each other’s hands.
“So. Cult conversion tonight?” I asked as we scooted around the rock and up the deer path.
He stifled a laugh. “Yeah. Someone’s getting their Eagle. I know you’re joking, but I think if you saw that ceremony out of context, it wouldn’t seem far off.”
“Are you an Eagle Scout?”
He ducked under a wet, heavy tree branch. “Not yet. Hopefully by the spring of senior year. It’s a lot of work. Only four percent of Boy Scouts ever become Eagle Scouts. And Eagles Scouts go on to—”
“You aren’t trying to convert me, are you?” I smirked, pushing him a little.
Laughing, he shook his head. “Okay. Tonight’s out . . . so when can I see you? How much longer are you here?”
I breathed in the post-rain ozone-y air. “Another week. And I don’t know. A lot is going to depend on . . . you know.” I bit my lip, a Ben-shaped pit returning to my stomach.
Jesse nodded. “Okay. Well . . . when we know more, we could leave each other notes. I could slide something under the door of your cabin if no one’s there. And you could leave one . . .”
“Under the cushion of that chair on the Gilda porch. Or is there something by the gate?”
He smiled. “That chair is great . . . It’ll be nice to text someday.”
“But,” I reminded him, “texting means we’re not together in the mountains anymore.”
“It also means you aren’t on the worst-behaving improv team in the history of America anymore, either.”
I chuckled. “True. Well, in the meantime, it’s a good thing I love a chatty, handwritten note.”
Smiling, he tugged on my hand.
We were quiet until we returned to the main path.
“What is he going to do when you come back late?” Jesse asked in a voice laced with worry.
I watched a far-off bird swoop down into the trees. “I don’t know.”
He pulled us to a stop. “Can I come with you? Act as your alibi?”
I grinned and faced him, taking both of his hands in mine. “What would you say?”
“Uh . . .” He put on a deep voice. “She wasn’t skipping, Ben. We were stuck in a cave during the storm. I promise—I was with her the whole time.”
I laughed and dropped my head. “That would make everything worse!”
Scoffing, he squeezed my hands. “Why wouldn’t he believe me? I’m a Boy Scout, after all. The goody-two-shoes stereotype’s gotta be good for something.”
I looked up into his face, and his grin made my heart beat faster. “Oh, he’d totally believe you. That’s the problem. He’d be furious that we were together during the storm. And even more furious if he knew that we’re tog—” Suddenly, all my words were gone. And my breath. And my balance. Maybe this was a case for a little time delay on all that truth telling.
“Are you . . . are you . . . we’re . . . together?” Jesse asked.
My cheeks burned, and I stared at the ground.
“Do you want to be together?” he asked quietly, taking a tiny step closer to me so our boots were touching toe to toe.
“Y-yes. Do you?” I sneaked a look up to read the expression on his face.
He smiled his Christmas tree smile. “Yes. But only if you—”
And then I kissed him. And his lips were soft, but sure. And it was slow and gentle. And then he broke away, our foreheads touching, and whispered, “Are you sure?”
And I took his face in my hands and nodded and we kissed and kissed, and I finally figured out what everyone had been talking about.
•
It took much longer to meander back to camp now that we . . . had other things to keep us occupied.
It was nearly three o’clock before Jesse and I made it back to the parking area in front of the Lodge.
“Please let me come with you,” he said again, his forehead worry lines back. “What is Ben going to do when he sees how late you are? What if you get kicked off Varsity?”
Even though I would have been worried about the same things a day earlier, today I felt totally free from Ben’s orbit. “So, that’s the thing. Maybe . . . Maybe Ben isn’t the improv gate-keeper. He thinks he is. He made me believe he was. But . . . I don’t know—what happens if I don’t perform in the showcase? It’s not like I can’t audition or take classes at Second City or UCB or iO or someplace myself. Later. And maybe showing Ben he can’t control every woman he sees is what I can do for women now.” I shook my head. “Please kiss me. Then, somehow, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I closed my eyes and slid my arms around Jesse’s waist. He pulled me closer, and I kissed him, knowing it might be a while before that happened again, and thunder boomed in the background.
It wasn’t until Jesse was ripped away from me that I realized that the thunder was actually footsteps.
And it wasn’t until Ben bellowed, “WHORE!” that I realized those footsteps were Ben’s.
But it took a cracking sound, blood pouring out of Jesse’s nose, and Ben shaking out the hand that had punched Jesse to set off a bomb inside my body.
“How dare you!” I bellowed, rage vibrating my every cell. Ben charged at me, and I barreled toward the steps. All I could think was to distance Ben from Jesse and make it to the Pauls.
“How dare I?” He caught up with me in two strides and grabbed my arms. “How dare you?” He spun me to him. Fury contorted his face. “I let you onto Varsity and this is how you repay me?” His hands dug into my upper arms, and he shook my body. “By skipping rehearsal? By throwing a fit when I fixed your cold open?”
Then I saw faces in the screen door of the Lodge, but Ben’s eyes were accusing daggers focused only on me. Desperately, I watched from my periphery as Cade and both of the Jakes crept silently onto the porch. I almost called out to them, but I clamped my mouth shut. The Pauls had to see this with their own eyes, or they wouldn’t believe my word against Ben’s. And I wasn’t confident in Cade or the Jakes standing up for me . . . except for maybe High Ropes Jake. Go get the Pauls, Go get the Pauls, I begged him in my mind.
“The whole time, leading me on,” Ben continued, spitting out his words like they were food that had turned. “The whole time, sleeping with him.”
“Hey—I’m not sleeping with anybody,” I insisted, another bomb going off inside me.
I tried to break out of his grasp, but he growled, “Shut up!” and shook me again.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched High Ropes Jake turn tail and run inside. Yes! Get the Pauls!
“Ben, let her go.” Jesse’s voice sounded thick coming up from behind me.
I twisted around, but still gripping my arms, Ben kicked Jesse in the knee as he lurched toward us, which sent him stumbling back down into the gravel. Jesse’s nose was bleeding so freely, the front of his shirt was a lake of blood.
“Jesse!” I hollered. I tried to go boneless, but the move just infuriated Ben more.
“Stand UP, bitch,” he demanded, digging his fingers even deeper into my forearms. Whimpering from the pain, I listened.
Jake and Cade remained silent—why weren’t they saying anything? How could they stand by and watch all this happen? But somehow, they also couldn’t turn away—they were rooted in place like an I-don’t-want-to-get-involved deer in the something-is-seriously-wrong headlights.
Jesse moaned and tried to get back up again.
“Does your little Boy Scout boyfriend know about us?” Ben taunted me. “Does he know you’ve been cheating on him with me?”
I opened my mouth to defend myself, but at that moment, the Pauls rushed out of the door, led by High Ropes Jake, just in time to hear Ben demand, “Does he know what a little slut you are?”
“Ben!” Paul DeLuca shouted.
Turning around in shock, Ben dropped my arms, so I grabbed his shoulder to force him back to face me, then spectacles-testicled him, and he collapsed to the ground.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Paul DeLuca stood over Paul Paulsen’s shoulder in their office, reading my itemized list of Ben and Ben-sanctioned offenses. Paul DeLuca kept shaking his head. “Paul, she told you about Ben this morning, and you sent her back into the fray?”
He rubbed his hands over his head again and again. “I didn’t realize—Ben told me she had a crush on him and—” He put his face in his hands. “We’re done for.”
“Y-You’re done for?” I stammered. “How about ‘I’m sorry?’ ”
“He’s featured on our website! There’s a whole page about him where he says we made him what he is today!” Paul Paulsen moaned. He opened up his laptop with one hand, furiously tapping a pencil on the desk with the other. “I’m going to take the website down. Right now.”
I gaped at him.
Paul DeLuca slowly took the pencil out of Paul Paulsen’s fingers. “P2,” he said softly, “snap out of it. Listen to yourself.”
“Who is going to want to come here after this gets out? How will we get funding? Especially if she presses charges?” Paul Paulsen regarded me, worried. “Are you going to press charges? Will the Boy Scout press charges?” He reached over to select another pencil from his collection, but Paul DeLuca stilled his hand.
“I—” I looked around the office, like the answers would be on the walls or ceiling but found nothing. I swallowed. “We’ll have to talk to our parents.”
P2 sunk his face into his hands again. “Parents. Oh god.”
Maybe I should have expected his reaction after the way he dismissed me this morning, but I couldn’t help it—I was stunned.
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