by Amanda Grace
Even though she can’t see me, I find myself grinning back. When she gets closer, I climb out of the car and walk around the vehicle to open the door, gesturing grandly to the passenger seat.
“Your chariot awaits,” I say, bowing.
“I had no idea you were such a cheeseball,” she says.
“Maybe I’ve been watching Reese Witherspoon movies all evening,” I reply. It’s not true, but I did catch the end of Legally Blonde while I waited for it to be late enough to pick her up. Liam wasn’t home yet—I don’t know why—and I needed something to fill the silence.
I close the door behind her and then go back around to my seat. I’m beside her an instant later. My heart is doing crazy things in my chest, ping-ponging around like I took speed or something.
The car hums quietly but I don’t put it in gear. Instead, I dig into my purse and produce a tiny gift bag. “Uh, so I kind of bought you something today.”
“It’s not my birthday or anything,” she says, eyeballing the bag. “I don’t turn eighteen till spring.”
“I know, and it’s not like I planned to get you anything, I was just at the mall and I saw this and I thought of you. So here.” I thrust it as her, and the ribbon handle flies up so fast she flinches.
Zoey looks me in the eyes, questioningly, as she takes the bag and sets it on her lap. “Okay. Um, thank you.”
“You’re supposed to open it now,” I say.
“Oh.” She slowly reaches into the bag, and when she pulls her hand back out, the little card, with earrings, is pinched between her fingers.
“Oh my god, these are amazing,” she says in a gasping sort of way. “But I can’t accept jewelry—”
“It’s just costume jewelry, nothing fancy,” I say. “They reminded me of you, and you’re not allowed to give them back because I already threw away the receipt. And they’re not my style. So there.”
When Zoey looks up at me, her eyes are shining in the yellow glow created by the streetlamps. “Wow. This might be the nicest thing anyone’s done for me in a long time.”
“There’s something else in there,” I say, reaching for the bag. I slip my hand into it and find the tattoo, then pull it out and show it to her.
“Wow, that’s cool,” she says, taking the tattoo and holding it up in the lamp light. It’s a funky, scribbly heart, just an outline in all black like a real tattoo.
“I kind of got one too,” I say, pulling my sleeve back and showing her the underside of my wrist.
She stares at it for a long moment and then looks up at me. There are so many things in her eyes, I don’t know what she’s going to say next.
But she doesn’t say anything at all.
She leans over and kisses me, just the barest brush of her lips against my cheek. “Thank you,” she says.
And then she goes to lean back again, and I don’t want the space between us. I reach over, cupping the back of her neck with my hand, and turn her face to mine.
And then I don’t give myself time to think about what I’m doing.
I just kiss her.
When my lips touch hers, it’s like a missing puzzle piece clicking into place. It’s like finding the right key for a lock. It’s like every stupid metaphor I’ve ever heard.
It’s right. It’s more than right, it’s perfect. The way her soft, warm lips feel as she parts them against me, the soft sigh that escapes, the way her long hair feels as my fingers tangle in the strands … it’s all perfect.
A moment later she pulls away and we both turn to stare out the windshield, like we’re not quite ready to look each other in the eye. My heart is erratic and thumping so hard I think she must hear it.
“So … ” Zoey says.
“Yeah.” And then I giggle like an idiot because I don’t know what else to do. And then Zoey’s laughing, too, and my car is filled with it, filled with the tension and the buzzing and the euphoria of our kiss—of the turning point, of this moment we walked to the cliff and jumped, together.
It feels like it must take five minutes for us to stop laughing and looking at each other, then laughing some more. And it doesn’t even make sense, doesn’t fit what just happened, and yet it’s so right.
I just kissed Zoey, and it was perfect.
“Uh,” I say, after our laughter finally dies down. “So, do you want to put that tattoo on?”
“Yes,” she says.
I reach for her hand, my fingers curling around her bare wrist. Then I peel the plastic off the tattoo and gently press the paper to her skin.
“Don’t move,” I say, leaned over, so close she must feel my breath. Her hair falls forward into her eyes as she watches me.
I grab the water bottle from the cupholder and dribble some water onto my fingers, then press them onto the paper, onto her skin.
I hold her wrist like that, my fingers curled around her arm, the water running down her skin and dripping onto the center console. Her heartbeat pulses against my fingertips.
If I thought the kiss was magical, this is something else. It’s an intimate moment in the near-darkness of my car, in the silence, as I lift her hand up and blow against the paper, drying the water.
Soon I peel the paper off, revealing a perfect, beautiful, heart-shaped tattoo.
I hold my arm parallel to hers, so the two tattoos are side by side.
“I love it,” she says. “Thank you.”
I look up at her, and when she leans over and kisses me a second time, my eyes slip shut and I lose myself to it.
Zoey
I know I should be exhausted after my late shift at Burgerville, followed by texting until two or three a.m. with Olivia, but I’m not. I’m too amped up to see her. Everything that’s been missing with Liam—that underlying reluctance I couldn’t quite recognize—is there with Olivia.
I push my way into the crowded halls, forcing myself to look up, not at the floor like I always do.
I stop off at my locker to swap out my books, then toss my backpack over my shoulder and head to the locker bay where Olivia always sits in the morning.
I falter when I see her sitting next to Ava, but just as I ponder turning and walking away, Olivia looks up and a smile lights her face. I’m instantly warm from the inside out as I think of last night, of how it felt when we kissed again outside my house. I’m glad she has tinted windows. I wanted to kiss her over and over and over again, but eventually I got out of her car and floated to my front door.
I continue to walk toward her, watching as her smile melts away and is replaced by … something. Anxiety? Worry?
When Olivia glances over at Ava, her emotions clarify.
She doesn’t want Ava to see us talking. But is it because of what we did last night … or who I am?
“Hey,” I say, stopping in front of them. “I, uh, sent you my next few pages of our project.”
“Oh,” she says. “Okay. Cool. I’ll look them over.”
But her voice is flat and formal and I suddenly feel like an idiot standing here—like I’m overdressed or wearing a costume when everyone else isn’t.
Like I don’t belong here conversing with her. Conversing with the girl who was kissing me last night. The girl who put the tattoo on my wrist.
I glance down to see if she’s still wearing hers, but she’s got a long-sleeved sweater on. Did she wear it specifically to cover up the tattoo?
“Great,” I say when I realize she’s just sitting there, in silence, waiting for me. “Um, I think I did a pretty good job. It’s coming together really well.”
“Okay,” Olivia says. “I’ll read it during study hall.”
She says nothing else, just sits there like she’s expecting me to walk off. And suddenly, I’m angry. She’s sitting here treating me like I’m no one. She’s embarrassed by me. That’s what this is. She doesn’t want Ava to know we’re even
talking, let alone something more.
“Did you find the earring you lost?” I ask, remembering one of her last text messages.
Ava looks over at Olivia. “What earring did you lose?”
“The diamond studs she got from her dad for her sixteenth birthday,” I say.
Ava and Olivia share a glance, but I can’t read it.
“Oh, uh, yeah. It was under my bed,” Olivia says. Her face is growing red and it angers me even more.
“Told you it would be there,” I say.
“Because you know so much about beds, right?” Ava says, and then breaks into cackling laughter like she just told the best joke of the year.
Olivia swallows, staring down at her hands. She should be defending me.
My stomach drops, disappointment hollowing it out. “No, because Olivia said she sometimes sleeps in her earrings.”
“And you sleep with just about anyone, so what’s the difference?”
It’s hard to breathe. Embarrassment, white-hot, shoots through me, mingling with my building fury. Between Olivia’s coldness and Ava’s ruthlessness, I can’t help myself.
I march closer to Ava, forcing her to tip her head back to look up at me.
I’m done waiting for Olivia.
I can stand up for myself.
“You know what, Ava? I’m sick of you. I’m sick of you blaming me for a stupid ex-boyfriend who can’t keep his hands to himself. I’m sick of your holier-than-thou attitude. I’m sick of you constantly laughing behind everyone’s backs. And I’m sick of you spreading lies about me.”
I’m certain that every person in the hall has stopped, frozen completely to watch us, because my voice seems unreasonably loud over the normally raucous hallway chatter. I rake in a deep breath, resisting the urge to glance over my shoulder, because judging by the sudden silence, everyone is staring.
Ava moves like she’s going to get to her feet, but I lean farther over, forcing her to lean back instead of stand up. “It’s time to fucking move on, got it? If I ever, ever hear that you’ve spoken my name again, you’re going to regret it. So back the fuck off and get out of my life.”
I spin on my heel and stalk away, my heart hammering out of control. I shove my way through the crowd that seems to have tripled while I had my back turned, wanting to get the heck out before Ava can retaliate.
Halfway down the hall, someone grabs my arm and I spin on them, sure it’s Olivia with some pathetic apology.
“Whoa, whoa, I’m not one of them,” the girl says. Trina … that’s her name. She sits next to me in science, and I loaned her a pencil a few days ago. “I just wanted to say … ” Her voice trails off and she grins. “That. Was. Awesome.”
Her smile is infectious. I find myself smiling back as she holds out her fist to bump mine, and I can finally breathe again. “You think?” I say. “I’m kind of terrified I just started World War Three.”
“Well, consider me your ally, because Ava has been such a bitch to me for years. She dated my brother once and she thinks I convinced him to dump her.”
“Did you?”
“Hell yeah. He could do way better than her.”
I laugh, my heartbeat getting back under control as we head to our science class. “I thought I was her prime target.”
“No. I mean, she left me alone for a little while, but when she found out that Cade—the guy she dated last year—asked me out, the claws came out again. She completely nailed me in the head during kickball yesterday.”
“Ugh.”
“Yeah. And just so you know, I never got why she blamed you for the thing with Zach. She’s focused on the wrong person, you know?”
My chest tightens and I try not to look at her as we enter the classroom and make our way to our desks.
“Yeah, I know,” I say.
“Zach is a total man-whore. He would have thrown himself at anyone, really.”
I nod, wondering if anyone else in this school agrees with her.
“Well, I’m glad I have an ally, anyway,” I say. “I’ll probably need it.”
“A lot of people don’t like her, you know. Or care about what she says.”
“You think?”
“Maybe they did once, but she’s burned her share of bridges over the years—let’s just put it that way.”
Our teacher walks in then, so we get out our books. And as I flip to the right unit, my thoughts shift away from Ava and back to Olivia.
I’d gotten so angry at Ava, I’d almost blocked out the way Olivia just … sat there. Letting Ava mock me. I’d almost forgotten the way she kind of recoiled as I walked up, like she was worried about being seen with me.
It’s not like I was going to waltz up and kiss her. I get that we’re not going to be a public couple or anything. I don’t even know for sure if we are a couple.
Maybe that’s why Olivia reacted like that. Maybe she doesn’t know what we’re going to be either, and she thought I was going to be super forward or something, and she’s just not ready for that.
I could be overthinking this.
But as our teacher starts class, it’s all I can do not to replay that expression of hers, over and over and over.
I need to know who I am to her.
Olivia
Ava gets to my house at seven, breezing through the door like she lives here.
In a way, she does. We’ve been friends for so long, our houses are like second homes. She knows the code for the key box and doesn’t even knock when she gets to this floor; she just walks right in.
So it’s weird to realize that ever since school started this year, we’ve hardly made time for each other.
I narrow my eyes, staring at a swirl in the hardwood floors as the realization sets in. How have I hardly even noticed how little we’ve hung out?
“Hey,” Ava says, walking to the fridge. I tear my eyes away from the floor and force a smile on my face. “How was gymnastics?”
I pull out a stool. “Eh, okay. I’m kinda struggling.”
“Oh?” Ava sits down beside me, sliding one of the two cans she’s grabbed in front of me.
“Yeah. I can’t quite nail my floor routine. I mean, I did once, but I haven’t managed to do it again.”
“You’ll get it. Consistency is the hardest thing, right? Just keep at it.”
“Thanks,” I say, popping the top on the can. “I’m not quite so certain.”
As we sip the pop, the ticking of our grandfather clock seems louder than ever, as if announcing every second of awkward silence. As if pointing out every moment I’ve failed to stand up for Zoey.
“Um, so, I know my text was kinda cryptic,” I say.
“It was very cloak and dagger. Come to my house at seven. Come alone.”
I elbow her. “It didn’t say come alone.”
She snort-laughs. “I know. Geez, you’re even more serious than usual. What’s up?”
“I need you to apologize to Zoey,” I blurt out.
She sets her can down and narrows her eyes. “Why would I do that? She totally humiliated me today! I looked like a freaking idiot.”
“Come on, Av. You know you’ve been riding her for years. You’ve made her miserable. You need to let it go and move on.”
“No. So not happening,” Ava says, twisting on the stool to stare at me. “You can’t be serious.”
“I don’t even get why it’s all her fault. She didn’t owe you loyalty, Zach did. Zoey had no idea he was your boyfriend.”
“Are you seriously choosing her over me right now, after what she said today?”
I pick at the tab on my can, and it makes little hollow plinking noises. “It’s not like that. It’s about being the bigger person and realizing maybe you’ve been punishing her too long.”
“Did you see everyone watching us? There’s no way I�
��m going to turn around and apologize to her.”
I tear my eyes away from my can. “Apologize to her or we’re done.”
She blinks and kind of recoils, her eyes wide. “What the hell, Olivia.”
“I mean it,” I say, conviction heavy in my tone. “If you want to stay friends, you’re going to apologize to Zoey and then quit spreading rumors about her.”
Ava laughs—a horrible laugh with exactly zero humor in it—and shoves her stool back. “I have no idea why the hell you’ve decided that Zoey is more important than our friendship, but I look forward to hearing from you when you come to your senses.”
She yanks the front door open, just in time to reveal my brother approaching, his skateboard tucked under one arm. But instead of speaking to him, Ava all but shoves him aside as she leaves.
Liam stares after her for a moment, then rights himself again, slipping through the door with a total what was that all about look on his face.
“What’s her deal?” he asks, stepping into the entry and kicking off his sneakers.
“I pissed her off,” I say, sliding off the stool and grabbing her still-full soda.
“Obviously. What’d you do, slice her Amex? Chip her manicure?”
I pour Ava’s soda down the drain. “No. I told her to apologize to Zoey.”
“What?” he asks, suddenly intrigued. Like maybe our little tiff wasn’t stupid girl stuff after all. “What’d she do to Zoey?”
“She’s been on her case forever. It was just some stupid thing from freshman year, and I figured it had gone on long enough. But apparently Ava’s not one for letting go.” I blow out a long, drawn-out sigh.
“If it happened three years ago, why do you care about it now?”
“They kind of got into it in the hall today. I decided enough was enough.”
“Huh. I’m surprised she didn’t mention it.”
I dart a look at my brother. “Wait. Were you with her just now?”
“Yeah. I took her over to Foss,” Liam says.
“Ugh, you made her hang out at the skate park?”