Meant to Be

by Lauren Morrill

  “Unlikely,” Jason says, marching forward.

  “Jason, this is dumb,” I call, my voice rising with my anger. “Just give me your damn phone!”

  “No!” he yells over his shoulder.

  “No?”

  “No!” And then he’s breaking into a full-on run.

  “Jason!” I shout, stamping my foot in the mud. “This is so not the time for a game of keep-away!” But he’s not stopping, so I take off after him, and he underestimates my swimmer’s legs at a full sprint. I’m close enough that I could reach out and grab a handful of his fleece. Without thinking, I take a flying leap onto his back. At first he keeps running, me clutching him in a sort of bizarro piggyback ride, but then he stumbles. We both crash to the ground. I dig my hand straight into his pocket and pull out his phone.

  “Hey!” he shouts, and just like back in the Tate, he flips himself over in two moves, and suddenly, I’m on my back, in the mud, wetness seeping through my sweater. The air goes out of my lungs, and while I’m gasping for a breath, he snatches the phone and flashes that obnoxious, lopsided grin. He holds the phone high over his head and grins down at me, his blue eyes locked on mine in what looks like pure triumph.

  “Let me up!” I scream, trying to wriggle out from underneath him.

  But he doesn’t. And then something changes and I realize Jason’s lying on top of me, staring at me, and his lips are inches from my lips, and there is rain dripping off his hair, curling it around his ears, running down onto my neck.

  My heart pounds and I feel the tingle starting in my toes again.

  Jason drops his phone in the grass and uses the free hand to brush a fat, wet curl out of my eyes. His fingers brush my cheek and I feel that pull in my belly button that goes straight through to my spine. As he tucks the hair behind my ear, his hand cups my chin. It’s surprisingly soft, and I nuzzle lightly against it. He leans down slightly, then pulls back a bit.

  So many thoughts are whirling around in my head at once, I can’t hold on to any of them. Is he—? Does he want to—? Do I want to—?

  Are we going to—?

  And then he’s kissing me. His lips press against mine, hard at first, hungry, and for once I’m not worried about what is happening or whether this is the right thing to be doing. I relax into it, enjoy it, float away. His tongue gently traces my upper lip. I part my lips, but instead of jamming his tongue down my throat like Billy Russell did when we were at the multiplex in eighth grade, Jason lets it venture slowly into my open mouth. I sigh into the kiss, my arms around his waist, my fingers digging into the wet fabric of his T-shirt. He kisses me for what seems like hours, until I can barely catch my breath. I can hear thunder in the background, but suddenly, it no longer matters. I feel like the ground is opening up and pulling us down inside. The weight of everything rests on top of me, but I don’t feel crushed. I want more. I pull him closer, harder, heavier.

  Jason finally pulls away, and I blink at him. I want to ask him why he kissed me, and whether he meant it, and what it means. But I decide it’s probably best to keep my mouth shut so an unending stream of gibberish doesn’t pour out. Jason rolls over to the side of me, propping himself up on his elbow, as though we’re lying on a sun-drenched field instead of a mud pile with what has become a very light drizzle falling down on us.

  “Can I ask you something?” he asks. My stomach drops, and I wait for the inevitable “who the hell taught you to kiss like that?” inquiry.

  “Yeah,” I reply, bracing myself, but Jason comes out of left field.

  “Seriously, what’s with the geese?”

  I look up to see his eyes flashing, his mouth set in a tight line to suppress his riotous laughter.

  “Oh, it’s a dumb childhood thing,” I say. I roll over onto my stomach, then lay my cheek down in the wet grass. My mind is still swirling, my heart still racing.

  “Come on, you know I’m still basically a dumb child,” he says, giving me a poke in the ribs. “Spill.”

  So I tell him the story, a mixture of my fuzzy little-kid memories and the endless rehashings from my parents. As I talk, I remember how my dad used to act out chasing the damn bird away, me tucked safely in his arms, both of us screaming back at a little goose. By the time I finish the story, Jason and I are both flat on our backs in the grass, clutching our stomachs in laughter.

  “Your dad sounds like an awesome guy,” Jason says when his laughter has finally slowed.

  “He was,” I reply, sighing deeply.

  “Was?” Jason props himself up on an elbow. I can feel him staring at me.

  “He died when I was seven,” I say, my eyes trained on the sky above me.

  “Oh, right. I’m sorry,” he whispers, reaching his arms out and pulling me close. He buries his face in my hair, planting a soft kiss on my temple. I reach up and grab on to his arm, which is circled around my chest. I give it a squeeze, simultaneously blinking back tears. I breathe deeply, taking in full breaths of thick, damp, grassy air. I can’t believe it, but lying in the grass, enveloped by Jason, is better than being in any hotel bed or swimming pool could ever be. I don’t care that I’m shivering from my damp clothes and the cool wind. I don’t care that I’m covered in so much mud I could build my own hut. I don’t care that my hair has probably wound itself into such a tight knot I may have to shave my head. I close my eyes and settle in, ready to lie here forever.

  I take a deep breath, breathing in the air, heavy with the smell of rain. Jason hasn’t said anything for a few minutes. My heart is pounding out of my chest, but I have to ask.

  “Jason, does this mean—” but the question catches in my throat. I feel fat raindrops roll down my face, sticking to my eyelashes.

  “We should—” Jason says, and the rest of his sentence is cut off by a clap of thunder. We both scramble to our feet. Jason grabs my hand and takes off running. I don’t know if he knows where he’s going (I certainly don’t), but I’m happy to be pulled along. My feet sink deeper into the mud with each sprint, splashes flying up my legs. My jeans are fully soaked, and mud is caking deeper and deeper in my sneakers, but I don’t care. I shake my curls, heavy with rain and covered with grass and mud, and they slap across my face, sticking in my wide smile. We run clear across the expansive field. I fall into a perfect pace with him, grasping his hand tightly, thinking back to that first night in London when we ran from the house party, thinking of how much has changed.

  We slow to a stop underneath a huge shade tree, a bright blue bike leaning against its trunk. It’s one of those rickety old cruiser styles, and it looks like there’s more rust than bike there. Jason quickly tests the wheels, giving it a few rolls, before climbing on.

  “Hop on,” he says, his wet hair plastered across his forehead.

  “Where?”

  “Right here,” he says, patting the slippery handlebars as I raise my eyes at him. “What, you want to stay out here?”

  I look up. All I can see is a sheet of gray clouds.

  “Are you hoping the sky is going to drop a helmet?” Jason says, teasing me.

  “Or a Volkswagen,” I mutter, giving the sky one last look. “Fine, fine. I guess it’s safer than hitchhiking.” I scramble up onto the handlebars, and as I try to settle in, Jason grabs my shoulders and gives me an effortless lift. Next thing I know, we’re speeding down the narrow lane back toward town.

  I’ve made a HUGE mistake —J

  We’re staying in Stratford for the night, in a little hostel that has the personality of a mental hospital. The walls are white; the beds are white; the sheets and towels are white. I’m sharing a room with half the girls on the trip, packed into bunk beds like we’re booked on a steamer ship. My bed is old and metal, and every time I turn over, it squeaks. And I’m turning over a lot. Everyone in this room probably hates my guts. I say a little prayer that they all sleep like the dead before turning over for the billionth time. I can’t help it. My brain won’t quiet enough for me to fall asleep.

  I want my mom. Sh
e’s a champion at calming me down, a skill she’s honed over years of dealing with my minor freak-outs. I want nothing more than to be home, curled up on the couch, watching TiVo and eating animal crackers, under the big afghan that Gramma Lichtenstein made for me when I was born.

  But I don’t have the afghan. Instead, I have this awful, scratchy hostel blanket that smells like asparagus and bleach.

  Every time I close my eyes, I picture the kiss. It comes with such intensity that I can practically feel it. It was the perfect kiss in every way except for one: it was with Jason Lippincott. Was that supposed to happen? Was that meant to be? Is he meant to be? This whole time I’ve been chasing after Chris, but I haven’t gotten any closer to him. I have gotten closer to Jason, apparently. Close enough to lock lips. And then I’m off again, reliving the rain and the grass and the kiss.

  But just as soon as I’m feeling blissful, I hear Jason’s voice in my ear calling me Book Licker. I hear him telling me that finding the one is “bullshit.” I hear his dirty jokes about Big Ben and see him stringing himself up to a wall and embarrassing the living hell out of me. I even picture him depositing tampons in my locker in ninth grade and scrawling on Phoebe’s painting.

  This was clearly not meant to be. I mean, sure I’ve learned to tolerate Jason on this trip, but I still fundamentally don’t want to be around him. I’m pretty sure that as soon as we get back to the States, we’ll go right back to ignoring each other. We are not friends. We are less than not friends. We don’t have anything in common.

  My MTB won’t be an annoying, immature, uncultured, dirty-joke-making boy like Jason. He won’t be an attention whore who is spending every waking minute trying to be the loudest person in a room. He won’t be a guy who hasn’t even read a single book, much less a Jane Austen novel!

  It was an accident. We were wrestling, and we fell, and we got caught up in the moment. He bewitched my hormones with his crooked, mischievous smile, his ridiculous freckles, his mess of a mop of hair, his low voice, making fun of me like it’s all some kind of inside joke, like he’s known me forever … and before I know it, I’m back to the kiss, reliving it again.…

  The rain …

  The soft pressure of his lips …

  The feeling of his hands in my hair …

  The sounds of my classmates rifling through their overnight bags wakes me. I guess I finally did fall asleep after all. I sit up too quickly and smack my head on the ceiling.

  “Ouch,” I yelp, rubbing the quickly growing goose egg on my forehead.

  “Well, look who’s awake,” Sarah Finder grumbles. “Glad someone could get some sleep. The rest of us were kept up by some major squeaking.”

  “Seriously,” Evie whines, tossing her toothbrush back into her Louis Vuitton tote. “It was like you were doing the nasty with someone up there.”

  “Sorry,” I mutter, turning bright red. I don’t even want to think about what Sarah would do if she found out about Jason’s kissing me. She would probably convince the whole school that I had a third nipple or an STD. I miss Phoebe. As soon as I get back to the hotel, I’m writing her an email and begging her to get on Skype.

  “Can I have my charger back, please?” Evie sticks her palm out and taps her toe theatrically on the floor. I didn’t know “please” could sound like an insult, but she has managed to pull it off.

  The perk of us all having the same phone? We all have the same charger. I “borrowed” hers last night after she went to sleep.

  Down in the lobby of the hostel, a rumpled employee is handing out sack breakfasts. Inside, I find a semi-stale croissant, a foil-wrapped pat of butter, and a small container of cranberry juice. It doesn’t matter. My stomach is all jumbled up. I couldn’t eat if I wanted to.

  As I climb the steps and shuffle onto the bus, I look for Jason, but he hasn’t made it on yet. I take a window seat toward the middle, wondering if he’ll eventually plop down beside me and steal my breakfast. A few minutes later, that rusty head of baseball cap—covered hair pops up in the front of the bus. My stomach turns a somersault.

  Jason starts down the aisle, nodding to people as he passes. When he finally notices me and the empty seat beside me, I’m not totally shocked that he doesn’t take it. I am shocked that all I get is a half nod before he plops down into a seat two rows ahead of mine. Not even a snotty good morning when he calls me Book Licker? Not a word?

  I crane my neck over the seat in front of me, thinking maybe he’ll turn around and say something, but the bus shudders to a start and we set off down the road. Jason doesn’t even glance back in my direction.

  When I lean my head against the bus window, I can make out Jason’s arm resting against the glass two rows up. I can see him passing something to the seat in front of him, but I can’t make out what it is. I wait and watch closely, but I can’t tell. The next time I see him make a move, I stand up and fake stretch, and that’s when I see what he’s doing. He’s passing a note to Sarah Finder.

  I fall back into my seat so hard I feel the metal springs poke me in the rear. I don’t care. Frankly, it feels good to have a reason for the tears welling up in my eyes, even if it is a literal pain in my butt. I shut my eyes tight before a single tear can fall, and conjure up all those things about Jason I listed last night—how he’s annoying and calls me names, embarrasses me, hates the books I love, has to be the center of attention—and before I know it, I hate him again. But now I have an even bigger reason.

  Because he gave me the best kiss of my life—my first real kiss kiss—and is now pretending it never happened. Even worse, he’s flirting with Sarah in front of me.

  The rest of the ride is miserable. I try to listen to my iPod, but every song seems like some sappy love song. Jason was right. What a bunch of crap.

  When we’re just outside the city, my phone buzzes against my thigh. I dig it out of my pocket and flip it open to see a text.

  Just wanted to say hope ur having a good day —C

  I’ve never been so happy to have a charged phone in my life. A sweet text from Chris is exactly what I need. And it’s finally a text I don’t have to analyze or decode. One that doesn’t need some kind of witty response. I can actually respond to this one all by myself with (gasp!) honesty.

  I’ve had better …

  Seconds later, a response comes.

  “If ur going through hell, keep going.” —Churchill

  I laugh. My dad used to say that all the time, and my mom would swat at him for saying “hell” in front of me.

  I like that 1

  How bout the Frost quote?

  3 things about life: It. Goes. On.

  I press send and imagine Chris in some café somewhere, a burnt caramel mocha and a book on the table, his phone in his hand. Maybe he pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose before he sends each reply; maybe he’s got to push up the sleeves on his worn flannel shirt. I imagine his hair falling over his eyes as he types, and my heart gives a little flutter.

  UR awesome. Meet up soon?

  The bus shudders to a halt, and I’m thrown forward into the back of the seat in front of me. My phone clatters on the ground, and I have to contort like a pretzel to reach it from underneath my seat. As I get up, I see Jason ahead, his head bobbing down the aisle. I fling my bag over my shoulder and make my way up the aisle, but something in a seat two rows up catches my eye. It’s a small white piece of paper, probably a receipt, folded tightly. Writing is scrawled on the back. The note.

  I want it. I feel the same itching intensity I normally feel while standing on the starting blocks at a swim meet. Just give me the signal; I’m ready to bolt.

  I reach out and snatch it up, and when I turn around to see Deirdre peering out under her frizzy hair to give me a strange look, I smile at her. “I can’t believe people would leave their trash on the bus for someone else to pick up,” I say, rolling my eyes. I stuff the note into my bag.

  Back in my hotel room, I latch the chain, as if someone is going to bust in and accus
e me of stealing. I unfold the note and read the two sets of handwriting: Sarah’s loopy cursive spelling out What happened to you guys last night? and Jason’s trademark chicken scratch replying, I screwed up. In more ways than one.

  I read it over again. And again. And then a fourth time. After the fifth, I wad it up in my hand hard and fling it with all my might across the room. It’s only a small scrap of paper, though, so it flutters and then drops limply near my feet. I don’t know what else to do, so I stomp on it hard. And then again. And then I jump up and down on it.

  When I finally stop, I’m out of breath, but a sense of calm comes over me.

  So it was a mistake. We do hate each other. We are complete opposites. It was just hormones. It didn’t mean a thing.

  I won’t think about it again, ever, not even for a second.

  It feels like my brain has been cooked into scrambled eggs. All I know is I need to get the anger out, so I drop to the floor, flat on my back, and do a hundred crunches. When I’m done, my abs are tight and burning, my lungs begging for more oxygen.

  I sit down on the big fluffy bed and pull the comforter around me like a cape. Then I drop back on the bed and fall asleep, gaining back all those lost hours from last night.

  When I wake from my nap, I realize I’ve missed lunch. Oh well. I still have negative appetite. I spot my towel from the hotel pool hanging over the rack. As soon as I slip into my suit, I feel my muscles start to burn, begging for a good workout.

  Up on the rooftop pool, I execute a perfect dive into the water, barely making a splash. I start freestyle, pulling myself hard through the water, but it’s not long before I switch to the butterfly. It’s not my best stroke, but it works my body so hard I can’t think of anything else.

  Except the kiss. The kiss that was a mistake. The water isn’t doing its job today. Nothing is muted. In fact, it all seems louder. The kiss was a mistake? But then why did it feel so right at the time? I’ve had enough kisses in my life (okay, four) to know that what happened yesterday was different. Special. Downright awesome. My mind wanders back to the moment in the grass, right before the rain, when I could feel his breath in my hair. I’m about to get lost in the memory when reality clicks in and brings me back. Apparently, the “different” feeling was that I’d never been kissed by accident. I’d never been kissed by someone who didn’t want to kiss me back. (Even Johnny Cafferty, who had to kiss me during spin the bottle at summer camp, wanted to kiss me. He told Phoebe and she jostled the bottle at the last second so it landed on him.)