The Art of French Kissing

by Brianna Shrum

  Reid laughs. Breathy. Kind of quiet. Says, “It’s gonna be a challenge but I think we’re up for it.”

  “If anyone can . . .” I say.

  Reid does this kind of dorky two-fingered salute of acknowledgment. Shifts up as close to me as he can get. Whispers, lips brushing my ear, “You good, princess?”

  I say, “Yeah. Are—are you?”

  One more hoarse laugh. “Yeah. Yeah I’m good.”

  There’s a flash of nervousness on his face and then it’s gone and neither of us really has the room for nerves because this is happening. It’s happening and both of us have been dying for this, and it’s good. It’s so freaking good and I’m so happy and I don’t regret it for a second.

  I don’t regret the wanting.

  Because when you finally get what you’ve let yourself be desperate for, it makes the terror of wanting so. So. Worth it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  So Reid never actually left my room because we both passed out, and Riya did, in fact, come back some time in the middle of the night, which means that this morning opens up with a lot of embarrassed laughter from, like, everyone, and at least all of us are dying together.

  Reid looks sheepish for the first time since I’ve met him, possibly for the first time in his life, when he waves at Riya, coughs, and says, “Well. I’ll, uh, see you guys at breakfast. I just have to. Leave the room with no excuse.”

  Riya whistles at me when he leaves and I say, “Like you have room to talk.”

  She smirks.

  I hop in the shower, and when I get out, Riya says, “Competition in thirty minutes. We should head down.”

  I say, “Yeah, good call,” but then stop. My gaze snags on her bags, all zipped up, puffing out because for some reason it’s impossible to pack nearly as efficiently when you’re going home as when you’re going somewhere new.

  Something twists in my chest. It’s the last day. The last day. I don’t know how to deal with how unreasonably sad I am about it so I don’t.

  I go downstairs with Riya, waiting to pack until I absolutely have to, and we all sit at the same table. We’ll be cutthroat rivals in twenty minutes, but right now we aren’t. We are four kids who want to have breakfast. Want to enjoy this last little piece of time until it all changes.

  Reid keeps smirking at me and shoulder-bumping me all through breakfast and my face heats up, blood quickens. I’m a blushing mess all through the meal and I’d be embarrassed about it except Riya and Will keep flirting so freaking hard that I don’t think either of them notices that either of us is even breathing, let alone blushing.

  Reid says, “How you doing?”

  “About . . . last night? Or about fifteen minutes from now?”

  He shrugs, mouth tips up. “About any of it. All of it. How are you like as a unit?”

  “I’m extremely good about last night.”

  Reid scrapes his teeth over his lip and smiles, goes for another bite of cereal.

  “About fifteen minutes from now,” I say, “I don’t . . . I don’t know. I’m. Some sort of adjective.”

  “Ah. Informative.”

  “I am nothing if not forthcoming. How are you?”

  “Good and an adjective. A different one than you so you know I’m not copying.”

  I roll my eyes and smirk, and Reid elbows me gently, tips his head toward the cafeteria door that leads out in to the quad.

  “You ready to go do this thing?”

  “Nope.”

  “Gonna go do it anyway?”

  I look at him, suck in a breath. “Yep.”

  “Let’s go.”

  It takes about ten seconds to realize something is off about the kitchen. I don’t know what, I can’t pinpoint it. But something seems just ever-so-slightly wrong.

  Nerves rush over my skin. I can feel the anxiety pooling everywhere and I’m sure it’s drowning every one of us.

  I zero in on Dr. Freeman when she speaks. “Welcome to the penultimate challenge. Two of you will move forward after this round. You have three ingredients in front of you. Duck, cooking wine, and blood orange.”

  I raise my eyebrows. That is bizarrely easy.

  I glance over at Reid and his brow is furrowed.

  Duck, orange, and wine? That’s literally the perfect combination. It would be like . . . like setting peanut butter, jelly, and bread in front of someone and saying, “GOOD LUCK MAKING SOMETHING OUT OF THIS. BWAHAHA.”

  Now I’m even more nervous. Somehow. Apparently that was possible.

  “You have a half hour,” says Dr. Freeman, in that smooth voice that sounds like wine personified. “Begin.”

  I shrug. Don’t look a gift hors ’d’oeuvres in the mouth.

  I start coming up with a marinade, incorporating the wine and the blood orange, which is gorgeous. Some garlic. Pepper. The spices are fresh and not picked over, which is a nice change of pace. I hadn’t realized how nice until this moment. But I can breathe when the kitchen isn’t totally cluttered, a stampede of cheffery. I’m still nervous but letting the rhythm of this take over me, only letting myself think about what I’m doing, what I’m cooking, I can’t think about Reid or Will or Riya or the judges. It is me and this couscous and this duck. The end.

  I pull a pan out from an open cabinet and that’s when I realize exactly what felt so off when I walked in here: so much of everything is missing. Not the ingredients. But the pots, the pans, the spatulas, the spoons.

  What the hell.

  I frown and set the pan on the burner, melt a little butter in it. All the butter slowly slides to one side.

  That’s . . . extremely weird.

  Gotta be a faulty pan. I pull up another and see without setting it on the stovetop that it’s got a big bubble right in the middle of it. Then it dawns on me: It’s all like this. All they left us is damaged cookware. Partially burned up, torn up spoons, only plastic cheap spatulas that can’t withstand heat like a metal one would, pans that are warped and uneven and that have lost their nonstick coating.

  I should be scared.

  I should be panicking.

  But I’m not.

  I’m thrilled.

  I’m not the only one who grew up without money; Riya doesn’t have any either. I know Reid at least isn’t rich. I don’t think he’s . . . like me. But he doesn’t live in a mansion. The only one I don’t know about is Will.

  So. I don’t know if it’s a huge advantage that I’ve spent my whole life cooking on decade-old cookware, that everything I’ve ever made in a skillet has been a battle between me and whatever is in the pan, and its particular wicked quirks that force the ingredients to go all over the place in unpredictable swirls and burn patterns. But it’s not a disadvantage.

  I weigh the original pan in my hands and watch the butter. See exactly how fast it moves, pick out the bumps. And I go for it. The duck sizzles and oh my lord it is heavenly.

  One by one, a chorus of swear words from the boys in the room rises up, and I’m just smirking. This duck is coming out perfect.

  It’s perfect and I am manipulating the pan with my wrist and the couscous is flawless and the sauce tastes like a dream and I want to cry.

  I want to cry because I am going to make it. I am going to do this, I am going to do this, oh my god, I am going to do this.

  We plate.

  Everything smells like the most incredible thing on the planet, whatever that is, and terror combined.

  I am shaking so hard I think I’ll drop my plates.

  I don’t.

  The buzzer rings; time is up.

  The judges go down the line, sampling everything, and I am so freaking frozen with anticipation that I don’t even hear what they say about my dish. I hear nothing at all. I feel every hair on my body stand up and feel the blood rushing through my veins and I feel the thoughts spreading through my brain.

  Good lord, am I going to have a stroke?

  Maybe this is what it feels like. A heart attack. Something.

 
We head into the deliberation room, and Reid sits next to me, squeezes my hand so hard I think my knuckles will crack. His palms are sweaty. Maybe those are mine. My leg is bouncing so hard the table is shaking but no one cares and no one talks.

  The air feels solid.

  Dr. Lavell comes to get us, and we file back into the room. Everyone is just . . . breathing. We are all stiff and looking at the floor and breathing.

  Or trying to.

  Dr. Kapoor clears his throat. “Congratulations, competitors, on making it this far. And on providing us with easily one of the most challenging semi-final rounds we have had the opportunity to judge.”

  Breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe.

  It’s fine, you’re fine, your lungs are not collapsing, you are okay, this is fine, whatever happens. WHATEVER. HAPPENS.

  Dr. Kapoor says, “Proceeding to the finals: Riya Khatri.”

  I blow out a breath. Reid is squeezing my hand again. I am dying.

  It’s not a surprise; of course Riya made it.

  “And the final competitor moving to the final round—”

  My heart is in my throat. I am become sweat. I am become death.

  “—is—”

  Lord, just strike me with a bolt of lightning right here right now.

  “Carter Lane.”

  I burst into tears.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I can’t believe it.

  I can’t believe it and yet, here it is. We are dismissed immediately and everyone looks dazed. For totally different reasons, we are all just blinking, eyes glazed, staring at the ground. We have two hours until the final round and that feels so soon, and it feels a million miles away, and I don’t know how to handle it.

  I know I have to pack.

  I know I have to head to my room. One foot in front of the other.

  No one talks, really, we just walk in a group back to the dorms, but Riya breaks off with Will—she has already packed; no reason to hang out in our room all afternoon—and Reid breaks off with me.

  We walk up the stairs together and everything feels small. I’m thinking that I am so proud of myself I can’t stand it. And I’m thinking about Reid and how he must be devastated and then I feel a little guilty but I shouldn’t feel guilty because I earned this. I did. I earned it.

  Then we get to my room and I sit on the bed, surveying the mess on the floor and everywhere, and try to plan an attack on all my clothes. Reid shuts the door behind him and now my thoughts have shifted somewhere different. I am thinking about him and me in this bed last night and waking up next to him and a hundred feelings I don’t know how to name, and all these thoughts are just tumbling and tangling together in my head.

  I look back at Reid and his face splits in a smile as he leans against that door.

  “Congratulations.” He’s still smiling and it’s genuine. His voice cracks a little, but he means it. He’s proud of me, I think, and he’s just leaning there looking all handsome, arms folded, against the door. And I slide off the bed to slip my arms around him. This is probably one of my top ten moments. Maybe top five. Three? I don’t know how to quantify it. All I know is that I feel like sunlight personified. I got this. I did this. All on my own.

  Reid’s arms fold around me and he rests his chin on my head. He smells like the kitchen—like butter and spice—and I breathe him in. His breaths are even when he whispers into my hair, “You earned this, princess.”

  I blush from my head to my toes.

  But something sticks. Something, a barb just right there snagging on my chest.

  There it is: that little buzz of doubt.

  I say, without letting that doubt take root, “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” he says.

  That cracked hoarseness in his voice. Like he’s so sad but doesn’t want me to know.

  Besides that, he’s okay. Steady and even and solid and smiling like he’s supposed to. Congratulating me. For taking this thing he wanted so badly from him.

  Like he expected it.

  I press my nose into his chest and say, “Tell me one thing?”

  He says, “Anything.”

  “You—you didn’t let me win. Did you?”

  The hand that’s been running up and down my back freezes. “What?”

  I regret it almost instantly but it’s out there now. “You didn’t let me win.” I know as I say it that he didn’t, of course he didn’t, that I am good enough. Maybe better than him. Better enough to be heading into finals.

  He slides out from the door, chest brushing my face. Holds me at arm’s length.

  He says, “You think—you think I would do that?”

  I blow out a breath and keep my eyes trained on the door for a second.

  “No,” he says. “Of course I didn’t.”

  I say, “Okay.”

  We’re both quiet for a minute and under my skin is buzzing this current of Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure?

  And I guess one of them makes it out of my skin and pops out through my mouth.

  Because Reid says, “Am I sure? Am I sure.”

  I sigh.

  “Look at me,” he says. “Look at my face and tell me I let you win. That I didn’t want this so fucking bad I could taste it, Carter.”

  I look at him. His eyes are red-rimmed. Wet. He is one step away from crying.

  “I lost!” he says. “Okay? You win, you’re better than me, congratulations. I lost because you’re better and it’s fine, it’s freaking fine.”

  “Whoa,” I say. “Little resentful, are we?”

  Reid blinks.

  I immediately want to apologize.

  I don’t, though, because I halfway think I’m right.

  He says, voice low and measured, “Don’t put that shit on me.”

  His voice is hard now; Reid has gone from sad to mad in a heartbeat. Here we are again. This is so damn familiar. So. Damn. Familiar.

  “What do you mean, don’t put that shit on me?” I say. “You’re mad.”

  “I’m not mad that you won, Carter. I’m mad that I’m the one who should be sad here and here you are, asking me to comfort you.”

  “Reid, come on.”

  “You’re asking me to fucking reassure you. Maybe I’m the one who should be being reassured right now? Jesus.”

  “What, I need to reassure your ego? Do I need to apologize?”

  “No, you don’t need to apologize—”

  “This is such bullshit,” I say, and I am so mad. I’m so mad I’m shaking. Reid looks exhausted. I don’t care. “I have to feel guilty. Once again. For asking a question. All you had to do was answer it, but you’re like . . . lashing out at me instead. You’re pissed. Admit it. You’re pissed that I won.”

  “I’m not pissed you won.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  His nostrils flare and he glances away from me, and that’s how I know he’s lying. “Carter.”

  “YOU ARE. ADMIT IT.”

  “OKAY,” he says. “I’m pissed. I’m pissed! I wanted this so bad and you got it and I wasn’t gonna say anything because I know it’s bullshit, but damn! I’m not allowed to feel emotions over this?”

  “You’re supposed to be happy for me!”

  “I am happy for you,” he says.

  “You’re mad. You’re disappointed.”

  He laughs and it’s not funny. “Humans can have more than one feeling at once, Lane.”

  “The sarcasm is helping.”

  He looks up at the ceiling and shakes his head.

  “I asked you one question,” I say.

  He says, “You asked me if I cheated to let you win. You asked me if I’d cheapen everything for both of us by doing something so bullshit. That’s not a simple question.”

  “I don’t believe this.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  I am vibrating. I can’t stand him and I can’t stand this and I can’t stand having the best day of my life tainted by Reid’s selfishness.

 
; “I should go,” he says. He’s reaching for the doorknob at his back.

  I say, “Look at us. Finally agreeing on something.”

  Reid curls his lower lip over his teeth, runs his tongue over it. He yanks the door open.

  “I’ll see you in finals,” he says. And he slams the door behind him.

  I’m so mad, I’m throwing all my clothes into my bags, as though this is my clothing’s fault.

  How dare he. How dare he ruin this? I’m regretting everything, all of it, because he’s being so immature and I should be allowed to enjoy this and I can’t.

  This is my last day here. What bullshit.

  I wish I hadn’t kissed him and I wish I hadn’t touched him and slept with him and fallen for him. What have I been thinking? What have I been doing? This selfish boy . . . and I wrapped my heart in butcher’s twine and handed it to him like a gift.

  This boy who had done nothing more since the moment I met him than try to get me to fall.

  Everything hurts. I am a wonder of contradictions. I am thrilled and furious and happy and sad and how how how does a person even begin to contain all these emotions at once without just exploding out of their skin?

  I need to think about finals. About cooking. About what comes next, and not about Reid and how stupid I was to think this had a prayer of working.

  I breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth. In through my nose, out through my mouth.

  And when I’m done packing, I leave my room and head downstairs. I want to walk outside alone, to the river. It’s sweltering outside; I can breathe in all the hot humidity and it tastes like everything I want so badly. It tastes like my heart yearning and breaking all at once.

  Everything is electric and everything hurts.

  I walk toward that river, the one we had that picnic by? The river that feels like it’s calling me to stay here. To earn this.

  God, I want it so bad.

  I move toward it, needing a moment of peace, and stop short.

  I see him and he doesn’t see me. Reid. Sitting under this tree. He’s clutching a paper, the letter I assume has to be his acceptance to this program, in one hand. His shoulders are shaking and he’s tipping his head back, leaning it against the rough bark of the tree trunk.