Kiss Crush Collide
Page 17
I grab my shoes and step away from him, trying to keep it together. My mother does not like a scene, and Shane’s never done anything wrong, other than fit her mold.
“I’m sorry, Shane,” I say, my voice as tight and dry as it is sure, “so sorry, but you’re on your own.” He stumbles, one step away from me, and releases my hand. I drop my shoes onto the patio and walk away.
I pass the little boys in striped clip-on ties and short-sleeved dress shirts dancing with little girls with flowers in their hair, and Yorke looking heavy, carrying the only secret she’s ever been able to keep, the one that seals her fate, and Freddie, dancing cheek to cheek with Evan, tight and content in the middle of the dance floor, unwilling to give him up. And my mother, arms around my dad, wrapped safe and secure in her snug little world of family and friends. I do not feel left out or left behind. I feel free.
I pass the big white floppy hat and the friend that Valerie has become with a smile. No doubt she will pass on what she has witnessed here tonight. Soon enough Duffy will know everything.
I catch her eye and wave before I disappear, down a flight of stone steps and out into the night. I walk across the lawn. My footprints shine behind me in the moonlight on the thick, wet grass. I am finding my own way.
Chapter Seventeen
The first day of school is blooming hard and hot outside my classroom window, and it still feels like summer to me.
The days have been muggy and long. Life has moved in slow motion. The only thing that seems to be moving at all is my heart. It races, tight in my chest. I am counting down to I don’t know what.
My mother’s unhappiness with me is apparent. The slash of coral on her lips is cracked and stretched thin. She doesn’t understand how I could let Shane go, or why. She worries what everyone will think.
She doesn’t understand that I don’t have to live her life, or Yorke’s or Freddie’s, to get everything I want. She wants to keep me tethered tight, because my sisters are gone and she has no one else left. Our house is very clean.
The final bell is still ringing, and I am out, crossing the street on my way to the parking lot, filling my lungs with fresh air and searching for my keys, which always seem to sink helplessly to the bottom of my bag.
I look up, and my eyes glue onto him. My feet trip over themselves on the hot, cracked pavement. A threadbare T-shirt stretches across his chest. I read it, my eyes flicking up to catch his. CAMP KEWAUNEE.
“So, is that where you’ve been?” I ask.
His smile cracks open, and I know, right then, that my heart has been racing for a reason.
My final few steps toward him are taller and straighter, evolution in practice, before I light to a landing just a breath away.
The toes of his scuffed work boots point toward the sky as he leans up against the car. He slides his hands down his long legs. Then he looks up at me.
“I heard,” he says.
“What did you hear?” I ask, stretching out next to him, the hot car instantly warming the backs of my legs.
“Just a story.” He shrugs.
“Yeah?”
“A story of a girl,” he says with a smirk and a smile. “She’s blond, she’s got these sisters . . . ”
“Well.” I stop him. “I am not that girl. This is not that story.”
“I know,” he says, nodding across the parking lot. Valerie is there, watching us on the sly, doing a spazzy dance of joy between the parked cars in the back, getting ready to add Cupid to the extracurriculars on her college applications.
“How does it end?” I ask, looking over at him.
He moves, his jeans sliding down a bit on his lean frame, the muscles in his back flexing as he turns toward the car and pulls open the passenger door.
He slides into a handsomely restored gunmetal gray ’69 Camaro with creamy white leather interior. The chrome shines, the polished paint reflects the open sky rolling over our heads, and the red-and- white plates read PORTER. It’s perfect.
“Climb in,” he says, “let’s find out.”
I eye him, and the car, suspiciously. He watches me, waiting quietly, his green eyes dancing.
“Yes,” he finally admits, running his hands through his tangle of thick dark hair sheepishly, “it’s mine.”
His smile opens up wide, and I melt right there into a pool of solder, shimmering onto the street. I climb in, drop it into first, slide my hand into his, and put my foot to the floor. Watch for the sparks.
About the Author
CHRISTINA MEREDITH has always wondered, “How fun is it to drive if you always know exactly where you’re going to end up?” She lives in Sausalito, California. This is her first book.
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Credits
Jacket art © 2012 by Adam Weiss
Jacket design by Sylvie Le Floc’h
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
Kiss Crush Collide
Copyright © 2012 by Christina Meredith
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Meredith, Christina.
Kiss crush collide / by Christina Meredith.
p. cm.
“Greenwillow Books.”
Summary: Leah’s path has been laid out for her by her controlling mother and perfect sisters—prom queen, valedictorian, college, country club wedding—but when Leah meets a boy who is not in her social class, she begins to question what she wants for herself.
ISBN 978-0-06-206224-6 (trade bdg.)
[1. Social classes—Fiction. 2. Self-realization—Fiction. 3. Sisters—Fiction. 4. Family problems—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.M534Co 2012 [Fic]—dc22 2011002838
11 12 13 14 15 CG/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 First Edition
Epub Edition © NOVEMBER 2011 ISBN: 9780062062260
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