The First Kiss Hypothesis

by Mandelski, Christina

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Not like it’s my favorite memory.”

  She laughs low. “No. Mine either. I had such a huge crush on you then.”

  I can’t believe she just said that.

  “You did not.”

  Her eyebrows pull together. “Why do you think I kissed you?”

  “Because I was your first test case?”

  The corners of her mouth curve up slightly. “No. It wasn’t an experiment, not yet, not back then. I didn’t think there’d be anyone else. I thought you were the only one.”

  She lifts the plastic cup from the drink holder, takes a sip, makes a face and shudders. “Beer is disgusting,” she says.

  I don’t want to talk about beer. “What if I had been?”

  “Been what?”

  “The One. What if you’d felt it, back then? The lightning strike. We were only thirteen,” I say, skeptical. “What would have happened to us?”

  She lifts her hands. “I guess we would have been like Romeo and Juliet.”

  “Double murder suicide?”

  She pushes my shoulder. “No! I mean”—she pauses—“young lovers.”

  “Oh.” I twist in my seat, trying not to get excited thinking of us as lovers, young or otherwise. “You’re seriously missing the point of that story, you know.”

  “Which is?”

  I pause, put a finger to my mouth, thinking. “What was Willie’s point?”

  “Willie?”

  I give her the smile again—I’m on to something here. “Willie Shakespeare, my literary bro?”

  She purses her lips, not buying my bullshit.

  “You doubt me? You might be surprised to know I’ve got an eighty-four average in English. So, pretty much top of the class. So for Will, it was all about the tragedy. Star-crossed lovers. No happy endings.”

  “Right,” she agrees. “So depressing.” She glances out her side window. Her hair moves with her. I want to touch it.

  Keep going, Costas. “It’s only depressing if you kill yourself over it. Love doesn’t always work out. Shit happens. That’s life.”

  She doesn’t respond, but turns back to me again. God, those eyes. I can’t control myself. I reach out and touch her hair, hold a lock of it between my fingers. She doesn’t move, doesn’t take her eyes off of me, doesn’t ask what I’m doing, doesn’t tell me to stop. I have her attention.

  “That’s what makes it so good,” I say. “When you find it, and it’s right—and I think you can know it’s right. Even without an earthquake, I think you can know, not that it’s going to last forever, but that it’s at least worth a try.”

  Her eyes, they’re sucking me in, they’re the bottom of the glass boat, a window to another world. They close slowly again, and open, like a butterfly’s wings.

  Nora is worth a try. “What about science?” she whispers. She’s moved closer, I think, and it’s getting hot in this car. I swallow hard. Got to keep my head.

  “I told you.” I’ve still got her hair, holding it tight. She still doesn’t stop me. “It’s not science. It’s chaos.”

  “Chaos?”

  She closes the space between us. Nora and me, we’re sharing the same air, lips about to touch, again. My body is sending me signals. I don’t want to stop. Every fantasy I’ve had about kissing her, touching her, flashes through my head, and all I can think about is how maybe, just maybe, every one of them might have a chance to come true if I just lean in and take what I want. What I’m pretty sure she wants, too.

  Hey, dumbass, you can’t kiss her.

  Moment. Destroyed.

  I pull back, which is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. “Uhh…”

  She comes to, jerks away from me, smoothes her hair, and flings open the door. “Sorry,” she says. “I’m. I’m a little…” She scans the interior of the car wildly. “I had a beer.”

  I see her beer. It’s full.

  My body slumps, utterly exhausted. This plan of mine is taking its toll on me. “Okay,” I say. “Nor, look.” I need to be careful, but I have no idea what I’m saying anymore. “I had a crush on you, too, back then, back in Madison’s garage. Man, it was a bad crush.”

  “You did?” Her voice is small. I’m making her uncomfortable.

  “Yeah. I was too much of a chickenshit to do anything about it, then you kissed me, and it sucked, and you shut me down. I never had a chance.”

  She won’t look at me all of a sudden. Is she even listening? I move my hand, touch her cheek, lift her face until I have her attention again. “Nora?”

  There she is.

  “I’m not a chickenshit anymore.”

  She looks confused, not sure what’s happening. If I’m honest, I feel the same way, but I can’t let that stop me.

  “Nora, if I ever get a chance to kiss you again, it won’t be because you’re having a moment of weakness, or because you’re scared maybe your theory is wrong.”

  She bites her lip, and the movement is like the fucking Death Star tractor beam. But I’m not done.

  “If we kiss again, when we kiss again, it’ll be because you’re done experimenting, and you know who you’ve been looking for.”

  Her eyes drill into mine, it’s like I can see her brain processing my words. Did I really just say all that? I lower my hand, and she turns forward, with that same terrified look she gets when she has to drive. What have I done?

  She steps out of the car. “I’m sorry, Eli. I’m so sorry.”

  That’s it. I’m sunk. I watch her walk around the car to my side, apologizing the whole way around. “It’s okay,” I say, though it’s not clear what she’s sorry about. She helps me with my crutches, I can see she’s shaken. So am I.

  As we make our way out, the irony of this happening again, in another garage, with her, is not lost on me.

  I step into the laundry room and my eyes adjust to the bright light. In front of me are Eddie Ponti, going through a cabinet above the dryer, and—shit—Tex.

  “Costas!” Eddie yells. “You seen cups? We need cups!”

  I’m about to answer when Nora appears next to me. Eddie’s face lights up like he’s just seen goddamn Santa Claus. “Heeeey, Nora,” he says, never taking his eyes off me. I know what this looks like.

  Tex looks at Nora and doesn’t stop. I don’t like it.

  “You two have fun out there?” Ponti laughs, the asshole.

  Tex catches up to what’s going on and his face gets all serious like his cow ran away.

  “Shut it,” I say to Ed.

  “Yes, we had fun,” Nora says in her matter-of-fact, don’t-fuck-with-me tone. She glares at Eddie. “We’re friends, Ed. We had fun, talking. Just because a male and a female are alone together doesn’t mean they must be having sex. If any girl would ever agree to be alone with you, you would know that.”

  The corner of Tex’s mouth curls up on one side. Asshole cowboy face.

  “Fine.” Eddie wisely doesn’t try to defend himself. He clears a space for us to walk through. “Sorry.”

  “Hey, Nora,” Tex drawls. “Can I get you a beer?”

  “You know what?” I don’t give her a chance to answer. “My knee’s killing me.” I’m not proud of lying to a teammate, but I can’t deal with this shithead for another minute. “We gotta go.”

  “I can take you home,” he says to Nora.

  I’m going to kick his ass.

  “No thanks, Caleb,” Nora says. “I drove us.”

  “Okay,” he says. “You wanna do something this week?”

  “Maybe,” she says, biting her bottom lip.

  Tex doesn’t give up, the douchebag. “There’s a JV game Thursday. I was gonna go. We could go together, maybe get some dinner after?”

  No. I’m willing her to say it. Please. Say no.

  Is it me, or does she look like a deer in headlights? “All right, just text me,” she says. She sounds like she can’t get away from him fast enough. Why didn’t she say no?

  She follows me out to the ma
in room, where about twenty more people ask about my knee. I’m about to go full-on Incredible Hulk by the time we finally get outside.

  Nora helps me down the porch stairs and I can’t move. I’m frozen with panic. Did I just destroy any chance I had with her, coming on to her like that? What is with me? It was like I had diarrhea of the mouth in that car. I couldn’t stop. I should’ve stopped.

  Now she’s gonna go on a date with that Lone Star–state dillweed. She stops walking when she notices I’m not moving. “What is it? Eli?” She rushes back to my side, her voice panicky. “You should have told me your knee was hurting. I’ll go get the car. Don’t move.”

  I nod, once, and watch her run down the gravel road. My knee doesn’t hurt, not at all, but I can’t move. It’s like my body has gone into shock, trying to absorb what my heart just realized.

  That girl…the one running away who wants nothing to do with me? I love her.

  I love Nora Reid.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Nora

  I can barely fill my lungs as I run to the car. What just happened?

  The scene plays over and over in my head.

  I almost kissed him. I wanted to kiss him. What is wrong with me?

  On the way home along the pitch black of the country road, I try to focus on not creating any road kill. Focus on getting Eli back because his knee hurts. All I can think about is what he said back there.

  He’s quiet now. Why isn’t he talking? Why did he say we would kiss again? He wants to kiss me? Didn’t he say that?

  The silence is freaking me out. I’m trying to think of something, anything normal, to say, but my mind is like a black hole. I want to talk about what just happened in the garage, and also, I never want to speak of it again.

  “Center yourself in the lane. You’re drifting.”

  Finally, there’s talking.

  “Okay,” I say, though I felt like I was pretty much in the center. I nudge the car a little to the right.

  “When are you taking the test?” he asks.

  “Next Friday. I already made the appointment. Just need to tell my mom first.”

  “And when are you gonna tell her about Emory?”

  My jaw tightens and I grip the steering wheel harder. “I want to wait until I hear about scholarships, and then I’ll tell her.”

  “Good, you should. I bet it’ll make her happy.”

  I wish I had his confidence. “I don’t know. This fall was so bad, moving Gigi.” I concentrate on making a tight corner, which I navigate perfectly. “She already has too much to handle. I just want to know for sure, so she doesn’t have another thing to worry about.”

  He’s silent for an endless minute. “Why did you apply?”

  This conversation is quickly morphing into a confession. Maybe we would have been better off not talking. “Mr. Chaffee told me about their program, and I researched it. Then I got sort of excited. I was doubtful they’d want me. He thought I had a good chance, though. He wrote me a recommendation, and they accepted me.”

  “Cool. The only thing he ever wrote me was a tardy slip.”

  He’s trying to be funny, but I don’t laugh. “I did it on a whim, really. To see if I could get in.”

  “You could have gotten in anywhere. Everywhere.”

  I focus on the road. I don’t want to talk about Emory. “Maybe. I’m not sure if it’s right to leave Mom now, though, even if I do get a decent scholarship.”

  He moves his leg, trying to get comfortable, maybe. “You’re always doing that. Looking out for her. She’s stronger than you think, though. I bet she’ll be fine.”

  “Maybe,” I say, not sure that’s true.

  “So…” He pauses. “Maybe we can fit a few more lessons in before the surgery?”

  My grip tightens on the steering wheel. “More?”

  I know. I know. I should not agree to spend more time with him, even for driving lessons. That’s a no-brainer. I should wait for Tex’s call and go out with him. I could practically feel the sparks coming off him in that laundry room.

  Except that right now, all I can think about are the sparks between me and Eli in that garage, and how close I came to kissing him. I need to say no.

  My mind goes blank. “Yeah, okay,” I say. Apparently, my brain is set to self-destruct. “Just a few more.”

  “Whatever you want,” he says.

  That’s the problem, right there in a nutshell. What I want is him.

  By the time we get back to the Mermaid, we’re in silent mode again, lost in our own thoughts. At least I am.

  “Ready to switch?” I ask.

  “Yeah.”

  I pull the crutches out of the backseat and help him out, realizing that I just drove the whole way home without even thinking about the driving part of it.

  The Mermaid is still open, and pie sounds so good right now. I glance at Eli sideways. It’s not a good idea, not tonight. Sure, we’d eventually find things to talk about—lacrosse, Emory, scholarships, family, and friends. It’s the things that won’t be said that I can’t stop thinking about, things that are threatening to derail me, my hypothesis, possibly my whole life.

  As he gets back in and I take his crutches, he looks back toward the restaurant, too, probably coming to the same conclusion. I close my door and without a word he pulls away, out of the parking lot, driving too fast.

  I’m about to tell him to slow down when I see blue-and-red lights in my side mirror. Hear the whoop, whoop of a police car.

  “Perfect.” He pulls over.

  I’m not sure what he expected, driving like a maniac.

  “Shit.” He puts the car in park and glances at the side mirror. “It’s my dad. Of course.”

  Eli lowers the window and Mr. Costas leans inside. “Nora.” He speaks like Eli isn’t even there. “I’m sorry my son is driving your car, or any car, like he’s on the NASCAR circuit.”

  “Hi, Mr. Costas.”

  He finally acknowledges Eli. “You been drinking?”

  Eli stays quiet, his eyes forward. “No.”

  “Do I need to check?”

  He clenches his teeth. “No. You don’t.”

  “All right,” Mr. Costas says. “I’m going to give you a ticket.”

  Eli’s mouth drops open. “What?”

  His father holds out a hand. “License and registration.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Eli snaps.

  Mr. Costas is not kidding, not at all. It’s kind of obvious.

  “What? You really think I’m going to give you a pass, just because you’re my kid? You can pay the fine, then go to defensive driving school. Won’t hurt you. Might prevent this from happening again.”

  When his father goes back to the cruiser, I guess to write the ticket, Eli smacks the steering wheel. “Every cop in this town would have let me go with a warning. Not him.” He turns his body toward me. “See, that’s why you should tell your mom about Emory.”

  “Why?”

  He scowls. “Because I have nothing like that to tell him. Not only am I not smart enough to get into real college, now I can’t even play the game that he’s spent all this money on since I was four. Now it’s like he expects me to screw up. I can’t do anything to make him proud. Your mom might freak about you leaving, but you gotta tell her. Parents live for that shit.” He adjusts the rearview mirror. “So I hear, anyway.”

  Mr. Costas brings back a ticket, passes it through the window, and Eli drives away, without a word.

  A few minutes later, we pull up the driveway and into the garage. Our kitchen light is on. His house is all lit up, everyone is still awake. For all that happened at that party, we weren’t gone for very long. Eli turns off the engine. We’re in a dark garage again, which feels dangerous.

  His head hangs low and his hands still grip the wheel. “Sorry about tonight.”

  What’s he sorry about? That we almost kissed? Or that he stopped it? I guess I spend too long analyzing, because he opens his door.
/>   “All right,” he says. “Good night.”

  “Wait.” I lay my hand on his arm. His skin is warm, and it seems to transfer through to my body. I can’t look directly at him, but I feel him watching me, setting my whole body on fire. I am trying so hard to act cool. I’m afraid that he’ll know that something happened inside of me tonight, something shifted, even if it was temporary. “Don’t be sorry.”

  I lift my eyes and meet his.

  His forehead furrows, and I feel the sparks starting up again. I know he’s wondering what the hell that meant. So am I. I’ve believed in my hypothesis for so long, been so rigid about it, and then I almost kissed him tonight. For real, if he hadn’t stopped it, something would have happened. I can’t explain any of this to him so I throw open my door and get out.

  I gather his crutches from the backseat and hand them over, staying near in case he needs me.

  My face feels so hot; I’m glad it’s dark in here. When he’s out, I’m tempted to give him a hug, just a friendly hug, thanking him for the evening. I’m just not sure I can be that close to him right now. I’m not sure it’s safe. Instead I lift a hand and pat the side of his arm.

  “Okay,” he whispers, one corner of his mouth turns up.

  “Okay.”

  “We’ll talk about the next lesson tomorrow?” His voice sounds hopeful, or maybe that’s wishful thinking.

  Say NO, Nora. It’s not too late. This is happening because of you—what kind of intelligent woman tries to get over someone by spending more time with him?

  I ignore the flurry of warnings in my head. “Okay, yes.” I say, because I am an idiot.

  We walk out of the garage, together, safe now. Nothing is going to happen out in the open.

  His mom steps out their back door, arms crossed. “A ticket? Really?”

  “Great,” he mumbles as he hobbles toward his house. “Night, Nora.”

  “Good night.” I head to my own backyard and see the kitchen light is on, which means Mom is home.

  She’s going to want to hear everything, which is not going to happen. As I trudge to the door, I think that, if I could be honest with her, which I can’t, this is what I’d say:

  Mom, I’d say, I have this hypothesis, about the first kiss and how it relates to true love, that I formulated because of Gigi and Harold’s awesome love story, and your and Dad’s less than stellar one.