Puddle Jumping

by Amber L. Johnson

  I didn’t know if he even liked holding hands.

  It was so frustrating not knowing what he was thinking.

  He was quiet as we walked into the room, and suddenly it felt like all eyes were on us. Scratch that. They totally were on us.

  Harper raced over and pulled me in for a hug. And then she took a step back and looked at Colton, offering a genuine smile. “Glad you made it,” she said.

  “You’re glad I made what?” Colton frowned and looked at her for explanation but she just shook her head and laughed.

  “I’m glad you’re going to be helping us ice these cupcakes,” she corrected herself. And I was so effing proud of her for listening to the small tidbits of information I had given her the night before. She led us over to our table, where a few people were busy working on the sweets. Some were decorating and some were wrapping things in colorful plastic wrap. Others were boxing and writing on tags and I had to wonder what Colton would be most comfortable doing.

  “Do you want to help put icing on the cupcakes?” I asked him as quietly as I could.

  He said no because it was too sticky.

  “What about gloves?”

  “Plastic and latex make my hands sweat and it’s uncomfortable.” His usual calm demeanor was starting to crack.

  I leaned over and picked up a shaker of edible glitter for the tops of the colorful cupcakes. “Hold this,” I whispered and watched as his fingers looped around the plastic container. “Is that okay?”

  His eyes slid to mine briefly. “Yes.”

  “Good. Then, I’ll ice the cupcakes and slide ‘em to you so you can shake some glitter on top. But only a little bit. Like this.” I showed him with my hand over his and my heart stopped beating when he started to pull back slightly. But he endured and I continued, knowing full well he would catch on fast. Which he did.

  Within thirty minutes, we were lost in the redundancy of me icing and pushing the cupcakes over so he could sprinkle. Somewhere during that time, Harper came over to check on us. Then I noticed more of the girls were coming over to compliment Colton on his glitter shaking ability. Like he needed it. Frankly, it felt a little condescending.

  He didn’t really reply, given he was focused on the task at hand. But it didn’t escape my notice the other girls seemed to be just a tiny bit too interested in him. Whispering a little too low at the other tables. When Harper came by again a few minutes later, I asked her what the hell was going on.

  She leaned in close and told me all the girls were talking about how cute Colton was. How none of them had ever paid attention to him before, but his quiet nature and good looks were making the girls circle like sharks.

  “‘Cute’ and ‘hot’ have come up at least twenty times.” She chuckled, nudging my shoulder with her own.

  And because I am me, I lost my footing and fell backward. Into Colton.

  A shower of edible glitter rained down on my head and I looked up to see him staring down at me, his hands pushed up over his ears, as if he had no idea what to do. They were covered in pink sparkles, his palms leaving trails of it across his cheeks and up into his hair. It made me laugh because I knew I had to be a mess since the shaker had lost its top and bounced, showering me with the Herpes of Arts and Crafts.

  It was such a damn disaster, and I started to laugh harder than I had in a very long time, struggling to stand and apologize to Colton. But by the time I made it up on my feet, I only saw the back of his head as he rushed out of the room.

  I broke into a run, a trail of glitter falling from me with each footstep. “Colton!” I yelled down the hall for him, but he had his chin tucked and his button up shirt was open, flying behind him like some sort of super-hero cape.

  When I finally made it to him, I jumped in front and held out my hands to stop him from walking away. He tried to move to the left, but seemed to be just as uncoordinated as I was, so he ran into me instead.

  “You were laughing at me,” he said, his neck veins bulging and jaw locked as his eyes avoided mine.

  “No, I wasn’t.” I was trying my hardest not to raise my voice at him, but the lump in my throat made keeping my voice low almost impossible.

  “You were.”

  I couldn’t handle him thinking that of me, and in a moment of rash judgment, I did take his hand in mine, pulling us toward our lockers as he tried to back away. But my grasp only tightened further, and only once it reached an almost painful grip, did his hand stop trying to fight mine. It was like the harder I touched him, the less he tried to pull away.

  Finally reaching my locker, I used my unoccupied hand to open it and pointed to the vanity mirror hanging inside. “You,” I pointed to his reflection, “are covered in glitter.” My hand pointed to my face and I finished. “Just like me. I did this. I fell onto you. Remember how I used to be?”

  He blinked at his reflection and looked at me before nodding.

  “It hasn’t changed. I just don’t get hit by lightning anymore.” With every shake of my head more glitter spilled to the floor.

  And suddenly he smiled, his gaze raking over the sparkly shit all over my head, face, arms and hands. It traveled the length of my torso until it landed on our sparkle covered palms. Clasped tightly together.

  With a small sigh he squeezed my hand tighter. “I wish you were like me.”

  The breath in my body just rushed out all at once as I asked him why.

  His gaze traveled my face again before he focused on my hair, saying exactly what he had on his mind. “Because then you would understand.”

  * * *

  It was those words that made me fall in love with him. Right there in that spot. Because he wanted me to be like him. That was his normalcy.

  And I knew exactly what he meant.

  When I drove him to his house, I didn’t wait to be invited inside. I just went. His mom looked like she was about to shit a brick over the amount of glittery fairy dust we trailed in. But his dad, Rick, just laughed. I’m sure I had a guilty look on my face or red cheeks or something because they kept staring at me as I told them about what had happened while Colton was busy upstairs taking a shower, washing stuff off to the best of his ability.

  Mr. Neely, dark hair and kind eyes, finally took advantage of a pulse of silence to clear his throat and asked me what I had been up to over the past seven years. It caught me off guard and I did that weird mouth thing I’d been doing around Quinn the day before, which only made Mrs. Neely laugh harder because her son, the one who was diagnosed with having a disorder of some kind could speak eloquent sentences and I couldn’t even make my lips work.

  The reason I was so flustered was because I knew there was something great starting between me and Colton and I wasn’t sure how his parents felt about that. There’s always the off chance they know that something more is progressing. And while I wasn’t about to pull out a business card with my name and “Certified Virgin” printed on it, I almost wanted to just so they would feel comfortable with me being alone with him. Seriously. I was giddy and rattled from holding his hand.

  I imagined kissing him would probably send me to the hospital. Again.

  They ended up asking me to stay for dinner but I wasn’t quite sure Colton would like me messing up his schedule even more that day. So I hedged a little, telling them I needed to check with my parents. And right when I was about to excuse myself to call my mom and get her stamp of approval before approaching Colton about it, he appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Colton? We’ve asked Lilly to stay for dinner,” Mrs. Neely called to him.

  It was like I did one of those cool-ass slow motion tricks from the movies. You know, the kind where I would turn and my hair would fan out all around me and land beautifully on my back as sparkle dust plumed outward and onto their fine cherry floor. I’d lock eyes with Colton and he’d smile and nod, extending his hand toward me like we were in some fairytale.

  Well, it was kinda like that. But not really. Okay. Not at all. Instead, I turned too f
ast and tripped over my feet, sending my elbow into the banister next to the door. Hard.

  Mr. Neely was on his feet immediately and rushed over to see if I was okay and I shrugged it off while trying not to look as embarrassed as I felt. I rubbed my elbow and tried not to cry.

  Colton gave his mom an animated look and nodded his head. “Then I’ll hide all the scissors and chewing gum.” It made the entire room grow quiet before he looked over at me. “I know how upset you were last time when I had to cut your hair.”

  My jaw was on the floor. He’d totally cracked a joke.

  “Then I guess you should hide the mattresses, too,” I shot back playfully.

  The silence that followed that statement made me want to crawl in a hole and die. Because Colton may not have gotten the innuendo . . . but his parents sure did.

  That started my weekly dinners with the family. I didn’t push him into inviting me, but waited on one of his parents to extend the invitation instead. He never objected and I really loved seeing him at his house because he was so much more relaxed. I saw a side of him there I didn’t get to see at school when he was trying to focus on what he was expected to do.

  The impressive thing about school was the more I hung out with him, the more people started to really see him, too. Especially the girls. Because, let’s face it, a cute boy is a cute boy, whether he’s all that different or not. This made it easier for him in his other classes, since people were warming up to him. But it made it all that much harder on me because I was constantly wondering if he enjoyed their company and conversation more than mine.

  Though, once he started holding my hand, he never really stopped. Our palms were like ultra-strength magnets that just slapped together every time we were in each other’s vicinity. We held hands. Hard. Always. Up and down the halls of the school. After school. In the car. Hands and fingers.

  Always touching.

  The start of any relationship is really la la la and happy-happy, right? I mean, I’m a teenager for God’s sake. And so is he. So, there are hormones involved and all kinds of crazy things adults never really tell us about . . . at least not in words we can understand.

  I can go from ecstatically happy to massively insecure in the span of a second. I can go from feeling completely at ease with Colton, to wondering if I’ll do anything right ever again.

  It’s hard to be level headed when I can barely control my thoughts, much less my impulses.

  Teenage girls are stupid.

  I can say that because I am one. And I know we’re all competitive with one another, even if we pretend not to be. We totally are.

  Every damn day I walked into school I was aware that the blondes with the perky boobs and the bubble butts get the guys. I was aware my best friend is one of them. And I was painfully aware that I am skinny, but jiggly, and the definition of average-brown-hair-brown-eyed girl.

  But when Colton talks to me or looks at me, I feel really special. Prettier than I’ve ever felt before in my life. I figured the other bitches in school would see that, too. I assumed they would know, since we held hands all the time, and drove to and from school, walked to class and ate lunch together: Colton and I were, ya know . . . together.

  Apparently, I was wrong.

  The simple fact that neither Colton nor I had actually said we were boyfriend and girlfriend made people think maybe we weren’t. We hadn’t kissed or anything, and I guess a lot of people . . . girls . . . saw me as just some sort of friend or something. Friends who hold hands?

  As Colton would say, “Whatever.”

  He’d gotten better at chiming in with little things here or there that would catch us all off-guard at the table. Unprompted.

  Girls were suddenly trying to talk to us during lunch, but couldn’t quite get a grasp on Colton’s reactions or silence. It made Quinn laugh to no end, and Sawyer sat back with a shit-eating grin on his face because he could tell I was like a tiger about to pounce every time one of them came over. Marissa would usually interject and talk the girls’ ears off and they’d eventually make an excuse to walk away.

  Anyway. We got the announcement about the Girls’ Choice Dance and all the girls in the school suddenly got lobotomized or something because half of them were crying about having to ask a boy out and the other half were making lists. Those that didn’t have boyfriends, that is.

  I hadn’t really been paying attention to what was going on, oblivious to gossip sessions around me for a couple weeks, thinking it was obvious to everyone I would be asking Colton to the dance, when I heard the first rumor.

  No less than three girls had vocalized their intent to ask him.

  Now, you have to remember I was the only girl to have spent copious amounts of time with him alone. With his family. Learning how he ticked. So, I definitely had the advantage there. It was almost like I wanted to see these other girls crash and burn when they asked him to take them to the dance.

  But another part of me didn’t even want them to get the satisfaction of asking.

  I had a mini panic attack because I wasn’t sure if the dance would be too loud. Too crowded. Too much stimulation.

  Would it even be worth trying to go?

  One look at him as he came out of class that day answered every question I had in my head. Of course it was worth it.

  Like that crazy bitch from Kill Bill, it was like I could see girls were approaching from everywhere, and it appeared they were all coming at us at once in some sort of race against time to get to him first. Right in front of my effing face.

  “Colton?” I grabbed onto his hand tightly and turned his back toward the locker, getting his attention focused only on my face. “I want to ask you a question.” He nodded. “Take me to the dance next weekend.”

  He tilted his head to the side and frowned. “Lilly, that was not in the form of a question. A question is a request that ends with a question mark. What you just said was a statement.”

  “Will you take me to the dance next weekend?” My heart was about to jump out of my throat wielding a sharp knife to cut the Achilles tendons on the approaching bitches’ feet.

  But Colton was just staring at me.

  “I’d like you to take me to the dance. Please?”

  He chewed his lip. Blinked a few times. Appeared thoughtful.

  And right at the moment the first girl made it to us, he gave a shrug. “Okay.”

  Triumphantly, I whirled around and mouthed, ‘Too late’.

  I was stupidly giddy for the rest of the day. I was victorious.

  And then I remembered I hate to dance.

  No matter. I would go with Colton and we would be together in public and it was really all that mattered.

  Harper let me borrow a dress and I let her do my hair and makeup before driving over to meet him so our parents could take our pictures. Parents are so weird about that kind of stuff anyway, and my dad was giving him the sly eye while the moms ran around taking pictures and talking about how cute we were. And all the while, Colton . . . more handsome than ever before in a suit . . . a black suit and white shirt . . . hair meticulously combed, blue eyes wide . . . never stopped looking at me.

  He didn’t need to say he thought I looked nice. I saw it in his face.

  The red dress I wore made me feel pretty. Colton’s stare made me feel downright beautiful.

  By the time we walked through the doors of the gymnasium, music blasting and lights popping from camera flashes and little disco balls hanging from the ceiling, I thought my hand would fall off. Colton was squeezing it so tightly; I swear my fingertips were turning black.

  Yet, he endured. I made sure to walk him through the crowd of sweaty dancers and by the tables of kids who thought they were too cool to be there. We waved at our friends but continued walking because Colton was seriously experiencing too much stimulation, so I did what I figured would be best.

  I pulled him outside to the white tent behind the building. It was lit with pretty white lights and the girls who decorated had hu
ng Japanese lanterns across the ceiling. It was cute. It was cheesy. It was romantic in a funny way, and I couldn’t help but smile as I led him out there where the music was lower, the lights were softer, and only one other couple was hanging out, drinking soda.

  I turned and looked up into his face, moving my arms up to his shoulders and started swaying a little. Just side to side. I’m a terrible dancer, but these things are special and I wanted the memories with him.

  He was stiff, as usual, but I didn’t mind. His hands didn’t really know where to go, so I placed them on my hips and rested my cheek against his chest, just closing my eyes and inhaling how amazing he smelled with his shirt starched and some kind of deodorant that smelled like lickable-boy.

  He seemed too quiet and I wasn’t really sure what to do about it. I was just as nervous as he was, you know?

  I lifted my head to see him staring down at me and I could only offer a shy smile and a laugh. “Colton?”

  “Yes?”

  I tightened my linked fingers around his neck. “Tell me about Monet.”

  So he did and it was music to my ears. To my heart. He talked so passionately about the things he loved and I ended up resting my head against his chest to hear him speak through his sternum, all low and rumbling.

  Bass and baritone laced between heartbeats and short breaths.

  Suddenly . . . he stopped.

  My head shot up and I looked at him, curious as to why he went silent. Of course I asked because that was how it had to be.

  “Why’d you stop?” My throat was all dry because of the intensity between us. Like the air had suddenly gone thin and was replaced with pure energy.

  He looked at me and then away a bunch of times and somehow I just knew what was about to happen, but my brain and hormones were off kilter and I just stood there like a moron waiting for him to speak.

  Instead, he closed his eyes and leaned forward, his forehead kind of pushing mine back as he breathed quietly outward onto my face. I closed my eyes and just let it happen.