Bright Before Sunrise

by Schmidt, Tiffany

  “Admitting I know CPR seems like tempting the fates. Don’t get any ideas—I’ve no desire to prove it. And no to stitches; I nearly failed home econ, I wouldn’t trust me anywhere near a needle.” He erases the coded words on my palm, gently turning my hand to wipe the alcohol pad down along my wrist. My pulse drums beneath his fingers, tempo increasing as he slides his thumb across the fragile skin. He must feel it.

  “How’d you get so good at this?” My voice is breathless, and I hope he knows I mean first aid, not making me flush, pant, and way too aware that his thighs are pressed against my knees as he plays doctor.

  “I took a first-aid course. My dad had—well, has—a boat. Not that there was anywhere special to use it around here, but I bet he lives on it in Florida. He insisted I take first-aid training when I was younger. Bet he’s more worried about his new first mate’s ability to fill a bikini than handle a boat wreck.”

  He settles my hand on my thigh and tears open a Band-Aid, ripping the actual bandage in half, scowling, and shoving it in his pocket.

  A topic change is in order and a change in mental picture—I’m visualizing Jonah on a boat, shirt off … “Um, have you ever used the training? I mean, besides patching me up.”

  “Yeah.” His voice quiets and his fingers still on the box of bandages. “Paul was holding Sophia a few weeks ago—and somehow she got a button off his shirt. I looked over and she was turning blue. He hadn’t noticed. I had to grab her and … Those seconds when I was holding her facedown and thumping her back … I think I stopped breathing till she started to cough.”

  “You saved her life.” My whisper matches his and is twisted with awe for this boy I can’t begin to understand.

  He makes a noise that’s reluctant agreement. “And I’ve been a dick to Paul—even though he’s practically destroying himself with guilt about it. Tonight was the first time Mom talked him into going out since it happened. Sophia’s fine, but he … he’s even been sleeping in her room.” His eyes twitch from the bandage box to my face, then back to my hand. He sighs so heavily that I feel it on my palm. “Sometimes I’m such an idiot.”

  “Oh, Jonah.” If my hand weren’t otherwise occupied, I’d curl my fingers around his. I don’t have any wisdom to give him either, so after he applies the second bandage and closes the box I offer a distraction. “Now we’ll play some more?”

  “You’re done playing tonight. These are barely sticking.” He presses again on the adhesive striping the length of my palm. I fight the urge to close my fingers around his thumb.

  “And I was just starting to get the hang of it. There go my dreams of turning pro.”

  He laughs.

  I love his laugh.

  “Thank you for this. Being up there, it was …” He looks at me, raises my bandaged hand, and presses it to his mouth.

  My eyes grow wide and my lips part to ask a question—any question. I almost do. But then that’s how this night will end: with conversation. The choice is mine; the move is mine.

  I make it. One deep breath and all questions are erased by the touch of my lips as I lean forward to press them against his.

  37

  Jonah

  2:26 A.M.

  HALF PAST—HOLY CRAP!

  I’d be lying if I said I had no expectations. I’ve imagined kissing her a hundred times tonight. In a hundred different places and positions. But in the instant she kisses me, I’m not thinking about anything but her. The way her eyes widened with admiration and the shape of her lips when she commented about saving Sophia’s life. The feel of the skin on her inner wrist and the size of her hand in mine. The thoughtfulness of bringing me here and her willingness to go back up that hill—despite her bandages and her remarkable inability to throw or catch.

  And I want to teach her. Today, tomorrow, the next day. I want to teach her to catch a ball. I want to teach her how to punch guys like Digg, walk Never, and deal with stress in ways that don’t end with bandages.

  But right now, mostly I want to learn what she tastes like.

  Press her back against the hood. Slide my hands up the backs of her legs. White cotton underwear. More!

  Thoughts pulse against my brain as my mouth explores hers. But not her, not Brighton Waterford. I won’t. But, God, if she makes that little noise in the back of her throat again … And her legs. Does she know she’s let them slide down on either side of mine?

  One foot wraps around the back of my leg and draws me closer; she knows.

  My body wants to rush the moment, to find out what’s next, but I won’t let it. With Carly, kissing was like stretching before a game. It was important, but it wasn’t our final destination. With Brighton … well, I don’t want to be thinking about Carly.

  Her lips against my lips. My world shrinks to the sensation of our mouths coming together and apart. The glide of her tongue across mine, the tug and give of her mouth. I feel drugged, hypnotized. Greedy. My legs halve the inches between us, and my mouth seeks more access.

  Bright shifts away and I freeze. Is this the part where she changes her mind? Realizes she could and should do much better?

  She removes her arms from my neck, and I hold my breath. She slides down from the hood of my car so she’s pressed between the bumper and my body. My hands are on her shoulders, shivering with the desire to be in her hair. I need to know if she wants them off her and in my pockets.

  Step backward, my mind orders my reluctant legs. I do, with movements awkward and uncoordinated and eyes that won’t look higher than her flip-flopped, bandaged feet.

  They step forward. Her hands circle around to press against my back. She waits for me to look at her—her eyes feverish and uncertain—then her lips brush feather-light across mine. My mouth opens in a groan. She tilts her head. Her mouth and my mouth are reunited. And I’m learning her as she learns me.

  Not until she pulls back and buries her face in my shirt do I remember she’s fragile; I was going to treat her gently. But maybe she isn’t after all. Maybe she’s stronger than me.

  I rub her back with one hand and lower my face to where my fingers are tangled in her hair. She smells like rain and something clean and innocent—like lemons and daisies. I know I should say something, but I’m too calm, too excited, too baffled to form any thoughts but Hold still. Stay.

  I feel her mouth move against my shirt more than I hear her speak.

  “What?” I smooth my hand through her tangles, reaching down to tip her chin up.

  Her face is flushed, her lips swollen, and her eyes flicker over me, around the air. She sighs. I watch her hand curl in, nails hitting Band-Aids. She frowns and presses her palm flat against her leg. I fight the urge to crush her back against me and smother her words about this in my shirt; against my lips. Or buckle her in the passenger seat and drive away, leaving all consequences in the parking lot.

  Her unbandaged hand reaches up to barely, barely touch my face. I lean my cheek into her palm, shutting my eyes for an instant to savor the sensation, then open them to watch her and worry about her silence.

  One half of Brighton’s mouth quirks with mischief. “It’s only fair to warn me: Are you noisy and smelly too?”

  38

  Brighton

  2:31 A.M.

  10 HOURS, 29 MINUTES LEFT

  I’d really said: That was nice.

  Those were the words trapped in the weave of his shirt. As soon as the sentence crosses my lips, which still tingle and taste of him, I realize how wrong it is. I try to breathe and erase the tangle of emotions from my face.

  When he steps away and asks, “What?” my heart lurches with fear he’s heard and is offended. Then comes the panic of finding something else to say. I reject all adjectives. How can I describe something that makes me feel like I floated out of myself while simultaneously making me more aware of my body than I’ve ever been?

  His skin feels different than mine. I hadn’t considered that skin can be masculine, but his is. I want to trace the lines of all his bones
beneath the covering of stubble and calluses and textures.

  No. I need to speak.

  We need to talk and say what that was. The Band-Aids on my hand interfere with my attempt to make a fist.

  Jonah’s leaning away, shutting his eyes and shutting me out. The moment is dying.

  I blurt out the first words that hit my tongue. “It’s only fair to warn me: Are you noisy and smelly too?”

  His laugh rebounds off the empty pavement and the walls of the school. It settles in my stomach and calms the knives of panic while curling into a different type of flame.

  “Sometimes.”

  He slides his hand across my palm; fingertips on skin, Band-Aids, skin. Fingertips on fingertips, feeling like they might glow from the intense sensation. My laughter dies in a choked gasp.

  “I really said, that was nice.” I won’t lie to him. Not now.

  My fingertips slide from his, and my other hand drifts from his shoulder to my side. I look up at him through my lashes. His eyes are dark, searching, full of something I don’t understand and don’t know how to react to.

  “Nice?” he echoes.

  I’m hollow. Cold. Like he’s already interpreted this as an insult and walked away—taking with him all of the emotion of the night and all the warmth from the air.

  “No.” He shakes his head. “No.”

  I feel every slightly damp spot on my dress. I’m hyper-aware of the sweat on my lower back and palms—it’s turned glacial. I’m shivering. On my way to shaking.

  And then—heat!

  Jonah’s hands on my arms. Burning. Urgent.

  “Nice isn’t good enough.” He leans closer, his voice dropping to a husky whisper. “I think we owe it to ourselves to do better than nice.”

  I smile against his lips—more than willing to be convinced. When his mouth leaves mine to explore my neck, I whisper in his ear, “Really nice …”

  His fingers lace through my hair.

  “Super nice …”

  His teeth drag lightly against the skin behind my ear.

  “Really, super nice.”

  He laughs against my collarbone, and I forget what cold even feels like. Can’t imagine ever being cold again. “I’m getting you a thesaurus.”

  I open my mouth to add another adjective to the list, but he cuts off my teasing with his lips and the only word that lingers in my head is “more.”

  “There it is: parking space F23. All mine.”

  I’m not sure which I recognize first, the guy’s voice or the girlish giggle he gets in response. But the words slide over us an instant before headlights do, illuminating the moment when Jonah stiffens and I pull back in surprise.

  “Brighton? Brighton! What are you doing here? Oh my God! Who are you kissing?”

  Somewhere amid Silvia’s questions and exclamation points, Jonah’s fingers drop from mine. I miss them immediately and don’t understand why he’s putting so much space between us. Or why he’s turning away from me. I ignore Silvia and Adrian for a moment and look where Jonah’s looking: back up the hill.

  The grass on the field is bled of its color in the dim light. The boundary between the concrete and slope distinguishable by a sense of lushness, not a difference in color—both look drab gray.

  Jonah takes another step back and pulls his keys out of his pocket.

  I feel deflated.

  I want to grab his hand and run. Or yell at them to leave.

  “Brighton? Adrian, that is Brighton, right? Maybe it’s her sister? Evy?” They’ve parked in Adrian’s space and she’s leaning over the side of his convertible and peering into the darkness. “Can you see who she’s with?”

  “It’s me, Silvia,” I answer. “Hi.”

  “Hey! I’m here with Adrian.” She manages to keep some of the excitement out of that statement, but enough leaks through to make me glad I stopped him in the hallway and sent him to find her.

  “Hi, Adrian.”

  “Hey, Brighton … and hey.” He gives a wave, which Jonah returns with a short jerk of two fingers.

  “Brighton, is this some secret rendezvous? Scandalous! I want to know everything!”

  I want to tell her to back off. To take her excitement level down from an eleven to a six and her nosiness to a three. These might be questions she wants me to ask her about how she and Adrian ended up here together, but I haven’t even managed introductions yet and Jonah’s posture is already coiled and defensive.

  I don’t want a rehashing of the computer lab scene though—where one sharp word meant a million apologies.

  She leans even farther over the side of the car, to the point where Adrian’s grabbing the belt loop on her jean skirt. “I thought you were single?”

  “I …” I don’t have an answer to that. It’s not something I can ask Jonah in front of an audience. It’s not something I’m ready to ask him. Or think about. And he’s tossing his keys impatiently between his hands. Looking everywhere but at me.

  Which is probably a good thing, because I’m sure my expression is raw hope and desperate longing.

  “Is that … the new kid?” Adrian asks. I’m not sure if it’s a question for Silvia or me, but it makes me cringe. The new kid? They should know his name—or ask. All my earlier arguments about the merits of the town crowd back up my throat and choke me.

  He tacks on a “with her?” in a voice that’s neither quiet nor polite. The screen of a cell phone glows brightly in his fingers, illuminating his skeptical expression. He’s turning this moment into a text, a status update, or a tweet.

  “Jonah,” I correct in a voice like flint, and I feel his eyes on me. “His name is Jonah.”

  “We should go,” he says quietly. He gazes coolly at Adrian as he reaches around me to open the passenger door.

  “Oh, you don’t have to! Sorry. We didn’t mean to interrupt! Adrian was just …” Silvia’s apologies dissolve into giggles.

  “Showing her my parking space,” he finishes. “But we can go. You guys stay.”

  “No, it’s fine.” But my voice is hollow, and if they weren’t so busy with each other, they’d hear I don’t mean it. Jonah has already shut his door and is shoving his key in the ignition. “Jonah and I will see you guys Sunday.”

  I shut the door on good-byes and giggles, and he puts the car in drive.

  Neither of us says a word, and this silence is thick and ominous, like whatever is said next will have permanent consequences.

  As I’m fastening my seat belt, I get it—what Amelia wants from Peter and what he gives her. I finally, really understand a moment from earlier in the day in this parking lot at dismissal.

  Amelia with her head on Peter’s shoulder.

  His hand on her hair.

  Peter’s other hand on the key to her car.

  Her car.

  The car Amelia has never let me drive. The car her parents started planning a year before her sixteenth birthday so she’d have time to change her mind about make, model, and color.

  And the way she’d said, “I’m tired, baby. Take me home, please.” It was completely comfortable, completely confident.

  And Peter’s response: tracing the line of her forehead. “If you didn’t keep such rock star hours, Lia …” And he’d smiled as she pulled his hand to her lips and murmured shhhh.

  Eleven hours ago I’d dismissed it as cute. Now it means more. Peter isn’t one of Amelia’s fads or phases. They’re all in. And that’s what I want. That moment. That relationship. That trust. That.

  The longing feels like someone has grabbed my insides and twisted. I want what Amelia and Peter have, but does Jonah fit in that picture? Do I want it with him?

  I think the answer is yes and that terrifies me.

  Based on how he reacted back there, his answer is no. His feelings were passion, not permanent. He’s probably thinking I was a silly mistake, a stupid footnote on his bad night.

  “Home?” There is nothing of the hoarse desire in his voice anymore; it’s straight exhaustion wit
h a sigh for punctuation.

  “Yes, please.”

  39

  Jonah

  2:46 A.M.

  IT’S TIME TO BEGIN

  I hate that kid in his shiny new Mustang. I’m less sure about the girl in the sequin tank top he had riding shotgun, but I’m willing to hate her too. I’m prepared to hate everyone at CPHS for the deer-in-headlights look on Brighton’s face when she was caught kissing me.

  I bet she’ll micromanage the whole episode into a joke or a misunderstanding. You thought we were kissing? Oh, no. Not at all. I was: insert-suitable-activity-for-an-empty-parking-lot-at-three-a.m.

  I can’t think of anything that fits that category, but I’m sure she’ll come up with a way to spin it. This night has been a holiday from reality, and we’ve reached the part where vacation ends and real life floods in.

  After a drive that’s too long, too short, and way too silent, we’re in her driveway. The digits glowing on my dashboard are only a few hours before I usually wake up for school. She twists her hair into a knot and then lets it all drop around her shoulders, looking up and meeting my eyes for a millisecond.

  I refuse to be the one who says good-bye first. I won’t make this easy on her by acting like I’m okay with what just went down and offering her an awkward hug. What is she thinking, head lowered, fidgeting with the hem of her dress? That she needs to let me down gently, that I’ll be heartbroken? She doesn’t seem to be in any big hurry to leave the car.

  I hate that I don’t want her to.

  “You can call me Bright,” she whispers. “If you’d like.”

  “What?” I touch her shoulder to get her attention. The offer was spoken to her knees, and I want to see her face. Or maybe I just want an excuse to touch her.

  “It sounds … natural coming from you. I don’t mind. And we should probably exchange numbers. I can’t believe I don’t even have your phone number.”

  Her words are uncertain. It’s the tone you use for a question, or when you’re questioning why you’re saying what you’re saying.