Kiss

by Francine Pascal

  The doctor hesitated. Clearly he didn't know what to think, and yet he was too polite to question her. "Yes. As you wish," he said.

  "I'll just use the bathroom and collect myself for a moment," Ella said, stepping down the hall. "I'll come back when I can see Gaia alone."

  A strong instinct was telling Ella she didn't want to be introduced to Sam Moon. A somewhat twisted instinct, but those were the ones she'd learned to listen to.

  One Witness

  SAM WATCHED GAIA'S EYELIDS for signs of her waking. Just in the last five minutes she'd opened and closed her eyes three times, once almost focusing on his face. His heart soared. Dr. Sengupta said she was going to be okay, and he was starting to believe it.

  Sam ran his thumb from the tip of her index finger up her hand and wrist to the soft underside of her forearm. Her eyes flickered.

  He leaned over her and buried a gentle kiss on her neck. That was more for him than her. He hoped she didn't mind. The hint ofa smile seemed to pull at the side ofher mouth. Or did he just imagine that?

  What he really wanted to do was to climb into the narrow bed and press her close to him, to hold her with his whole body until she woke up. And after she woke up, too. But you weren't really supposed to do that in a hospital, were you?

  Most people hated hospitals, and in theory, Sam did, too. But this hospital, on two separate occasions, had brought him closer to Gaia. It was the site of some of his worst experiences and yet some of the happiest feelings he'd ever had.

  "Sam?"

  He glanced up. He saw Gaia's doctor and felt slightly abashed. "Yes?"

  "I'm sorry to ask you because I can see how much you wish to stay with Gaia, but her guardian, Mrs. Niven, has asked for time alone with her."

  Sam knew it was a reasonable request, but his heart was breaking nonetheless. "Maybe I'll just wait in the waiting room for a few minutes till she's done."

  Dr. Sengupta took in the state of Sam's hair and clothing with kind eyes. "Why don't you get yourself home and have a rest? Perhaps you could come again tomorrow? Visiting hours, as you might imagine, are long over."

  Visiting hours? Sam was no visitor! He was . . . what? Nothing. He was nothing. But Gaia was his life. Did that count for anything?

  "But I --" He really, really didn't want to go yet. He wanted to help usher Gaia back into the land of consciousness, to be with her when she crossed over. He needed to make sure they both knew that what happened between them was real. "Please, could I just --"

  "I'm sorry. I have to respect Mrs. Niven's request." The doctor did look truly sorry.

  Sam turned back to Gaia. He took both of her hands and brought them to his heart. He leaned over and pressed his cheek against her good one. "I love you, Gaia," he whispered in her ear. "I can't help it anymore." It might not have been a classically romantic thing to say, but it was true. She'd understand, he knew. He kissed her ear, then straightened up.

  Her eyelids were fluttering again. He saw her hands moving against the sheet as soon as he'd released them. Were her hands looking for his? Did he just hope so?

  "Thank you, Doctor, for everything," he said, trying not to look as unhappy as he felt. "She's really going to be okay, right?"

  "Yes, I believe she is."

  Sam trudged out of the room and down the hallway.

  "Good luck to you, Sam," the doctor called after him, and the words somehow sounded ominous.

  Every cell in Sam's heart was telling him not to leave her now. He was afraid that once he was gone, their magical, frightening night together would be gone, too, with him left as its only witness.

  And not the most reliable witness, either.

  Disappointment x 1,000,000,000

  IT WAS HARD AND CRUEL. IT downright sucked. In her dream, hovering someplace beyond the living, Gaia had Sam. He held her and told her he loved her.

  Here, in reality, she had Ella.

  She wished she could go back to being dead.

  " . . . You have quite a track record, Gaia. Twice in the hospital in two months," Ella was blathering. "You're going to send George's insurance premiums into the stratosphere."

  Gaia exerted all her strength propping herself up in the hospital bed. It made her uncomfortable for Ella to see her lying down.

  " . . . And insurance only covers eighty percent of the bill, you know," Ella continued pettily.

  Gaia looked down at her hands. They felt cold and lonely. "Thanks a lot, Ella," she said numbly. "That makes me feel a lot better. If the photography thing doesn't work out, maybe you could get a job with Hallmark in the get-well-card department."

  Ella exhaled in annoyance. "And you're a rude ingrate as well."

  Gaia closed her eyes, wrapping her misery around her like a blanket. She was right back where she started. She'd thought she'd made a new friend. She hadn't. She'd thought she'd run away. She hadn't.

  She'd gotten nowhere, changed nothing.

  Her mind summoned an image of Sam. She was kissing him, touching him, wrapping her body around his in his bed. The image brought a deep flush to her cheeks. But that hadn't really . . . They hadn't actually . . . had they?

  She glanced at Ella.

  What exactly had happened to her? How had she gotten here? She tried to piece together the endless, surreal day. She remembered being at Mary's house, of course. She remembered hitting her head on the sink in the bathroom at Penn Station. She remembered passing out -- if you could call that remembering.

  Things got fuzzier after that. She didn't remember coming to, but she did remember trying to get a re-fund for her stolen ticket. She vaguely remembered an explosion. She remembered walking outside and being cold.

  Then the memories fell into fragments and shards that didn't make any sense at all.

  She glanced at Ella again. She could hardly stomach the notion of needing information from the bitch goddess, but how else was she going to know?

  Gaia took a breath. She needed to sound as disinterested as possible. "So, anyway, Ella. What happened to me? How did I get here? How did you get here?"

  Ella opened her eyes wide in fake surprise. "Wait a minute. You are asking me questions about your life?"

  Gaia shrugged. "You know, severe head wound and all." She touched her hand to her bruise. "I just wondered if the doctors told you anything about how I ended up here."

  Ella studied her for a moment. "Actually, yes. Do you really not remember anything at all?"

  Gaia shook her head. "Not much."

  Ella nodded slowly. "Well, you made quite a little scene. The cops found you outside an NYU dormitory. You were delirious, totally out of it, raving endlessly about somebody named Sam."

  Gaia felt her heart clench. The flush returned to her cheeks and deepened by one hundred times. If she'd really believed she'd made her heart tough enough to withstand disappointment, she'd been badly, profoundly mistaken.

  "I was alone?" Gaia asked in a small voice, even though she knew she'd regret it. "I came here alone?" She was so far gone, she was giving evil Ella a straight shot at her vulnerability.

  "Except for some freaked-out cops, yeah," Ella informed her.

  So Gaia's fragments of memory weren't memory at all. They were fantasy. Sam hadn't kissed her, held her, told her he loved her. Those were the crazed delusions of her bashed-in head and her pitiful, hungry heart .

  She was tempted to bash her head again, to return to the place where she'd had those feelings. Of course they didn't happen in reality. Not in her reality, anyway. It was too nice, too purely good to have happened in her life.

  Gaia lay back again. Ella didn't matter. Nothing mattered.

  Her misery wasn't a blanket. It was a strait-jacket fastened way too tight, threatening to squeeze out her last bit of hope.

  S A M

  I had a terrible thought when I woke up this morning in the bed that Gaia and I had shared, briefly, last night.

  I had the thought that I dreamed the whole thing.

  I would have stuck with the
thought, but I smelled Gaia's faint, sweet smell in my bed. I found more than one long blond hair on my pillow. I found a somewhat tattered red dress and shoes balled up in my garbage can. I confirmed that my undershirt and boxers were, in fact, missing.

  Then I had a fear that was worse than the thought. I was afraid that it had actually happened, but that Gaia wasn't there. I mean, her body was there. But she was so badly hurt and delirious, and practically comatose, that everything I imagined between us happened to me. Only to me.

  This fear makes me physically sick because I hate the thought of having taken advantage of her in some way.

  Selfishly, that's not even the very worst part. Even worse, I fear I've opened my stubborn, tyrannical heart to an event -- a girl -- so stunning and miraculous, I've even gotten my brain to join in on the thrill of it. Only to discover that it never actually happened.

  Which could make a man feel like a creep and a big, pathetic fool.

  My brain, not surprisingly, is threatening a very sour "I told you so."

  That's the fear, anyway. I'm not sure it's the truth.

  But I can say this. I never understood loneliness until I woke up in my bed without her this morning.

  GAIA

  Maybe Ella was telling me the truth. Maybe I was discovered by the cops, raving outside of Sam's dormitory, and taken to the hospital alone.

  But when I stepped out of the hospital bed after my night of observation and walked my bleary self into the bathroom, I discovered something peculiar. Under my hospital robe, I was wearing a man's undershirt and a man's boxers. These are things I know I do not own. I don't care how hard I banged my head.

  At the back of the boxers, just under the waistband, scrawled in permanent black marker are two wonderful words. Can you guess them?

  1. Sam

  2. Moon

  These pieces of physical evidence happen to fit with some memory shards I have -- fuzzy, I'll admit. I have bits of memories of being in Sam's dorm room, and putting those things on.

  I'm not saying Sam definitely kissed me. I'm not saying he told me he loved me or anything like that.

  I'm just saying, maybe Ella was wrong. Maybe she lied. Maybe.

  In all honesty, I don't even want to find out for sure. I want to hold onto these pieces of memory -- hopes, if you want to be a killjoy. I can t bear to discover these things didn't happen. I need to cling to the possibility that they did.

  Because even the possibilityof something so beautiful could sustain a heart as desolate as mine for a long, long time.

  here is a sneak peek of Fearless #6: PAYBACK

  R O M E O

  There was something very satisfying about hearing them scream. He usually let them get out one, good, loud one before he covered their mouths. No one ever responded to one quick scream. They wrote it off as playing. Or a spider sighting. Or crying wolf.

  And he so loved the scream. It made him feel alive. It pumped him up.

  It made the sex so much better.

  He sat down on his floor and pulled out his black lock box from beneath his bed, flying through the combination with a quick three flicks of the wrist. Inside was his prized possession. The only thing he d ever had worth locking up.

  His journal. His list. His conquests.

  He pulled out the tattered book with its dog-eared pages and cloth cover that was just starting to pull away from the cardboard beneath. Soon it would be time for a new book. But it would be so hard to let this one go. It was like an old friend. It knew all his secrets. All his successes. All his triumphs.

  Turning to the first blank page, he rolled the end of his pen around inside his mouth, carefully composing his opening. This wasn't just a place to brag. It was literature. One day, when he was long gone, people would read these pages and know him. Know everything he was.

  They would be awed.

  He uncapped the pen and started his entry.

  Thursday, November 25th. Thanksgiving.

  It certainly was a day for giving thanks. And Regina Farrell will thank me one day. When she finally admits to herself that she'll never have anyone better. . . .

  sideburns tim

  Spiky, messy hair. Sideburns. Expensive flannel. Not threatening. Definitely not asking for a beating.

  Basic get-away-from-me signals

  GAIA STOOD ON LINE IN THE cafeteria on Monday afternoon between two groups of people she couldn't possibly have detested more. The F.O.H.'s (Friends Of Heather) or "foes" as she liked to call them, and the turtleneck-wearing jock-boys. If there was ever a time to cave in to modern technology and use a walkman, this was it. Words were being wasted all around her and she would have given anything for a nice pair of headphones and a lot of guitar-type noise.

  "Omigod!" one foe squealed. "You totally should have been at CBGB's last night. The hottest guy opened for Fearless. He was like a Lenny-Rob hybrid."

  "Not possible," foe number two said, sniffing a bowl of Jell-O in a perfect imitation of a rabbit, and replacing the bowl on the counter. "God couldn't possibly have blessed anyone with genes like that."

  "He's playing again in two weeks," said foe number three, the one with the biggest hair ever to spring from a scalp. "Come and see for yourself."

  "I am so there," foe number two promised, placing her nearly-empty tray in front of the register. "I was at the Melody last night and you ..."

  Foe number one trailed off as she glanced in Gaia's direction and noticed her not staring. Her top lip actually curled up and she huffed as she turned her back on Gaia, adjusting her tight leather jacket.

  "Do you see what she's eating?" foe number one sneered. All three foes turned to glare at Gaia's tray. Meatballs. Mashed potatolike substance. Bowl of Jell-O not sniffed by foe number two. Roll with tons of butter patties.

  "Do you want some creamed corn, hon?" the lunch lady asked with a pleasant voice.

  "Yeah," Gaia answered, mostly to disgust the foes. It worked. They all exchanged a very unoriginal look ofgrossed-outedness, paid for their food and scurried away.

  "There you go, hon," the big lady behind the counter said, heaping on the corn. She smiled at Gaia like she always did and Gaia attempted smiling back. It didn't work, of course, but it was worth the try. Every student in this school might hate her, but at least she was universally loved by the lunch ladies. Gaia was pretty sure she was the only one who actually ate their food.

  Gaia handed the woman at the register a crumpled ball of cash and automatically headed for the table she and Ed usually shared. Back corner, underneath the graph that broke down the four food groups as if they were all still in grade school and needed it color-coded for them. She was about to cut left when someone blocked her path.

  This was so not the time for anyone to be starting up with her. Not on a Monday when she hadn't eaten and she'd woken up with a sinus headache along with the knowledge that Sam hadn't contacted her once all weekend.

  Actually, maybe someone should start with her. She could go for a little punishment-doling.

  "You're a brave girl," a slow, drawly voice said.

  Gaia looked up into the deepest pair of brown eyes she'd ever seen. Spiky, messy hair. Sideburns. Expensive flannel. Not threatening. Definitely not asking for a beating.

  "Are you going to move?" Gaia asked, shifting her tray slightly. Bad idea. Her plate of meatballs slid precariously close to the edge, taking everything with it. It was going over and there was nothing she could do. More public spillage for the Spillage Queen.

  "Careful," Sideburns said, righting the tray with lightning-quick reflexes. The kid in the chair next to them pulled himself a little closer to his table. Gaia attempted to move again, beyond ready to end this little encounter, but Sideburns was still holding onto her tray. "Aren't you going to ask me why I think you're so brave?" he asked, ducking his chin in an attempt to make eye contact. What was this guy's deal? Was he immune to basic get-away-from-me signals?

  "No," Gaia said. Exasperation. There. He had to get that.
r />   He released her tray, crossing his arms over his rather broad chest, but not moving out of the way. Gaia turned around to head back in the other direction, but a complicated melange of backpacks, chairs, and legs blocked her path.

  When she turned around again, Sideburns was grinning. "It's just that in the three and a third years I've been here I've never seen anyone eat Greta's meatballs."

  Oh, how very original. "There's a first time for everything," Gaia said. She took a step toward him, hoping he wasn't going to force her to take him down with a quick flick of her foot to his shin. He seemed harmless enough, but if she didn't eat soon, this Monday was going to go from suckfest to hell pit in a matter of seconds.

  Sideburns flicked a little pink piece of paper out of his pocket and dropped it on Gaia's tray. It had black writing on it and the only word she could make out without actually appearing to be interested was "music."

  "Having a little party tonight," he said, turning sideways to let her pass. He held up his hands to give her more room. "You should show."

  The irrational part of Gaia's brain couldn't believe that someone had just asked her to a party. Her. Public enemy number one. The rational part of her brain formulated a sentence and sent it to her voice box.

  "I'd rather sing a Barry Manilow song in front of the entire school," she said, moving past him.

  Sideburns laughed. "I'll rent a karaoke machine!" he called after her.

  Gaia never smiled on Mondays. But if she did, that exchange might have been worthy of one.

  Screw Him

  AS GAIA LOWERED HERSELF INTO the chair across from Ed, he plucked a little piece of bright pink paper from her overloaded tray.

  "Come one. Come all," Ed read aloud. "Free beer. Free music. Free love." He chuckled and placed the tiny flyer on the table between them. "Going hippy on me, Gaia?"