I pull away sharply. He’s staring at me like he wants to devour me. And something shifts inside me. Because knowing that he wants me this badly does something to me. I feel like some sort of femme fatale. Like I’ve got all the power. And that’s both intoxicating and strangely comforting. It reminds me that I’m in control.
“Is this your first kiss?” I demand, even though I know the answer.
He grins a little sheepishly and sits down on the edge of my bed. “That bad, huh?”
“Let’s try again,” I say, kicking my bedroom door shut, just in case Koji wanders upstairs or my parents get home early.
I tug my hair loose from the bun on top of my head so it falls around my shoulders. Then I take a slow, deliberate step toward Seth. When he makes a move like he’s going to stand up, I put my hand on his chest. “Stay there,” I command, and he nods.
I sit next to him, and this time, I lead on the kiss. I put his hands where I want them. I kiss him the way I like to be kissed.
This time, it’s better.
When we finally pause to catch our breath, my lips are swollen from so much kissing. I’ve had better kisses, but we’re already miles away from that first sloppy mouth smash. He flops back on my bed, looking as smug and satisfied as I’ve ever seen him. It’s a completely unfamiliar expression, and it changes his face. I don’t like it. It makes me feel like I’ve been making out with a stranger. It makes me wonder what I’ve started, what I’ve woken up in him by doing this. It makes me think that maybe I should have stopped it.
“I can’t wait to tell everyone,” he says.
“What?” I scramble up from the bed. “You can’t tell anyone.” I thought that was obvious.
“What do you mean, I can’t tell anyone?”
“Seth, this is between us. Don’t … ruin it by telling other people.”
I don’t want everyone else knowing how much I want Seth to want me. I want to explore this feeling first, and I want to keep it to myself. Also, we work best when it is just the two of us. I’m worried other people will ruin us.
And it’s more than that.
When I’m with Seth, it’s like we exist in this whole other dimension where I don’t need to worry about anything or what anyone thinks, and I want to keep us like that.
He sits up, frowning. “You mean, don’t embarrass you.”
I tug on my hair. “That’s not what I said.”
“No, but it is what you meant.”
“I just need … a little time, OK? To get used to all this.”
“To what? To me?”
“To … this.”
“OK, Reiko. Whatever you want. Just like usual.”
The doorbell rings. “Can you get that?” I shout down to Koji. He doesn’t respond. The doorbell rings again. I look out the window. Libby’s car is parked in the driveway.
Shit. Shit. Shit. What is she doing here?
She sees me and waves. “Baaaaabe! I’ve missed you! We just got back from Hawaii!” She turns toward the front door. “Oh hiii, Koji! I don’t have any presents for you, but how about a kiss?”
Koji mumbles something unintelligible back. He’s had a crush on Libby for the past three years, and she knows it. She teases him mercilessly.
Please don’t tell her Seth’s here, please don’t tell her Seth’s here, I silently tell Koji, desperately hoping that this is the moment we get a telepathic sibling connection. Although, knowing Koji, he won’t be able to form a full sentence around Libby anyway.
Seth is still sitting on the bed, staring wide-eyed at me. I smooth my shirt down and pull my hair up into a bun. The front door slams and Libby’s giggle floats up the stairs. She’ll be up here any minute. “Be right down!” I call out, hoping to stall her.
“What should I do?” Seth says quietly, but not quietly enough.
I flinch. “Just … can’t you hide or something? In the closet maybe?”
“What? You’re not serious, are you?”
“Just be quiet and stay up here! Don’t you dare come down.”
Hurt shoots across his face, like a beetle scuttling across a mountain trail, leaving tracks even after it has disappeared.
* * *
Libby stays for over an hour. When we first got settled on the couch, Koji looked at me, confused, but when he said, “Where’s—?”, I interrupted before he could say Seth’s name.
“Dre’s out with her sister,” I said. “Shopping.”
Koji frowned but kept his mouth shut.
“Why do you want to know where Dre is?” Libby said, swatting Koji on the arm. “I thought I was your favorite!”
That was enough to distract Koji and he didn’t ask anything else about Seth.
Libby tells us all about her trip to Hawaii, the hikes she went on, the dolphins she swam with, all the amazing seafood she had. “Oh my God, Rei, the sushi. You’d die. So much better than anything we have here. It is like … real sushi? You know?”
“Sounds really … real,” I say, distracted. How could I have left Seth up in my room like that? I feel sick.
Libby is still talking. “But you know what Hawaii didn’t have? Decent Mexican food! We went to this one place and it was all wrong. I’m dying for a real taco. Want to go to Cactus Tacos?”
I do, actually. I want to get in Libby’s little silver car and go for tacos and forget about Seth. I want to make plans for the rest of the summer and talk about the parties we want to throw in the fall and gossip about who has hooked up with who…
Oh God. Seth and I fall into that category. Thinking about people talking about me and Seth hooking up makes me really dizzy. What am I doing? It was one thing when it was us out in the desert, us up on the Ferris wheel, even us up in my room, but if it gets out… I shake my head, banishing the thought. That won’t happen.
“Let’s go,” I say, standing up. I need to get out of here before Libby goes up to my room or Seth comes downstairs.
My brother’s eyebrows wrinkle together. It’s the same face he’s made since he was a baby whenever he’s perplexed. I know he’s going to mention Seth again, so when Libby looks down at her phone, I mouth please to him. He shrugs, but his eyebrows stay furrowed.
And I leave. I don’t go upstairs. I don’t say goodbye to Seth. I walk out of the door and get in Libby’s car, and we drive away.
At least Seth drove today, so he can get home.
I get out my phone and send a single text.
I’m sorry.
He doesn’t reply.
CHAPTER 26
Libby and I go get tacos, but I’m distracted the whole time. And I know she can tell something is off, but she doesn’t know what.
“Sorry I’m a little out of it,” I say as we drive back to my house. “I’ve got a headache.”
“No worries,” she trills.
When she turns into my street, I glance around for Seth’s mom’s car. I don’t know which would be worse − if it is still there or if it’s gone.
It’s gone.
And I think that’s worse.
After I get out of the car, I wait for Libby to drive away, and then I get straight into my car and drive to Seth’s.
The moon is high as I pull up in front of Seth’s place. The days are so long in the summer; I can’t believe this is the same day that we went to the fair, the same day he made his big confession, the same day we kissed. It all seems so long ago, and it was only a few hours. I wish I could go back and start this day again. I don’t know what I would do differently, but I’d do it better.
The curtain in Seth’s bedroom window flickers. He knows I’m here. I wait for him to come outside. He doesn’t.
I get out of the car and go up to the window and knock on it. The curtain flickers again but doesn’t open. “Seth,” I call. I know he can hear me.
“Reiko, is that you?” Seth’s mom has opened the door. I didn’t realize she was home. “What are you doing hollering at Seth’s window? Why didn’t you ring the doorbell like a normal person?”
I smile at her. “How are you?” I ask, ignoring her question. I can’t exactly say, I was worried he wouldn’t come to the door because he’s mad at me.
I guess the possibility of me having an awkward encounter with his mom overrules Seth’s anger because he shoots out of his room and out of the front door so fast he nearly knocks us both over.
“We’re going on a drive,” he calls out over his shoulder as he jogs to my car.
“Of course you are,” says his mom. “That’s all you two ever do. Go on drives and waste gas and waste time.” Her indulgent smile belies her words.
“Nice to see you,” I say.
I get back in my car and unlock the door for Seth, who gets in without a word. I start to drive into the deepening dark, not knowing where we’re going. I just drive. And drive. Neither of us says a word.
Finally, after the silence gets so thick I’m worried I’ll choke on it, I say something.
“I really am sorry.”
“About what?”
I frown. “About … leaving you.”
“Is that it?”
“What do you mean?”
“You aren’t sorry you told me to hide in the closet? You aren’t sorry you left me up in your room for over an hour?”
I take a deep breath. “I’m sorry for that, too. I’m sorry about all of it. OK? This … it is just a lot. I need a little bit of time. To get used to everything.”
“To get used to me?” The hurt makes his voice unfamiliar.
“No.” I glance over at him. He’s turned away from me and is staring out the window. “No, not you. Just … to us, I guess. I don’t know. It’s stupid. I’m sorry, OK? I’ll make it up to you.” I don’t know how, though.
I turn down a road we’ve been down before, wondering if this is going to be one of those nights where we don’t find anything magical.
“Hey, stop the car,” Seth says. “I think I see something.” And for a second, his voice sounds normal, the way it used to.
I stop the car and we get out. Seth leads, and I follow.
At first all I see are cacti, but then as we go closer, I gasp. The cacti are all covered in hundreds of white and yellow blossoms. They look like stars fell from the sky and got caught on the cacti needles. The cacti are dripping in stars.
“Night flowers,” I breathe. I reach out, carefully so I don’t prick myself, and stroke one of the petals. It’s like we’re in an enchanted garden. “My mom’s told me about these. I don’t know if these are the right kind, but some night flowers are paired. If you pluck one, another one on the cactus will die.”
“That’s bleak,” says Seth. He’s inspecting one of the blossoms.
“Or romantic.”
“We could try it,” he suggests.
“Plucking one?” The idea horrifies me. “No way.”
“Why not? It’s just a flower,” says Seth, and with precision he pulls one of the blossoms off the cactus. “Ow. I got pricked.”
“Serves you right,” I say, turning away from him and back to the flowers. “You should have left it alone.”
The smell of the flowers is intoxicating and heady. I feel like if I inhale too deeply, I’ll fall under a spell. I could spend all night here, but I can tell Seth is antsy. He’s usually just as excited as I am about our desert discoveries, but maybe he’s distracted by everything that has been happening between us.
“Can we go now?” he says after a while.
“Sure,” I say, blowing kisses to the flowers as we leave.
Back in the car, I can’t stop thinking about the flowers. “Those flowers! They were incredible! I didn’t even think they were real. It was like … magic.”
“They weren’t magical,” Seth scoffs. “Just because something is hidden doesn’t make it magical.”
“Sometimes it does,” I say, still thinking about the night flowers winking in the moonlight. Like stars you could smell.
“Is that what makes me special?” he says. “What makes us special?”
“What?” I slide my eyes away from the road and over to him and the car skids, sending billowing clouds of sand and dust up around the wheels and in front of the windshield.
“Jesus! Watch it, Reiko!” Seth cries out.
I pull over properly. “Sorry,” I say, breathing heavily. “I … I thought I saw something in the road.”
“Are you sure you weren’t just startled by what I said?”
I turn to look at him. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
He ignores me. “So, am I just going to be a secret? Is this going to be a secret?”
“I don’t even know what ‘this’ is!” I say, resting my head on the steering wheel. “Seth, maybe, maybe we should…”
“Should what?” His voice sounds like it is coming from far away.
“I don’t know. Maybe just go back to how things were?”
He laughs and it is a mirthless sound, nothing like the barking joy that I’m used to. “Go back to what? To me hoping that one day you’d see me as more than a friend?”
“But … you are my friend,” I say.
A car roars past us, the headlights illuminating Seth’s face. He looks pained. I hate seeing how hurt he is. I hate knowing I’m the one who is hurting him.
“I don’t think I can be just your friend anymore, Reiko,” he says. “I don’t think I can go back.” His voice shrinks to a whisper. “I thought, maybe, maybe you wanted this too?”
“I don’t know what I want.” And I think that’s the first honest thing I’ve said to him in days.
“Can we at least … try? Just give me a chance. Give us a chance.”
Another car flies by and I turn my face away so Seth can’t see my expression as I try to think about what will change. I can imagine it in the summer, I don’t think it’ll be that different, but when we go back to school, back to real life … I wonder where Seth will fit in with my friends, where he will fit in with my life.
I still have a few weeks to figure that out. At the moment all I know is that I can’t lose him.
I turn toward him and take his hand. “OK,” I say. “We can try … whatever … this is… But for now, we keep it between us, OK?”
Seth squeezes my hand. “What about when we go back to school?”
I squeeze back. “We’ll figure something out.” Because I’m sure we will. I just don’t know what.
CHAPTER 27
I see Seth almost everyday the following week. We make out in my car and in my room and even against the big boulders next to his trailer. He’s still a sloppy kisser, and a lot of the time when his tongue is in my mouth, my brain goes haywire because it’s Seth Rogers and we’re kissing and it doesn’t make sense. But other times, when we’re out exploring, I’m happier than I’ve been in a very long while. I think if he had it his way, we’d just kiss all the time, though. But even with all the kissing, it doesn’t start to sink in how much we are really becoming an actual couple until he asks if I want to go to the movies.
“Why don’t we just watch a movie at my place?” I say, because people from our school might be at the movie theater and I’m still not ready to share whatever it is that is happening between us.
“There’s this new horror movie out,” he says. “It looks really good.”
“I don’t like horror movies. You know that. And I especially don’t like them on the big screen.”
“But I really want to see this one, and I want to see it in the theater.”
“Then go with someone else,” I say, rolling down my window. We’re on our way back from a hike, and I’m sweaty and hot and all I want is to take a shower and maybe a nap.
“Who?”
“I don’t know,” I admit.
“Reiko, I want to go with you. Come on. We always do what you want to do.”
“That’s because what I want to do is what you want to do.”
He laughs, and it isn’t a kind laugh and it isn’t a cruel laugh. It is somewhere right in-between. “N
o, that’s just what you think.”
“What?”
He shrugs. “I mean, I like going out in the desert and stuff too, and I like being with you, but it’s all really your thing.”
“But … but don’t you feel the magic? Like the night flowers?”
“Reiko … you know magic isn’t real, right? We just find random shit. It’s cool, but it’s not magical.”
Random shit. I bite my lip and grip the steering wheel with both hands.
“Anyway, can we go to the movie tonight?” he goes on. “Please? And then tomorrow we can do whatever you want.”
“Fine,” I say and he grins. “But not in Palm Springs. We can go to the theater in Cathedral City. And not tonight, we can go tomorrow.”
His grin slips off, but he nods. “Whatever you want, Reiko. Like usual.”
We hold hands the whole movie, and I spend ninety-five per cent of it with my eyes shut and face buried in Seth’s shoulder. I can’t block out the sounds, though, and the sounds are the worst part. All the stabbing and groaning and screaming.
“So, what did you think?” Seth asks as we walk back to my car.
“It was awful.”
“How do you know? You had your eyes closed the whole time. It was excellent. You missed out.”
“I’m choosing the next movie.” I think about the kind of movies I like. The foreign films I watch with my parents, and the cheesy romances that Dre and I watch together, and the big sweeping period films like Gone With the Wind that I watch with my mom.
I tell Seth this, but he doesn’t seem to hear me. “You choose everything all the time,” he says.
“You chose dinner and the movie tonight.”
“Hey, there’s a first time for everything, right?”
I don’t like how he’s being, but I can’t put my finger on why it is bothering me so much.
Only Love Can Break Your Heart Page 11
