“You do. Everyone does.” We have reached the center of the atrium, and the sun is glaring down. It’s too hot in here. Ravel suddenly seems like an aggressive choice for the mall. I think through the numbers, applying values to a cost-benefit analysis of the chances of my humiliating myself if I decide to dance at the party. The math feels uncomfortably random, like I’ve assigned numbers just to make myself feel better. “And this could be your chance. Say you’re dancing with Kit, maybe you lean in a little and bam, you guys kiss.”
“Do you think this is my once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to kiss Kit Lowell? And if so, what do you think are my chances in that regard?” I ask.
“Yes, and I think your odds are about two point four percent.”
“So you’re saying that on Friday night I have an equal chance of getting vomited on as I do of getting kissed?”
“Welcome to high school,” Miney says.
“You look beautiful,” David says right into my ear, so close I shiver. My back presses against a speaker blasting crappy music, and I flip my hair in a way I’ve seen Jessica do, right then left then right again. I instantly regret it because I have the kind of hair that frizzes, not flips. I am wearing my mom’s red bandage dress and her most expensive heels, and I’m carrying a full bottle of some fancy Scandinavian vodka, the total effect of which makes me feel like I’m in a Halloween costume. Cocktail party grown-up. I took—well, stole—all this without asking, of course, despite the fact that my mom would have happily lent me her clothes, if not handed over the alcohol. That would have meant having to talk to her, and I’m not ready for that. The silence between us has turned malleable and soft, though. I suspect we are now being quiet out of self-protection. We are both too raw for words.
I still eat dinner alone in my room.
I still hate-love my mother.
The party is too crowded—most of Mapleview High is here, even a few guys who graduated last year and go to the local community college—and people are dancing anywhere they can find space. On couches, side tables. They bounce around against each other as if this is a rave and not Dylan’s parents’ living room. Gabriel and Willow eat each other’s faces right in the center of the makeshift dance floor, the sort of making out that gives kissing a bad name.
Abby and Jessica giggle from the sidelines. Based on their bloodshot eyes and the bag of Cheetos they are sharing, I’m pretty sure they’re high. Neither of them would be caught dead eating something fluorescent, scratch that, eating at all, sober.
“Thanks,” I say to David, and hope he doesn’t notice that I’m blushing. My mother, when she feels like complimenting me, almost always suggests some adjustment (Maybe try a different shirt, Kit? Yellow doesn’t suit your skin tone.), then only once I’ve taken her advice and changed does she say I look lovely. Beautiful feels like an upgrade.
“It’s too loud,” David says, again into my ear, and I want him to keep talking. Because it feels good, him leaning in like that, tickling my ear with his breath. He’s right, of course. It is way too loud. I have no idea why I come to parties. It’s not like I actually want to talk to any of the people here or, God forbid, dance. David and I would have been much better off heading to McCormick’s alone to have burgers and milk shakes.
I lead David by the hand, past Justin, who is deejaying, away from the noise and throngs and into the kitchen. If the other room felt like mayhem, here it feels postapocalyptic. The overhead lights are on. Bottles, ketchup packets, and empty potato chip bags litter the countertops. There’s a puddle of something yellow on the floor, and for Dylan’s sake I really hope it’s beer, not pee, though let’s be honest, they taste and smell the same.
Violet and Annie lean against the counter and sip from red plastic cups and greet us with weary enthusiasm.
“Hello!” they say in unison, and give me a semi-drunken hug, then lean into David, who at first doesn’t know what to do, but eventually leans in too.
“This is disgusting. Why don’t people clean up after themselves?” David’s wearing a fitted blue cashmere sweater and jeans that border surprisingly on skinny. He has a leather jacket crooked on his arm. He looks handsome. I have trouble looking away. He rolls up his sleeves and starts to gather up some trash.
“You can leave it,” I say. His sister must have picked out his clothes. It has her stamp of effortless cool. I wonder if she could give me lessons. I’d pay. Seriously.
“Really? I don’t really get what we’re supposed to do here otherwise,” David says.
“We’re supposed to just have fun.”
“Have fun. Sure. I can do that,” he says, though he looks uncomfortable and has what I think of as his processing face. Like he’s translating my words from English to whatever language it is he speaks in his head. “But it’s loud. Like really, really loud. Even in here. And the lights are too bright.”
“Have a drink. That should help.” I pour out four clear shots from my mom’s bottle.
“I’m driving,” he says.
“Good answer. More for me, then, my DD,” I say, a stupid play on the words designated driver and David Drucker. I’m glad he is responsible, but I don’t want to think about driving.
I hand Violet and Annie their shots and swig mine and David’s fast, one after the other. They burn on the way down. Like David, I no longer have any idea about how to have fun, how to just be, and so I have decided if I am going to survive this party I need a little help. I don’t really see any other way.
“Slow down,” Violet says, looking at my now-empty glasses. I’ve drunk before, but not a lot and not often. “The night is young.”
“So are we,” I say, and take a third shot just as fast. Violet gives Annie a look, but it turns out Annie’s on my side on this one.
“Touché,” Annie says, and pours out more drinks and hands them around. She even pours David a cup of soda. “To hashtag Team David!”
“To David,” I say.
“To me?” he asks, adorably confused.
—
A few minutes later, or maybe much later, I can’t really tell, David takes my hand and leads me outside to the backyard, which is mercifully quiet. My head is humming and my edges are blurry and the world is rolling. I’m drunk. That much is obvious. How drunk I am and how much I will regret this tomorrow remain to be seen.
“Do you want my jacket?” David asks, and I shake my head, which is, of course, a mistake. A wave of nausea hits fast and hard.
“Let’s sit down,” I say, and we find our way to the back porch steps. I scoot up next to David, since it’s cold out. We are the only people dumb enough to be outside. Even the smokers have abandoned their cigarettes for the warmth of the house.
“You okay? You’re not going to throw up or anything, are you?” he asks, and I don’t know why I find this hilarious, but I do. I laugh and then he does too, and the laughing and the cold somehow clear away the nausea.
“Nope. I pinky-swear I will not blow chunks.” David winces, and then of course my face goes red. Why did I have to say blow chunks, which is by far the least romantic word combo in the English language? I could have just said no. “I mean, I’m fine.”
“You match, you know? Your outsides and your insides are beautiful,” David says, and he throws one arm stiffly over my shoulder. The movement is awkward and clumsy and because of this awkwardness and clumsiness—not despite it—I’m charmed. Or maybe it’s the four vodka shots and whatever concoction Annie made for me. Either way, I like sitting here, with David’s arm heavy around my shoulders; I like studying his profile, basking in the glow of his compliments. I want to reach up and feel the tiny bit of stubble along his jawline. Unlike the rest of the guys here, he is more man than boy.
“I like to match,” I say, which I realize makes no sense but I think still comes off in a flirty way. It’s so much easier to flirt drunk. How come I never realized this before? This is the sort of basic information I’m sure someone like Lauren Drucker already knows. David smells good, and
the crook of his neck seems inviting. The sort of place where I should rest my dizzy head. And I do. Nuzzle right in there. Which is something I would never do without liquid courage.
“We match,” I say, and as soon as the words are out I already know that tomorrow will come and I will remember this moment and wince. We match?? And so, even through this drunken haze, I feel relief when he doesn’t laugh at me. Instead he squeezes me a little tighter, brings me a tiny bit closer so my edges are against his edges, and it’s all warm. Our bodies fit. I secretly sniff him, and get rewarded with his fresh lemony scent.
I want him to kiss me, I realize. There is nothing else really left for me to want. I can’t undo the past two months. I can’t make my dad be alive. Or my mother not be a cheater. I can’t undo the accident, am no longer naive enough to think that figuring out the math could somehow make it better. I can’t become editor in chief. I can’t change or fix any of it. But kissing David would feel good, good enough for me not to think about Lauren’s warning that I better not hurt her brother, good enough for me not to worry about whether David will understand the concept of a casual hookup, good enough for me not to think about why I ever started the Accident Project in the first place.
Good enough that I will not think about my dad or my mom or anything at all.
David has told me I am beautiful, not once but twice, and right now I really feel that he isn’t lying, that I am, or maybe that one day I could be, beautiful, inside and out.
Kissing David would make me forget.
Is that so wrong? For me to want to forget for just a little while?
Kissing David would feel good.
Do I need a better reason than that?
Team David, I think. I’m totally on Team David.
Kit’s head is resting on my shoulder. She is wearing a red dress that makes her look like a mummy. It’s made of supertight blood-colored bandages, the kind of dress that should be illegal for a teenage girl because she looks about twenty-five, not sixteen. I want to touch her. I want to tell her that she is the first girl I have ever loved, since I think that must be what this feeling is. Love.
I have never felt this way before. I’ve never had someone loom so large in my brain that the rest of the stuff gets crowded out. Out here, in this quiet backyard, I can tune out the distant thump of the music. Out here, with her head on my shoulder and the smell of her shampoo—almond and honey—and the feel of her soft hair against my cheek, I can forget that I am David Drucker. I can forget everything. That I’m the kind of person whose mom has to hire a social skills tutor so I can learn how to have a basic human conversation. That I’m the kind of person who routinely receives texts that say things like Die, loser. That I’m the kind of person who would be stupid enough to go into a bathroom stall with Justin because he promised he “had something cool to show me.”
How do I kiss her? Miney gave me a ton of advice, like not to jam my tongue down Kit’s throat or to be too slobbery. She even made me watch YouTube tutorials on technique. But we never got around to how to actually do it. How do I move from us sitting next to each other, ostensibly observing the stars and listening to the eerie creak of the swing set, to putting our lips together?
“Kit?” I decide I will just ask her to kiss me. Or better yet, ask if I can kiss her. Best to be direct and clear. Leave no room for miscommunication, my specialty.
“Hmm,” she says, which I assume means yes.
“How would you feel about me— I mean, what do you think about the idea—” I can’t say it. How would you feel about me kissing you? Can I kiss you? would be better. Yes, that would be more accurate. I want permission, not a complicated discussion of her emotional state.
Can I kiss you? Four simple words. I can do this.
I turn my head again, and as I talk my lips brush her forehead. Almost a kiss. Just seven and a half inches off.
“Can I—?” But before I can ask the question, her head shifts and she leans in and wraps her hand around the back of my neck and closes the gap. Seven and a half inches erased just like that. Her lips are on mine, and we are kissing.
All I can think is Kit kissed me, over and over until I stop thinking altogether.
I am kissing David Drucker. I am kissing David Drucker. I am kissing David Drucker.
I was wrong. I had assumed this would be his first kiss, that it would be fumbling and a bit messy but still fun. No way. Can’t be. This guy knows exactly what he’s doing. How to cradle the back of my head with his hands. How to move in soft and slow, and then pick up the pace, and then slow down again. How to brush my cheeks with even smaller kisses, how to work his way down my jaw, and to soften the worry spot in the center of my brow. How to pause and look into my eyes, really look, so tenderly I feel it all the way down in my stomach.
He even traces the small zigzag scar on my eyebrow with his fingertips, like it’s something beautiful.
I could kiss him forever.
I’m going to kiss him forever.
I am kissing David Drucker, and yes, I’ve forgotten everything else.
Because his lips are back on mine.
Because this, right here, is the best kiss of my life.
—
We kiss and kiss and kiss and only stop when David pulls away, cups the sides of my face with his huge hands, and says: “There are cops here. We’ve got to go.”
Even that sounds romantic. He has morphed from dorky classmate to partner in crime. We hold hands and run to his car and he opens the passenger-side door for me. Offers his jacket one last time.
“I’m okay,” I say. “You kept me warm.” He smiles at me, and even in the dark I can see that he’s blushing. And now I am too. I’m hot all over.
“At least take my scarf.” He pulls a scarf from his jacket pocket and winds it around my neck. Cashmere, as soft as his sweater. Everything he wears is soft. He takes both edges and then pulls me toward him again, a suave move, and we kiss one last time. My chest tightens, my body tingles, and I allow myself to dissolve into him. It seems wrong that we ever need to leave this moment. I want to stay right here.
“Get a room!” I hear Gabriel shout as he walks by, but I don’t care. Team David, I think again. I’m definitely on Team David.
We don’t talk on the ride home. We don’t have to. I feel warm and giddy and like I have a secret that I want to keep all to myself. David Drucker, who is so many different people all at once: the guy who always sits alone, the guy who talked quantum physics even in my dad’s dental chair, the guy who held my hand in the snow. I kissed David Drucker, the guy I most like to talk to, and it was perfect.
—
Four a.m. Alone in my bedroom. The butterflies I have savored all night suddenly turn to bats. My mouth is sour. Everything spins. David’s scarf feels hot and itchy on my neck. Too tight. I feel the opposite of beautiful.
The regrets start singing their cruel song in my ear. Grating and on automatic repeat.
Then suddenly the accident starts playing on my ceiling. Headlights. Screeching tires. My foot twitches slowly. Always too slow.
I remember everything.
Make it stop.
I crawl to the bathroom with only a second to spare.
I blow chunks until dawn.
I spent ninety-six glorious minutes kissing Kit Lowell. Ninety-six minutes where her mouth was against my mouth, or my mouth was against her neck, or my mouth was against that amazing freckle cluster at her clavicle. I could spend the rest of my living days kissing Kit without getting bored, without stopping except for the physiological imperative of occasional sleep and food and to relieve myself.
Best. Night. Of. My. Life.
After I drive Kit home, I lie awake on my bed. My mind is spinning but, for once, in a good way. No need to talk myself out of or down from this sensation. Kissing Kit wasn’t too tangy or too loud or too rough or too moist, like I had feared it might be. It wasn’t too anything. It was perfect. Kissing Kit was a privilege.
I replay
the evening over and over again in my head, especially that very first minute. How Kit pulled my face toward hers, that feeling of her hands clasping my neck, the lack of ambiguity about what she wanted.
Everything was clear.
She picked me.
She kissed me.
Me.
For just tonight, I can pretend that I am something approximating cool. I wore a leather jacket that purposely looks worn in. My jeans were fitted, like a boy-bander’s. I looped my scarf around Kit’s neck and left it there, so she’ll have to see me again, if only to return it. I thought of that move all by myself. I didn’t learn it from YouTube or Miney’s instructions or a teen movie.
And now that I’ve been exposed to this feeling, perfect mouth against perfect mouth, the natural order of things, I wonder why people don’t kiss all day, every day. How does anything ever get done?
I feel reborn. No longer Mapleview’s resident hand-flapping weirdo. There is hope for me in the wider world, hope that I can leave this place one day and start over as someone else. Me version 2.0. Me smoothed out a little.
Love. I test the word in my head a few times. Let it bounce around my brain, the same way I tackle a formula, slowly at first, then accelerating exponentially, until it comes out the other end whole and solved.
Love.
Yes, it is clear what has happened here. What Kit has done to me.
She kissed me.
And then biology took over.
A dopamine rush. And maybe a hit of seratonin and adrenaline too.
A beautiful chemical reaction.
And just like that, I am madly in love with Kit Lowell.
—
Since love is new for me, I start as I would with any other intellectual exercise, and I Google: What do you do when you love someone? From there, I stumble upon the rules of courtship, which is a layman’s way of saying “human mating ritual.” Apparently, the surest indicator of a person’s attractiveness is whether their face is symmetrical, and so I measure mine and am relieved to discover my halves are of roughly equal dimension. Good. Next, in order to prove their reliability to support future potential offspring, men need to spend money on the object of their affection. Though I bring no income to the table at present, I decide the best way to show Kit that I’m a suitable partner is to demonstrate my other genetic attributes. I may not be good at small talk or making friends or abiding by high school social etiquette, but it’s incontrovertible that I’m exceptionally talented at science and math. I need to show off to her, just like a ribbon-tailed astrapia grows its tail feathers. I grab my notebook and write out my two-part plan.
What to Say Next Page 19
