“And you’re missing the point!”
“And you were making a fool of yourself, Kaya.”
Brick never usually refers to me by my actual name, and his authoritarian tone pisses me off even more.
“By sitting on the bleachers and minding my own business?”
“You were flirting with John fucking Dixon.”
“I was not!”
“The heavy makeup. The half shirt you’re wearing. This isn’t you. If Kyle had been there, he would have done the same thing. Probably worse.”
“Then leave those types of decisions for my brother to make.”
“Excuse me for looking out for you, because as long as it’s breathing and has two tits, John Dixon will try to fuck anything.”
“Oh, so I’m just anything?”
Maple street is empty, except for the lingering echoes of laughter in the air. I felt humiliated and laughed at, a feeling that only served to make me feel more self-conscious and ashamed. My palms are slippery with sweat and my face is burning with embarrassment as the two of us are so close up in each other’s faces that I can practically smell what Brick had for dinner.
As usual, he looks so sure of himself, so confident in his own skin, and as angry as I am, I can’t help but be drawn in.
He leans in, close enough so that our noses are almost touching, and when he speaks his voice differs from what I’ve ever heard before. It’s soft and low.
“No, you’re better than what you did back there,” he whispers, and then suddenly he kisses me.
It’s a gentle kiss, hesitant and unsure, as if he’s waiting for me to pull away. But I don’t. I want this. I want the warmth of his lips against mine, want the feeling of his hands on either side of my face. Even after everything he’s done, I won’t mind that my first kiss is going to be in the middle of the street, with my brother’s best friend. So I close my eyes and savor the moment.
When Brick pulls away, I feel a little lost, a little sad that the moment has gone so quickly. Then he stares into my eyes as if he’s confused by something and an odd moment transpires between us. The moment is fleeting, though, and finally he takes a step back.
That’s when I notice it.
Regret.
He thinks that he’s made the biggest mistake of his life.
I am the biggest mistake of his life.
“Let me call your brother to come get you,” he says, as if he can’t get away from me fast enough.
I want to cry, but I’m determined to hold back the tears.
“I can get home on my own.”
He shifts nervously between feet.
“So… we don’t need to really tell Kyle about this, right?”
The nerve of this boy embarrassing me in front of the entire school, stealing my first kiss from me, and now he wants me to protect him from my brother?
Arrogant.
Beautiful.
Coward.
I raise my middle finger up right between Brick’s two eyes, like Kyle taught me to do when I was being bullied at ten-years-old.
