Ash took a step forward into Cassidy’s backyard. As he ducked through the hole in the fence, he retrieved his heart that he’d left on the broken boards, bringing it with him.
“It-it’s for me?” Cassidy asked.
He nodded. “For you. Do you want to try it on?”
Cassidy looked up at him, the moon illuminating her skin.
“Yes, please,” she whispered, as if Ash’s presence now somehow stole awayhervoice, rather than the other way around.
Their hearts pounded like thunderstorms, and the air vibrated between them.
Gingerly, Ash brought the golden mask to Cassidy’s face. His fingertips grazed her skin, little lightning bolts sparking where they touched. He brushed through her hair—she smelled of blue irises and peonies—and tied the ribbons behind her head.
Her lips were only three inches away.
This time, Ash was brave.
He bent down, just as Cassidy rose on her tiptoes, and hismouth met hers. The kiss was tender, like velvet brushing against flower petals, and liquid moonlight pouring through their veins.
Ash kept his eyes closed for a long moment. When he opened them, Cassidy was smiling shyly.
“I’ve always wondered what it would feel like to do that,” she said.
He blinked at her. “Always?”
She nodded. “Hold out your hand.”
“Why?”
“Just do it. Please.”
Ash held his breath and obeyed.
Cassidy reached into the pocket of her pajama pants. Then she uncurled her fist and dropped several tiny origami cranes into Ash’s palm.
He gasped.
The pixie mobile flying from his bike handle freshman year. The joyful rush of origami when he opened his locker. The solitary crane that sometimes waited for him on his lab table in Mr. Brightside’s classroom.
A little bird told me,Mr. Brightside had said. Cassidy had biology the period before Ash did.
“It was you all along,” Ash said.
Cassidy bit her lip and nodded. “But when we were in the abandoned house today, and you threw away the crane and said it was nothing—”
“I’m so sorry.” Mortification shivered through Ash’s bones. “Isaid that because the only gifts that could ever mean anything to me would be ones from you, and I didn’t think you knew I existed.”
Cassidy laughed, the golden mask bouncing on her face with the rhythm.
But then she got quiet and reached tentatively for Ash’s hands. Her fingers trembled as they met his. “I thoughtyoudidn’t knowIexisted.”
She kept talking, in a rushed whisper. “Ash, I’ve known about you since the day our U-Haul pulled up in the driveway and you were at your mailbox. I play so much soccer and basketball in my backyard to be closer to you and your studio. At school, I know you always eat with True and Onny under the persimmon tree by the library, and you always give them whatever they want from your lunch, even though it leaves you hungry.
“I know that when you get quiet, you’re thinking. I know sometimes your fingers move in midair, because you’re sketching or painting something you’re imagining. I know you see colors in the world that others don’t, just like I see small joys in life that others pass over. I already know you, Ash. And it only makes me want to know you even more.”
Ash could hardly breathe. Happiness had a tight hold on his chest.
“But if you knew all that about me,” he said, “why didn’t you say anything?”
