First kiss.
I was too flabbergasted to do anything but kiss her back. I’d never kissed anyone before. My tendency to fall on the floor in a blur of muscle spasms generally meant girls didn’t deem me worthy of locking lips.
Ava smelled faintly floral. She deepened the kiss, tasting of chicken salad from the hospital lunch. My body tried to react too fast, and I had to will it down. We had all these spectators.
Still, I was high, practically floating. Her lips were warm, and her hands held onto me like I was the last anchor in a storm.
The mom’s shrill voice could have shattered glass. “I will not stand for this!”
DeShawn’s tone conveyed his concern. “Tucker, we have to go.”
Lighter footsteps rushed into the room, but I refused to open my eyes. This was too perfect, too unexpected. I wasn’t going to let go of this moment until they dragged me away in chains.
“Is everything okay in here?” A female voice, probably the nurse who got called.
“This boy came in here and started kissing my daughter.”
“That’s not exactly how it went down,” DeShawn said. “But Tucker, we gotta go.”
“Call security right now,” the mother said.
“That isn’t necessary,” DeShawn shot back.
We reluctantly broke apart. Ava kept her hands on my face. Her eyes were the pale blue of a summer sky.
I refused to look at anyone else. “Are you going to the support group meeting?”
She touched her mouth, as if she was as surprised as I was at what she’d done. “What’s a support group?”
“Where all the teens our age sit and talk.”
Her eyes widened. “Yes, yes! Where do I go?”
“Next door to the disco room.”
“What’s the disco room?”
Whoa.“It’s where we met. It has music. And lights.”
“Ooooh. Let’s go again!”
But my elation dropped. If she didn’t know about the disco room, then she had lost more than my introduction. How much amnesia did she have?
DeShawn walked up, towering over us.
I had to work fast. “We were there last night. They turned on the strobes. You had a seizure.”
“That’s enough,” the mother said. “Escort him out of here or I’m calling 911. Clearly there isn’t any sort of security here.”
DeShawn put his hand on my arm to pull me up. “Tucker, we have to go. Now.”
Ava stood with me. “I’m going with him.”
“You’re not wired to walk around,” her nurse said.
“You need to be in here on the video monitor,” her mother said. “That’s why we admitted you. It’s for your safety.”
Ava turned to the nurse. “I’d like to see a…” She looked frantically around the room. “Someone. I’m sad. I cry a lot. I need to go to a support group so I can talk. Get… support. I need a…” She frowned again.
