“What I’m trying to say is I more than really really like you.” I swallow down my nerves. “I love you.”
I wait for him to say something back.
For him to love me too.
His eyes go wide and shimmery.
Did I mess this up? Why isn’t he saying anything?
But then his lips curve up. And if I thought his eyes were bright before, now they’re like follow spots on full brightness, and I’m transfixed in their beams.
“I love you,” he says.
He loves me. He loves me!
I kiss him. It’s like I’ve got a helium balloon in my chest, so full I might go flying off into the sky. I kiss him, and he kisses me back.
But all too soon, we have to come up for air. He smiles down at me, reaches back to play with my hair.
“I love you, Liam,” I say. “So much.”
“I love you too. I—”
But then he startles, steps on my foot and backs away to look toward the parking lot. His mouth has dropped open, eyes wide, not with joy but with something more like panic.
I turn and look.
It’s Jasmine.
41
My sister and I have fought a lot over the years. From little spats when we were kids, arguing about what show to watch, to giant explosions once we were teenagers and Jasmine started dating a string of boys I hated. One time she didn’t talk to me for two weeks after I told her I thought Dominic was homophobic because of something he said in class.
(Turns out hewashomophobic, which Jasmine only found out after they went on a date that turned out to be a service at Dominic’s church, where he and his parents tried to bully her into getting baptized. I guess I’m not the only one in the family who’s had to deal with the Toxic Jesus Fandom from time to time.)
(Not that I’m not cool with Christians. I love going with Bowie to their church. But their church doesn’t want to wipe me from existence.)
But I’ve never seen Jasmine looking the way she is now. Like she’s about to burst into flames as she storms around her still-running car and up the sidewalk toward us.
Liam steps closer to me, as if he could diffuse her anger by sharing in it. But Jasmine’s anger doesn’t diffuse: It multiplies.
Besides, I’m the one she’s mad at. I step in front of him.
She glares at me, tears in the corners of her eyes, but they’re not falling. Her nose is too scrunched up in anger to let them.
“You!” She points at me, but nothing else comes out, like she can’t find the words. “You!”
“Jasmine, listen. This isn’t the way I wanted you to find out, but—”
“Thisis your secret boyfriend?” She cuts me off. Apparently she’s discovered a few more words. “I can’t believe you. The two of you. Behind my back. How could you?”
“It wasn’t like that.” I hold my hands up, to try and calm her, even though the waves of anger rolling off her make me feel like I’m back in the pool. “It only happened after.”
But Jasmine ignores me. She’s a steamroller when she gets this mad. She rounds on Liam. “How long were you somethingsomething my own brother?”
“I wasn’t.”
She snorts, which makes her tears start to fall.
