I was nervous, but I told him that if anything happened to his grandparents, he could come live with us.
A smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
“Don’t worry,” I tried to assure him. I told him that his grandparents were lucky to have him there. I said, “I bet it’s hard, sometimes, though. Because they’re supposed to be the ones taking care of you, worrying about you.”
“Yeah,” he whispered.
I was shocked to see a teardrop drip from his chin and leave a deep blue stain on my comforter. I’d never once seen Shane Carraway cry or upset at all really. He was always so happy. So easygoing. I worried I’d said something wrong and impulsively did the first thing I could think of to comfort him.
I hugged him.
And Shane hugged me back! First, he put one arm loosely around me, then the other until he was holding me as tight as I was holding him. I don’t know if he was still crying. He didn’t make any sounds like sniffs or anything, and I got all caught up in it. I got all caught up in the moment, the feel of his arms around me, his body against mine, and the faint scent of his soap, which smelled like Irish Spring.
I don’t know why I said this. I guess I was overwhelmed, but I said, “I’d do those things for you. I’d take care of you. Worry about you.”
It was basically a confession of my feelings for him, and he didn’t pull away from me. Not right away. But when he did pull away, his brown eyes were shiny like a puddle after the rain, and they focused on my headphones still hanging around my neck.
He asked me what I’d been listening to, and I told him Radiohead.
He asked me if he could listen, so I took my headphones off from around my neck. They were the kind that the earpieces rotated, so instead of Shane putting them on, he took one side of the headphones, leaving the other for me, and we held them up to our ears as I pushed play, our heads only inches apart. We nodded along to the music together, just sitting there, hands tapping the bed, until a slower song came on. It wasn’t exactly a romantic song, but it could feel that way under the right circumstances.
There was a change between us almost instantly. It’s hard to explain. It was almost like tension mixed with anxiety, so I was going to skip the song, but Shane whispered, “No, I like this song.”
So, I let it play. I let it play and when Shane shifted beside me, he put his hand flat on the bed next to my leg.
Then I did the same, our pinkies just centimeters apart.
At the peaking part of the song, he slid his pinky over to mine and curled it around mine. I turned slightly, so I was looking down at our hands, his chin and his mouth in the corner of my eye. My heart was pounding like crazy, the music filling my ear, and he was touching me. I couldn’t believe it. I wanted it to last forever, the music and him and me like that. It was electric, it really was! I was going to turn my head to look at him, because I knew he waslooking at me, when I heard a loud voice on the stairs.
Everett was home.
We split like bananas, Shane shooting up from my bed and into the doorway of my bedroom before I could even stop the CD.
“Sup, dude?” Everett said, then peeked into my room. “Hanging out with this dork?”
Shane laughed and looked over at me. It was a knowing look, a secret look. He said I wasn’t a dork. He said I was pretty cool actually and we were just listening to music.
Then he and Ev got to talking and Shane waved to me, quickly leaving my room and going down the hall to Ev’s room, like none of it had just happened.
I felt so let down, but also elated.
Something had happened that had never happened before.
And it had to mean something.
I was absolutely sure.
I rubbed my hands all over my comforter and listened to that song on repeat. I didn’t even bother getting under the covers, I just slept where he and I had been, where we hugged, where we touched, and I think I was the happiest I’d ever been in my entire life.
But he still got up when Ev came home. I haven’t seen Shane all weekend, so I don’t know how he’ll act toward me tomorrow at school. He might be embarrassed or ashamed. I hope not. B/c I’m not. Not at all. I’ll never forget tonight for as long as I live.
8
Ethan
January 1999
The song ends, leavinga gaping black hole, sucking in all the time between Shane and I.
