Before Hattie buys her ticket, she turns back to Freddie. “You could see it and pretend like you didn’t.”
Freddie grins but shakes his head.
It kills me—it really does—because we don’t go to the movies often and I amdyingto seeSilent Bloodbath, but I turn to Freddie and say, “I’ll go seeKissing in Frenchwith you.”
He shakes his head at first but says, “Are you sure? You don’t have to do that.”
“At this point, I want to sit in a cold, dark theater and forget that school is about to start.” It’s a half-lie. Or a half-truth. I’m not sure. But I’m not going to let him see some lame rom-com by himself.
“Okay,” he says. “But my treat, cool?”
I nod and follow everyone else inside to the concessions. Normally we pack our purses full of cheap gas-station candy and soda, but popcorn is half-price before two.
Saul swings back behind me as Freddie joins me with our tickets. “Blast from the past at three o’clock!”
“Huh?”
He kicks me in the shin. “Working behind the hot dog rollers. CarrieAnn Cho.”
Behind the counter stands an Asian girl with deep-brown hair swept into a loose ponytail and a T-shirt advertising this summer’sSuper! Big! Explosion! Aliens!blockbuster tucked into her black pants.
She lifts her head and I feel the color drain from my face. “Oh shit.” Instinctively, I take cover behind Freddie and crouch down a bit so that my height doesn’t give me away.
“Uh, what’s happening?” His voice is unsure, but he guards me like a wall.
Saul sighs. “The hauntings of first love.”
“She was not my first love,” I whisper. “More like my first kiss.”
Freddie laughs stiffly.
“Ramona?” CarrieAnn’s high-pitched, far-off-sounding voice finds me.
This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I decided it was time to come out to Freddie.
I straighten my posture and take a few steps closer to the counter. She’s petite and bouncy and reminds me of the fairy art from Hot Topic that Hattie was obsessed with in middle school.
“I thought that was Hattie.” She points to my sister, who is loading an extra-large bucket of popcorn (which she has no intention of sharing, I’m sure) with layers of butter from the dispenser next to the condiments. She even goes so far as to take a cup meant for water and fill it with extra butter for the bottom of her bucket. “And I figured you couldn’t be far,” CarrieAnn finishes.
I smile. “You found me.”
The thing with CarrieAnn is that she and I sloppily made out and fooled around a little at a party that Hattie dragged me to in Gulfport when I was in ninth grade and CarrieAnn was in tenth. Since she lived here in Gulfport, we never really saw each other. Different schools, different friends.
Based on all the voice mails and texts I received from CarrieAnn in the following days and weeks, she washaving a personal revelation. And she was ready for something major—something I wasn’t sure how to give her at the time. Listen, I was only fifteen and not really emotionally prepared to be her guide through the Gay Mountains.
Her texts started getting pretty intense, so I did what any normal person who is not really an asshole but is acting like an asshole would do: I ignored her. Since then, I’ve done everything in my power to avoid her until she went off to college in Atlanta last year. But I hadn’t exactly factored in summer break.
“Wow,” says CarrieAnn. “You look great.”
I nod. “Thanks. You too. Nice uniform.”
She smiles so wide I can see her gums. “Thanks. So I go back to school in a week, but maybe we could get together.”
“Oh, wow. I go back to school tomorrow, so my week is pretty crazy.”
“Maybe we could see a movie if you have time? I can get free tickets.”
I open my mouth, but she doesn’t even give me time to respond.
