He stopped moving, stopped smiling, and he was right there, biting his bottom lip, pushing the hair out of my eyes, tracing the slope of my nose, the arch of my cheek, the line of my jaw.
My notebook fell to the sand.
“You sure you don’t want me to write it for you?” he asked, very quietly.
I could barely speak. My heart raced. “I’m—I’m sure.”
“Yeah? Because it’s more of a whirl than a straight line. Your sentences, they—”
“I want you to show me,” I said. “I want you to kiss me.”
His eyes widened. They brightened. They softened. And then, they narrowed. He blew out another breath and, very slowly, dragged his thumb across my bottom lip. I let out a soft, strange gasp, and something brand-new worked across his face. He lowered himself another inch and pushed his forehead against mine. My inhale caught again. My whole body, a magnet, ruled by the weight of him and melting into the sand, hot pink putty in his sixteen-year-old hands.
His eyes scrunched shut.
“Tyler?” I said. “What’s wrong?”
When he opened them, they were different. Cold. Distant. Not the ones I’d had all summer. Not the ones I’d had just a heartbeat before. “I need to take you home, Katie. Now.”
“What?” I said as he pushed himself off me and onto his feet. “Why? What’s wrong? What’s—”
“I’m high, okay?” He turned away with his hands on his head. The moon recast his shadow—every pace, every pivot—in the blue-gray sand. “This was a mistake. I’ve been high all summer. I... I can’t do this.”
I stood too. “So? You’re always high. What difference does it make? You still spend every day with me. You touched my knee. You—”
“Stop it, Katie. I said I can’t do this.”
“But you take me to the diner! You stay up and talk to me all night! You—”
“Because you’re always around, okay? That’s why! I’m just bored and Mikey’s gone, and you’re always there, waiting for me! You don’t know how many girls I’ve been with! You don’t know who I am, and you don’t know what I do when you’re not around!”
“You don’t mean that! You act like you’re so tough, like you’re so tortured, like you’re this bad boy, but you’re not! I’ve read your stories! I know who you really are! I see the way you look at me! The way you stare into my window! The way you—”
“Why won’t you listen to the words I’m saying? You don’t mean anything to me! This whole summer, it—” He took his notebook and chucked it in the ocean. I flinched, and he did too. “None of this means anything to me!”
“Yes, it does! I don’t believe you! You’re just too stoned and sad and stubborn to admit it! I ask you about your dad, and you shut me out! Like it’s not completely obvious your whole book’s about him! Why won’t you just admit you’re in pain? My parents suck too, okay? And I don’t do what you do! I don’t act like an asshole or use it as an excuse to push people away! Why can’t we just talk about what happened? I’m not Mikey. You can tell me how you feel. You can—”
“Stop it! Don’t fucking talk about my dad! I’m not the boy in one of your stupid books! You can’t fix me! You’re not special! There’s no magic key!”
I took a step back. And then another. My face flooded with tears. My notebook, somehow, was in my hands. I threw it as far as I could—I threw it right where Tyler had thrown his, right into the goddamn ocean. But mine barely made it to the shore.
“I’m going home,” I said, trembling. “Don’t follow me.”
“It’s three in the morning. You can’t—”
“Can’t I, though? I mean, it’s not like you give a shit about me.”
He frowned. And then, because he was right, because it wasn’t safe, because I was still a month away from fifteen, we biked the seven silent and familiar minutes back to our side gates. Tyler helped me up to my bedroom, and before he climbed back down the lattice, he twisted around to speak. He didn’t even bother to look at me.
“Owen Davis has been asking about you all summer, by the way. The older guys do this a lot. They pick freshman girls to—”
“Can’t wait to meet him,” I said, slamming the window shut. I turned off my lights, closed the blinds, and cried myself to sleep. It would be nearly two years until Tyler came back to my window. By then, everything would be different. By then, in so many ways, it would already be too late.
Kissing in the Rain
Henry vanquished the landscape architect. It had been so simple. All he had to do was look at Willa. All he had to do was whisper her name. And then, when he finally cupped her face and kissed her, the skies parted. Just like the first time, it had begun to pour.
43
