by Kennedy Ryan
“Where’s your brother?” I ask. “Maybe you should check with him before we dance.”
“I’m so sorry about that.” Hannah covers her face with her hands for a second. “He told me what he did, but I was too embarrassed to talk to you about it before. It doesn’t matter what he thinks. I don’t care.”
It’s easy for her not to care what her brother or her father think about her liking me. She’s not the one who got beat up on the way home from synagogue for nothing.
“So do you wanna dance?” Hannah asks again.
I glance back to the floor where the neon strobe lights bathe Kimba and Jeremy in an array of colors. She laughs at something he says and his hand slips down another inch.
“Sure.” I push off the wall, knowing I can’t dance for crap, but not caring. “Only a slow one, though. If a fast song comes on, I’m walking off the floor.”
“Deal,” she says, her pink, glossy lips pulled into a grin.
Hannah and I are usually about the same height, but she’s wearing heels so she has a couple of inches on me tonight. I find a place for my hands to be, somewhere between her hips and her waist. I can still see over her shoulder, and when I glance up, my eyes meet Kimba’s. She smiles, but I know every one of Kimba Allen’s smiles by heart, and this one looks like the one she wore when her aunt gave her “bloomers” for Christmas. I frown back and tilt my head. There’s nothing about the gesture that would mean much to anyone else, but Kimba and I have been working on our telepathy since stroller days, and she knows I’m asking what’s wrong.
“Nothing,” she mouths, that phony smile making a mockery of how sad her eyes are.
“Did you get a lot of money for Bar Mitzvah?” Hannah asks.
“Huh?” I drag my gaze back and an inch up to Hannah’s. “Bar Mitzvah?”
“Yeah, Robert got a lot of money. I just wondered if you did.”
“I guess.” I shrug. “It went right into my college fund.”
“You get any cool gifts?”
“Uh, yeah. Someone gave me eighteen Pixie Stix.”
“Like the powdered sugar candy? How is that cool?”
It’s cool because Kimba took the time to understand something about my heritage—took time to research the importance of chai, the significance of eighteen. Because she knows me well enough to figure keeping Kosher had been driving me crazy and my favorite candy was the perfect way to rebel.
My eyes drift back over Hannah’s shoulder, but Kimba and Jeremy aren’t there anymore. I search the dance floor, the whole gym in a frantic sweep, but there’s no sign of them. Then I see him walking back into the gym wearing a frown. He goes right over to a girl named Clarissa and speaks to her, then leads her onto the floor. No sign of Kimba.
“Um, Hannah. I need to check on something.”
“Now?” Hannah asks, the confusion on her face morphing into horror. “But this isn’t a fast song. They’re playing ‘I’ll Make Love to You.’ You can’t walk off the dance floor in the middle of Boyz II Men.”
“Sorry.” I shrug and turn to leave.
“Seriously?” Hannah yells at my back while the Boyz croon. “My friends were right. You are weird.”
I can live with weird if it means Hannah leaves me alone. I walk up to Jeremy dancing with Clarissa now, his head dipped into her neck and his hands squarely on her butt. I’m surprised a chaperone hasn’t run over and called him out for it.
“Hey.” I tap his shoulder.
He looks up, a scowl distorting his even features. The girls love this guy. Star basketball player. Tall. Handsome. I can see why Kimba was here with him.
“What?” he snaps. “I’m a little busy, Elijah.”
I don’t even bother correcting him. “Where’s Kimba?”
He rolls his eyes and lowers his head back to Clarissa’s neck without answering.
I jab my finger into his arm. “Where is she?”
His head snaps up and there’s fire in his glare. “What the hell is wrong with you? Can’t you see I’m—”
“She was dancing with you. You disappeared. Now you’re back and she isn’t, so where is she?”
His scowl slides into a knowing smirk. “You into her, Stern?”
I don’t respond, but the mocking gleam in his eye lights a fire under my collar.
“You’re such a jerk, Jeremy,” Clarissa says, turning her head to look at me. “She was in the girls’ bathroom a few minutes ago.”
“Thanks.” I jog off the dance floor and out into the corridor toward the bathrooms. It’s empty, with only an overhead fluorescent panel shining light. I stop in front of the girls’ restroom.
“Is this really what you’re about to do, Stern?” I mutter to the empty hallway.
Yes. Yes, it is.
I ease the door open just a crack.
“Tru,” I shout-whisper. “You in here?”
The acoustics in the cavernous bathroom wrap my words in echo. This is stupid and some girl will walk out half-dressed any minute and report me to a chaperone.
“Kimba, are you—”
“Ezra, yes. Dang it. What do you want?”
My shoulders sag and the tight coil in my stomach loosens a little. I ease the door open a few more inches, poking my head in to see if anyone else is visible. It’s empty and before I can talk myself out of it, I speed-walk in, zipping past all the stalls until I see Kimba’s red flats. I tap on the door.
“You okay?”
“You can’t be in here. It’s the girls’ bathroom. Geez. Get out.”
“I know. I will. Just…are you okay?” I hesitate. “Did he…did Jeremy hurt you or something?”
Because if he did, I don’t care if he’s six feet taller than I am, I’ll find a way to crush him.
“No. Um, no. He didn’t hurt me.” Her laugh drifts under the stall door. “I probably hurt him.”
I lean against the door, wanting to be closer, even though I hear her just fine. “How?”
“He tried to kiss me and I bit his lip.”
A huge grin stretches over my face. It’s a relief that she isn’t hurt, but also a relief that she didn’t want to kiss him. Or maybe she did? I don’t understand.
“Why’d you bite him?”
After a moment, the handicapped stall door opens. Kimba doesn’t come out, but stays in place. She doesn’t look hurt, or like her dress is ripped or any of the awful things I imagined. I hesitate, then step inside and lock the stall door behind me.
“You sure you’re okay?” I ask. “When Jeremy came back by himself, I thought—”
“Told you I’m fine.” She leans against the wall and looks down at the floor, shrugging. “I just realized I didn’t want to kiss him.”
I press my lips together to fight the smile that wants to break out all over my body. “Oh. Okay.”
“Did you kiss Hannah?” she asks, her voice soft, her eyes still fixed on her shoes.
“Hannah? No. I didn’t want to.”
“You didn’t? I thought…never mind.”
“I don’t know why her brother thinks I like her. And I don’t know why she would think I did. I’ve never said anything to…never.”
Her head still dips so I can’t see all of her face, but a smile curls the corners of her mouth. “Have you ever kissed anyone, Ez?”
I don’t speak, not sure how to tell her the truth without sounding like a total dweeb. There was a time when I told her everything, but things have been changing so much lately. The way we hang out, the things she tells Mona but doesn’t tell me, the way I feel around her.
“No.” My answer is so hushed I barely hear it leave my lips. “But I…”
“But what?” She takes a few steps toward me. “It’s okay that you haven’t kissed anybody yet. I haven’t either.”
“Maybe we could…” I clear my throat. “Maybe we should kiss each other.”
When she doesn’t respond right away, I rush on. “Just to get it over with, I mean. It’s not a big deal. We don’t have to—�
�
“Okay.”
I look up sharply, connecting our stares in the quiet. “Okay.”
In a few steps, I erase the small space left between us, standing close enough to smell her minty gum.
“Can I do something gross?” she asks, a smile pinching her eyes at the corners.
“With your tongue?” I ask half-apprehensively, half-jokingly.
“Ez.” She laughs. “No. I mean…not yet.”
She reaches into her mouth, pulls out a blob of gum and sticks it to the wall right under a poem scribbled in red ink that begins “Roses are dead.”
“You r-r-ready?” she asks, her eyes are steady like she’s in command, but I know what Kimba’s actual confidence looks like, and she’s as nervous as I am, which somehow makes me feel calm. I reach for one of her hands and link our fingers and I stroke my thumb along hers.
“Can I do something weird?” I whisper.
“With your tongue?” she whispers back, her smile as bright as the fluorescent lights out in the hall.
I chuckle and shake my head. “Not yet.”
With my free hand, I reach up and swipe my thumb across her bottom lip, smearing her red lip gloss.
“What are you doing?” she asks, her mouth moving under my finger.
“Taking off this lipstick stuff.”
“Why?” She’s turned the volume of her voice down to secret.
“Because I like your lips the way they always are.”
Her smile dwindles into a straight line, and the laughter drains from her eyes. I trace her top lip with my index finger, swiping until the red tint of gloss is mostly gone. Even after there’s barely color left, I touch her mouth unnecessarily, so soft and pillowy. I should feel self-conscious or nervous or weird. It’s my first kiss, after all, but I don’t. It feels, instead, like I’m walking up to a moment that’s been waiting on me all my life. Since we were both born on the same day in different cities. Since Mrs. Allen plopped Kimba into the tub with me before we could even talk.
I lean forward and press my mouth to hers, tentative in case she pulls away. Holding my breath because even the effort of breathing might detract from this place between our lips that deserves all my concentration. We’re still for a second or two, my lips resting against hers, our eyes open.
“Aren’t we supposed to close our eyes?” she whispers, the words cool across my lips.
“Yeah. On the count of three, we’ll close.”
She nods.
“One,” I say, not looking away from her. “Two. Three.”
Her lashes, dark and long with mascara, fall, but I cheat because I don’t want to miss any of it.
Eyes still closed, she says, “Kayla said we’re supposed to use our tongues.”
I press my mouth to hers and slide my tongue across her bottom lip. Her eyes pop open.
“Did I do it wrong?” I ask quickly.
“I don’t know, but I liked it.”
She liked it.
I gently squeeze her fingers and lean in again, pressing our lips together. I don’t know if she means to do it, or if it’s a mistake, but her mouth opens and my tongue slips inside. Hesitantly, our tongues touch, stroke, and something sweet and sharp cuts down the center of my body. I wonder if she feels it, too. We both go still, looking into each other’s eyes for a few seconds.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, but I take her bottom lip between mine, and then she takes mine between hers, and I can taste her. Taste the red punch from the dance, taste her spearmint gum, taste her trust, which is the sweetest thing. And then I forget to think about it, forget to worry if I’m doing it right, or if I’ve messed up. Our heads bob and our mouths meld and we suck each other’s tongues, and it’s not weird at all. It’s sloppy and wet, but in the best way. A new-to-me hunger rumbles inside, not for food, but for her. Every time I taste her, suck her lips, lick inside her mouth, the hunger grows. I reach up and cup her face, needing to be deeper and wanting the whole world outside this bathroom to go away. Wanting to make our own little planet in the last stall of the girls’ bathroom and never stop kissing Kimba ever.
Mariah Carey’s “Vision of Love” floats in muted tones to our stall. Beyond these walls, back in the gym, they’re at the dance, but in this corner on our last night of middle school, we have our own theme. Our own rainbows and lights and music and magic. We hold each other’s breath and take each other’s hands, crossing our hearts and guarding our innocence. We are on the cusp of next, but tonight, we have right now, and it’s better than everything I’ve ever had and must be as good as anything to come.
“Ez,” Kimba gasps into my mouth. “I need to breathe.”
I don’t. I’d hold my breath all night if it meant I could keep kissing her, but I pull back so she can. We’re both panting, our eyes locked, our fingers entwined, my hand resting at the smooth curve of her neck.
It was perfect. A snow-globe moment where everything was shaken and all my particles are still drifting to the ground, resettling into a completely new person.
“Was that okay?” I ask.
Kimba’s pretty lips, soft and fuller from our kisses, pull into a wide smile. “Let’s do it again.”
This is the best night of my life.
Chapter Seven
Kimba
“Y’all mighty quiet back there,” Kayla says from the front seat, catching my eyes in the rearview mirror. “Everything go okay tonight?”
“Oh, yeah. So much fun.”
“For sure. It was great.”
The replies rush out of us, piling on top of each other. Ezra and I watch each other from the corners of our eyes, secret smiles etched onto kiss-puffy lips. Mona’s mother picked her up and took her home. Kayla came at ten o’clock on the dot to get us. We’re in the back, separated by a decent distance, but our fingers twine on the seat between us.
“So what happened with Jeremy?” Kayla asks, her tone tilting up in that irritating way, like she’s patting my head.
Ezra’s smile wobbles. I squeeze his fingers until he looks at me. I roll my eyes and smile, waiting for a real grin to come back to his face.
“Did you do it like I told you?” Kayla asks.
“I didn’t kiss Jeremy.” I stretch my eyes at her in the mirror. “Just drop it, Zee.”
“All right,” she says, carefully maneuvering her pride and joy into our driveway. “You’re starting high school in a few months. What are you waiting for?”
The perfect moment. The perfect person. That’s what I had tonight.
“Hmmm.” Kayla frowns at the garage door lifting to reveal my parents’ Mercedes. “Mama and Daddy are already home.”
The steel and chrome gleams in the overhead light of the garage. Kayla turns, propping one arm on the passenger seat and splitting a look between Ezra and me. “Out. The both of you. Tell them I’ll be home by midnight.”
“Where you going?” I ask, folding my arms across my chest and settling back like I’m not leaving until she talks.
“Nunya,” she says, a wicked grin spreading her lips.
“Tommy.” Exasperation makes me suck my teeth. “I thought you were done with him. You guys break up once a week.”
“I decide when I’m done,” she says. “Now get outta my ride.”
Ezra climbs out immediately. I open my door and get out, but lean into the open window of the passenger side. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“I’m not going to a convent, so I’m sure there will be plenty of things you wouldn’t do.”
“Whatever, Zee.” I tap the roof of the car and watch her taillights when she pulls out and drives off.
Ezra stands in my driveway. He glances up the street and huffs a breath. Mrs. Washington stands on her porch watering the row of plants marching down her steps. Really? At this time of night? She uses those plants as an excuse to get the 411 when something’s going down in the neighborhood.
Ezra takes my hand and leads me into the garage. He doesn’t lower
the door and doesn’t let my hand go.
“Tonight…was…” He shakes his head and frowns.
Frowns? I thought it was perfect. I want to kiss him again right now. Did he not feel the same?
“Did I…did I do something wrong?” I ask. “Was it—”
“No.” Ezra links our fingers and holds my gaze. “The opposite. It was exactly right. The best first kiss ever.”
Relieved breath whooshes from my chest, and our smiles meet in the middle, between us.
“I was just thinking,” he says. “You’re my best friend.” He looks up expectantly, leaving me space to respond.
“Yeah. Same. You’re mine, too. My best friend, I mean. You know that.”
“I was thinking about Tommy and Kayla. And all the people who break up and get back together and break up again. I don’t want us to be like that.”
“Are we…are we together? I know we kissed, but I wasn’t sure if—”
“I like you, Tru,” he says softly, his eyes lowered to the garage floor. “If you don’t feel the same way then—”
“I do.” I step closer and grab his other hand. “That’s how I feel.”
His smile comes on slowly, pinching at the corners like he’s trying to contain it. “Okay. Good.”
He sobers and glances up and pulls our hands between our chests. “I don’t ever want something stupid to ruin our friendship. People break up all the time, and it freaks me out that something might…change, and then we wouldn’t be friends.”
“Yeah. I get that.” I bite my lip and nod.
“So, pact.”
“Pact?” I laugh. “Like the pacts we made when we were kids? Like we wouldn’t ever summon the Candy Man? Or when we were seven, that I wouldn’t tell anyone where you buried that candy pop ring?”
“You take that information to the grave, Kimba Allen,” he says with false gravity. “You crossed your heart and everything.”
“I’ll never tell.” My chuckle settles into a smile. “So what’s this pact?”
His eyes trace my face, rest on my lips and send flutters through my belly. He holds his pinky finger out to me.