If We Kiss Read Online Free PDF Page B

locker. “I just, if anything, I’m not sure why you would like him. Kevin Lazarus?” I really liked saying his name. How sick is that?
    “You’re right,” Tess said. Then she banged her head against a locker. “I don’t know why either. But . . .”
    “But you like him.”
    Tess nodded.
    I nodded back, in an understanding way. Of course, unfortunately, I did understand.
    “I’m an idiot,” she said. “I know. So—but, do you think you could try to find out, from Kevin, if he . . .”
    “I’ll ask him before bio,” I said, not needing any more information or inspiration for acrobatic routines.
    “Okay,” she said, still scanning my face for the truth. “Thanks.”
    I waited in the same spot he had been in the day he touched my hair and hurled me deep into the insanity of love. Why I had ever thought love might be a desirable thing to fall into, I could not begin to remember. Is anything a good thing to fall into?
    “Kevin.” It felt romantic in my mouth.
    He looked at me with those unbelievably blue eyes.
    I took a breath, thinking, she is my best friend .
    Kevin came closer, close to me like the day he twirled my hair. He could have touched that strand of hair again if he wanted to. He apparently didn’t want to. I twirled it myself, not hinting but, well, okay, hinting.
    He looked right into my eyes. I looked back but only for a second, then looked down at my feet. What do you know? There they were, right at the bottoms of my ankles, same as last time. Still wearing one pink sock, one green.
    I glanced up again, realizing he was probably getting impatient with me. I had called him over, after all.
    He didn’t look impatient. He looked calm and intense at the same time, which is the thing about him. How does a person look calm and intense at the same time? He is the only one I’ve ever seen do that.
    “Um,” I said.
    He kept waiting.
    “Do you, um, are you interested in . . .”
    “In . . . ?” he prompted.
    “Newspaper?”
    “Newspaper?” he asked, just as I was thinking, Huh? Newspaper? Did I just say “newspaper”?
    “Newspaper,” I said, twirling my hair so hard it was possibly yanking bits of my brain too far to the left. “Are you, you know, going to be on, um, the newspaper? Staff? Or whatever?”
    “I already am,” he said. I already knew that, of course. What didn’t I know about him? Please, I have his schedule memorized, I am so pathetic. “Why? Are you interested?”
    “Yeah,” I blurted. Sure. I was as interested in newspaper as I was in anything else lately that wasn’t Kevin—meaning, NOT. “I am. Interested. In, in newspaper, I mean. Of course. Reporting!” I startled myself with the volume and enthusiasm of that last word.
    “You should come, then,” Kevin said, softly. “It’s today after school. You’re a good writer. You’d like it, I bet.”
    A good writer, he said. He had noticed me, in a positive way. I bobbled my books again but managed not to pitch them at Kevin’s teeth. Any other person would be like, okay? Can we go into class before the bell rings? Or are you just going to stand there listing slightly to port all day? But Kevin just stood there in the doorway like he had no place else to go.
    A good writer. What did that mean? Could that possibly really mean I am in love with you, Charlie, and all I do is think about you all day long?
    Maybe. Unlikely, but maybe.
    I lifted my eyes only, keeping my head down, and met his eyes. His head was bent, too, but he was looking at me. I didn’t want to wreck the moment, but I did this thing, then, because I could feel myself smiling and the intensity of our little staring match was making me turn to wobbles: I leaned slightly closer to him.
    I thought he would probably back away but he didn’t. He tilted slightly closer to me, and I saw a little smile starting on his lips, too.
    “Thanks,” I whispered. I less-than-whispered. Almost no sound came out but this is how close we were standing: