Kiss Me Again Read Online Free PDF Page A

this moment into existence, and now I didn’t want to blow this chance. The blob of sandwich in my mouth began to swell. If Tess asked me a question or even just said hello, I was going to have to either spit out the blob or swallow it whole, like a boa constrictor with an ill-advisedly large rodent.
    I was starting to drool.
    Finally, Tess leaned back, her elbows on the step behind us. I dropped the unbitten part of my sandwich onto the brown bag in my lap, and then, with my body blocking her view, I gagged the continent-size hunk of soggy sandwich out of my mouth into my napkin. Retching only slightly, I crumpled it up into a ball and shoved it, along with the rest of the sandwich, into the brown bag, which I jammed between my feet.
    I took a deep breath and pretended to be engrossed in watching the basketball game, hoping for the slim chance Tess hadn’t noticed the whole near-puking show.
    After an awkward silence, she said, “Well, that was pretty.”
    I smiled without turning my head. “There goes my future as a boa constrictor.”
    “Doesn’t pay well anyway,” she said. “In this economy.”
    I didn’t say, Oh, Tess , are you my friend again? or, I miss you! or, If you forgive me for kissing Kevin and not telling you until I announced it to everybody, I will be the best friend ever from now on, I promise.
    Or even, You weren’t always so nice to me, either, you know.
    We just sat there, leaning back on our elbows, side by side. When the bell rang, we walked into school together. I had completely forgotten about waiting for Jen, and also about George, Kevin, my missing homework, and my hunger pangs. At my locker, Tess held out her pack of gum to me, and I took a piece just like nothing.
    My stomach grumbled with hunger all the rest of the afternoon, or maybe from finally unclenching.

seven
    I WAS ON my way through the lobby when George caught me by the shoulders and yanked me back toward him. “You’re in my clutches now!” he said, and kissed my hair.
    He is such a nice guy. “Hi, George,” I said.
    “You okay?”
    “Yup.”
    We chatted for a minute about whether the math homework was boring busywork or actually just hard. Then he had to run to band. I watched him go, knowing he would turn and smile at me before he rounded the corner. I waved. Then I turned around and walked home through the woods, looking at the new buds dotting the no-longer-completely-skeletal tree branches. Spring always comes, I was thinking, no matter how frigging unlikely it looks as the snow melts.
    I think about the weather when I don’t want to think about other stuff, such as whether it is possible to be falling in love with two different guys.
    Nobody was home, thankfully, when I got there, so I did my homework (the part I could decipher from my planner) in peace while eating pretty much everything in the fridge, and then went up to my room. I signed onto Facebook. Tess still hadn’t re-friended me. I posted on a bunch of people’s walls looking for someone who knew what we had to do for science, and then, since nobody had answered—just one superquiet kid I have never actually spoken to “liked” the fact that I had no clue what the homework was—I signed out.
    How does a person figure out which boy she likes if she doesn’t have a best friend?
    No texting Tess. Be cool. Wait , I told myself.
    Having nobody to text, I lay down on my bed, my cell phone still and cold as a dead turtle on my stomach as I drifted toward sleep.
    I woke up completely discombobulated in the dark. I checked my phone. A message! But not from Tess. A number I didn’t recognize, asking me to come in on Wednesday afternoon.
    Where?
    I could hear people downstairs and wondered when, if ever, I would stop being surprised that Kevin Lazarus and his family were living in my house.
    “Charlie!” my mother yelled up the stairs. “We’re waiting for you! Come on down for dinner!”
    “Yeah,” I answered. “Right. Okay.” So I hadn’t slept