He’s still tentative with me, like I’m fragile. But I’m not delicate and I never was. He just needs my permission every step of the way as we venture down this new path. So I cover his hand with mine, and slide his fingers inside my panties, between my legs. That’s all he needs – the complete confirmation that I’m not just okay with this, but that I must have it.
He gives me what I need.
Him. His hands. His touch. His devotion to me, heart, mind and now body.
I suppose I should feel vulnerable or strange backed up against his wall, my hands speared into his hair, my neck arched, my moans echoing across his apartment, as he touches me. But there’s no space in me for anything else but this intensity, this tenderness, this blissful abandon to him. I am floating, I am flying, I am in heaven.
Only better, because I’m here on earth loving every second of being alive.
*
But those stolen evening hours with Noah don’t have the effect I want in the morning. The temporary bliss wears off, and I’m left still hurting. My friends matter too much to me.
The next day after school, I text Lane to ask if he’s home. When he says yes, I call the pizza place, order a half-pepperoni, half-cheese pie. After I pick it up, I march straight to Lane’s nearby building. Because hell if I’m going to let this new friendship face the same fate as old ones.
When he answers the door to his apartment, his eyebrows shoot into his hairline. “Kennedy,” he says, stumbling on my name.
I hold up a hand. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I lied to you. I don’t have an excuse and I’m not going to give you one, except it was natural, and it’s what I’m used to. But that doesn’t make it right or okay that I did it to you.” I place my hands together, imploring him. “And I’m not above begging for forgiveness because your friendship means too much to me. I can’t and I won’t lose it.” I dig my heels in, straightening my spine, standing up tall. “I simply refuse to. I refuse to let you stop being my friend.”
That cracks him up, and he shakes his head. “Refuse, huh? How exactly will this refusal manifest?”
“I’ll camp on your doorstep till you take me back,” I say, feeling the slightest bit lighter now that his lips are curved up in a grin. “I’ll do whatever it takes. Because you mean too much to me. I messed up, and I hope you accept my apology and know that it comes from me just trying to figure out how to be a real friend and tell the truth about myself. Will you forgive me? I brought a peace offering. Or really, a pizza offering,” I say, thrusting the cardboard at him.
He eyes it suspiciously. “Is it yesterday’s?”
I shake my head. “Nope. A whole new one.”
He takes it, drapes an arm over my shoulder and pulls me inside. “I’ll take it. Because I have a confession to make too. I really was hungry yesterday, and I still am now.”
I elbow him playfully as we walk into his apartment. It’s empty. His mom must still be at work. “You lied too,” I tease.
He shrugs and flashes me his trademark grin as we park ourselves at his kitchen table. He folds up a slice and dives in. I grab one for myself.
In between bites, we talk. He asks me to tell him about Noah and how we got back together. I share it all—my mom, Amanda’s dad, Jay and the lawsuit, and the Botanic Garden. I tell him all these things, and when it’s all on the table, when we’re holding slices of cheese pizza up to our mouths and taking bites, we have moved on past what he said yesterday, beyond my own false words. We are back to where we were a few days ago. We are friends, and he hasn’t left. I started over and I told him the truth, and he’s still here, and we’re still here.
He hasn’t abandoned me.
This is better than scoring a goal in lacrosse. This is better than a kiss. This is the best.
When we finish and it’s time for me to go, he puts his hands on my shoulders and looks me square in the eyes.
“K,” he says, then laughs. “Can I still call you that?”
“Of course.”
“I have a million thoughts and feelings and opinions, and I’ll admit too that I’m annoyed that that guy, because I can’t say his name, and I still can’t believe his name is Noah, and it’s not fair he gets to have like the ultimate good guy name, has got you again, but you need to tell your parents what’s going on. Please, please, please do that.”
I shake my head quickly. Adamantly. “I can’t tell my mom.”
“You have two parents. Tell your dad,” he says gently.
My skin prickles with worry. “He would freak.”
“Let him.”
“I mean really freak. Like freak out and forbid me from seeing him.”
Lane looks at his phone, pretending to check a calendar on it. “If memory serves, you’re nearly eighteen and off to college in three months. Tell him.”
I nod.
“Is that a yes?”
“It’s not a no.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Kennedy
That night, the next day, and into the next night as I ride the subway downtown to my dad’s house, I weigh the idea of coming clean about Noah. I consider it, turn it over, mull it, all the while trying to figure out who left the letter at my mom’s house the other morning. I’m not any closer to knowing, nor am I any closer to a yes when I walk up the five flights of stairs to my dad’s house in the Village and unlock the door.