Page 12 of What's in a Kiss?

“I’m serious,” he said, his gaze sharpening on mine. “You light up when you act. I think when someone’s lucky enough to love something that much, they should shape their life around it. No matter what.” He rubbed his jaw. “And you deserve a better Romeo than Trevor.”

“Let it go, Glasswell,” I teased, because what he’d said before that Trevor comment felt too surprising to respond to. “It was just a school play.”

“But if I’d gotten that part—”

“Oh!” I laughed. “There it is!”

“What?” he said, glancing around us.

“Your ego! It weirdly vanished for almost four seconds.” I turned to him, feigning interest. “You were saying, Romeo?”

His eyes grazed my lips and I felt a shiver run through me.

“I could have kissed you better, and you know it.”

I should have laughed, but I didn’t. Couldn’t. It was strange. Squared off with Glasswell, gazing up into his eyes, I felt suddenly like I had a fever.

“Here’s what you don’t understand,” I said as heat pulsed up and down my body, centering in my cheeks. “When Romeo and Juliet kiss, it’s symbolic. It’s cathartic. Not a flex.”

“If you’d been my Juliet—”

“YourJuliet?” Like I was something for him to own.

“If I’d been your Romeo. Is that better?”

Not in a million years, I thought... but something inside me was heating up to suggest an opposite idea. Something inside me wondered,what about now?

A current coursed through my body, urging me to get closer to him. I stepped toward Glasswell. He stepped toward me. He put his arms around my waist. The touch of his fingers, warm though my dress, held me still. I found myself... not slapping him. I breathed in his eucalyptus-scented soap as he touched my mother’s yellow tulle. I held my breath, waiting to see what he’d do.

“I know there’s another world, Olivia,” he whispered. “One where we...”

“Where we what?” I stared at him, and something happened in my chest. It was like my body knew what he was talking about. Something in me—something all the way down there—was leaning into him. Into this. Whatever this was.

He put his hand on my face and I wanted to stay there. I wanted to study there and get a job there and make babies there and be buried there. I wanted to not move from Glasswell’s hand for the rest of my life.

But then Glasswell said: “This would be a waste.”

I think I choked. Or maybe died. A heat wave of humiliation coursed over my body. Whatever ensued in the five seconds I spent effectively blacked out... the spell was definitely broken.

And thank God for that.

Who pulled away first, I don’t know.

As soon as we turned from each other, an unspoken vow was sworn: we would both pretend this never happened.

I close the book with a thump and shove it into my glove compartment.

This is why I do not read these diaries. This is why they are purge-only affairs. Why hadn’t I grabbed the podcast’s self-help book on my way out the door? Why hadn’t I left this distorted version of my past to molder on my shelf?

In the school bus parked in front of me, a kid smashes his face against the back window, locking eyes with me. In my rearview I see a woman in pink sunglasses lean out the party bus’s tinted window and take a swig of champagne. No one in this traffic jam has stopped honking.

In my back seat, my rider emerges from dreams, blinking and rubbing his face.

“Hey,” he says. “Are we almost there?”

Chapter Five

I never google Glasswell. But, over the past ten years, that hasn’t stopped his face from sliding into the Explore tab of my IG, or the banner ads of my favorite feminist substacks, or the landing page of theLA Times. Thanks to his hit talk show and devoted fan base, the man is a meme, ubiquitous online. Usually I scroll along—pretending he’s just another celebrity, cultural wallpaper that doesn’t do it for me—but not today.