Page 6 of Fade into You

“No! I only smoked a couple of times—with Dade and his weird friend. It wasn’t a big deal.”

“Um, o-kay. If you say so.”

“All right, enough about me. This writer dude. Tell me. Tell me everything.” She leans forward again, practically falling off the edge of the couch, and there’s something about her eagerness that makes me want to keep it all close to me. Warm and safe and secret.

But she’s my best friend; how can I not tell her everything?

“What’s his name, anyway?” she asks, but the questions keep tumbling out. “What happened? Did you do it? Or, okay, what did you do together exactly? I want details. Come on, Bird. Your letter was so cryptic.”

“I don’t know… I—”

“You don’t know his name?” she scoffs, tilting her head.

“It’s S-Silas,” I manage, my stupid old stutter surfacing, and it occurs to me this didn’t happen to me all summer long. “Silas,” I repeat, with too much effort.

No. This is not how I want to tell her about Silas, or Kat, or the entire lifetime’s worth of emotions I felt this summer.

“Sexy name,” she interjects while I take a breath. She knows I need the pause. She remembers from elementary school days, after my dad was gone and it was so bad I could barely get twowords out and how it took me three years of speech therapy to get it under control. “Aaand?” she asks, more gently.

“And I’m still trying to figure out what happened or how to describe it. It’s w-w-weird.” Pause. Deep breath. “This whole summer was weird. I feel like I was in an alternate reality and I was this totally different version of myself, but also more like myself than I’ve ever been.”

“And you’restillbeing cryptic!” A slow grin turns her mouth into a curved line. “So, does that mean you did or didn’t?”

“I—I—we—did. Yes,” I admit. “We did, but…”

But before I can explain, she’s keeled over her lap, howling, “Oh. My. God. I cannot believe it! You really did, are you serious? I can’t believe you’d be the first of all of us.”

“What? Wait,why?”

“No, it’s not a bad thing. It’s just that you don’t let people in very easily—no pun intended.” She reaches forward and grips my arm, her bony fingers digging into my flesh so hard it hurts. “I’m impressed. I’m in shock. But it really shouldn’t be a surprise after that poem you sent. Aboutthe kiss. That kiss—” She fans herself and exhales.

I bite my lip to keep from smiling because… that kiss.

“You’re blushing!” she shouts. “You have to tell meeverything.”

I shake my head, place my hands over my cheeks. “That k-kiss, though. It wasn’t him. Silas. It was…”It was Kat. It was a girl.I could say it right now. But I don’t want this to change anything, and it will.It has.“It was,” I begin again, “someone else.”

“What?”she shrieks. “Who.Are.You?”

“Stop, stop. Really, I’m embarrassed.”

“If it wasn’t him, who?”

“Just another student at the workshop. It—it just happened. It wasjust… a great kiss,” I lie—it was so much more than that. “But can we stop talking about this? I’m still figuring out how I feel about everything and I don’t wanna get all carried away and, like, confused.”

“What are you talking about? What’s confusing? Two guys want you.Poor thing.”

“They don’twantme, first of all. The kiss. It didn’t go anywhere. It was just a thing that happened. And second, I’m probably never going to see either of them ever again, so… yeah, it’s sort of sad.” But what I really mean isI’m sad.

She nods and looks down for a moment, and when she looks back up at me, I feel like it’s the first time I’ve caught a glimpse of her old self all morning. “Sorry. I’m sorry. Yeah, that is sad.” She pauses, then asks, more earnestly, “Do you love him, Silas? I mean, do you love either of them?”

“No. I don’t think so. I mean, I’d probably know if I did, right? But I liked them.” That much I can be sure of, at least. I liked them both. And they liked me, too. I’ve never had that before. And there’s part of me that’s scared maybe I didn’t try hard enough with either of them. A deeper part of me scared that maybe Ican’tlove. I shake my head and try to smile, pushing those thoughts away. “What about you? Do youloveDade?”

“Oh yeah, definitely. Yes. He’s so cute and funny and he will do anything for me. Seriously, anything. I can’t wait for you to meet him. Oh!” She stops abruptly and claps her hands together.“I know! Oh, I know, I know, I know. I’ll invite him to the poetry reading thing tomorrow night. It’ll be perfect.”

“I don’t know, Kayla. I’m not really—”

“No, don’t say that. You’ll see. It’ll be perfect, okay?” she says, holding my hands too tightly. “It’s perfect. I promise.”