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Chapter 3

Kitty

My outer left thigh was plastered to Guy’s in the backseat. And I do mean plastered. Shellacked. Completely stuck. We’d been on the road without stopping for four hours, with about as many ahead of us. It was unbelievably sweaty in the back of the rented van. No matter how hard my parents blasted the A/C in the front, it wasn’t making it to the way-back where Guy and I were. I wondered how much of the sweat was his and how much was mine. As some sort of coping mechanism, Guy had been asleep for about an hour, his head leaned out and his mouth hanging open.

My friend Annie sat in the row in front of me, insisting on sitting next to Frank. It was no secret that she had a crush on him and that he couldn’t care less. When she begged to sit next to him instead of me, I knew it would irritate him, so I let her.

Annie and I were going into sophomore year, while Guy and Frank were rising seniors. Like me, Guy had a summer birthday. That summer, he was turning seventeen and I fifteen. Eva had no problem letting Guy join us for our annual Outer Banks trip. It gave her some rare single mom solo time.

I was still pretending I didn’t like Guy as anything more than a friend. Sometimes I was even mean to him. In reality, I was still obsessed with him. He was the last thing I thought about before I went to sleep and the first thing when I woke up. I thought about the way he talked. How his “th” sounds always came out like a “d” or a “t”: dat, dere, tink. How he had trouble making nouns plural: “I have M&M for you, Kit-ty.” I thought about him playing street hockey with Frank with sunlight in his dark waves. I thought about that one time I saw him mowing our neighbor’s lawn without a shirt.

I thought about how he came to all of my school plays and gave a standing ovation at the end every single time. How he’d run lines with me to help me memorize. How he helped me with math, and listened to my writing ideas. How his goofy, honking laugh rang out when I really got him going: “A-ha! A-ha! A-ha!” I thought about watching him play hockey at the rink, though those thoughts sometimes came with a more painful reminder of what else had gone down under that roof. Still, he skated circles around everyone else. He was so natural in his body, it was almost poetic.

At school, sometimes he’d ruffle my hair in the hallway, or stop by my locker to tell me about a funny video he saw before sending me the link. I always thought that was cute, like he had to tell me about it so he’d make sure I opened it when he sent it. Guy’s personal teaser. We always rode to and from school together. I felt like hot stuff every time we walked out of school side by side.

As time went on, I painted our closet kiss with rose-colored glasses. I replayed in excruciating detail everything that happened before we were interrupted. He basically admitted he had feelings for me. And he kissed me, dammit, not the other way around.

I fantasized that he’d make it all up to me with some You Belong With Me Taylor Swift moment. Writing each other messages between our windows when in reality our windows didn’t line up like that. Then maybe one day, he’d take me to a school dance.

But he took some other girl to homecoming, and I faked sick when promposals were going around in the spring. I didn’t want to deal with catching Guy asking someone else to prom. In general, freshmen couldn’t go to prom anyway, but they made an exception if you were in a relationship.

Guy and I weren’t in a relationship, though. I sometimes got viciously reminded of it. He’d get Snaps when we were in the same room. If he knew I could see his screen, he clicked it off immediately, but I’d catch him taking a peek later with a little smirk on his face. I had to assume he was talking to girls. My stomach dropped every time I saw him laugh at a message. I wanted the exclusive rights to make him laugh.

But on this beach vacation with my family, Mom mandated that we all only got one hour with our phones each day. Otherwise, they had to be in a basket in the kitchen.

While we were on the beach, Annie read her YA novels and I made notes for my screenwriting projects (all self-assigned). I was convinced I’d have a full screenplay by the end of the summer. Guy and Frank played frisbee and beach volleyball, and occasionally, us girls joined in. Annie was on the volleyball team, so she was quite good.

Days were long and filled with salty, sandy fun. I had that sundrunk, heavy feeling at the end of every day, when we settled into long games of Phase 10 and Apples to Apples. Halfway through the week, though, there was what I internally refer to as The Incident.

We were all out playing in the water, and Guy and Annie got a little too cozy for my liking. I knew Annie liked Frank. It was a fact I knew well, as she often recounted to me how much of a hottie my own flesh and blood was. She’d never shown even a passing interest in Guy, but I knew just how easy it was to fall for him. I certainly had.

Did I mention that Annie was a bit of a knock-out? She had full C cups to my can-fill-out-a-B-cup-on-my-period boobs. While I was that kind of gangly teenaged thin, she resembled an Olympic athlete. And, as fifteen-year-olds often are, she was in a cute little bikini. I was, too, but the effect was entirely different. I know that when we compare ourselves, the patriarchy wins, but I’m only human. The facts were the facts. Annie was a smokeshow.

The Incident started with innocent splashing between Guy and Annie. Then Guy wrapped his arms around Annie and threw her. Then he picked her up like a freaking bride and sent her squealing into the surf, but not before using his cut, hockey-puck-shooting arms to lift her Olympic athlete stomach to his mouth for one of those raspberry tickles you do on little kids.

Guy put his mouth on Annie’s stomach, in front of me. In front of my whole family. Frank looked the other way, and I focused on bodysurfing away from the scene so no one could see my face.

I was livid. I was upset with Annie, though in fairness, I’d never admitted to her that I still liked Guy. She thought I was forever mad at him from the closet kiss. But I was also upset with Guy. I hadn’t given him permission to go touching my friend. And he was the one spilling his feelings in that closet, not me.

But those were just the lies I told myself. I was most upset because I wished it was me.

I busied myself with reading my book on the shore, claiming I was tired of being wet. Guy and Frank took up a game of catch on the beach. Annie knew I was pissed.

“You good?” She sounded genuinely concerned rather than confrontational.

“I think I’m just about to get my period,” I lied. Annie knew I had tidal wave-aggressive periods and all the baggage that comes with them.

“Ugh. The worst,” she said sympathetically. Then, like the really good friend she was, she added, “I’ve got some M&Ms in my suitcase.”

“Hey, Kitty Cat!” Guy called as he came back over to our towel and umbrella home base. Little rivulets of water ran down his chest from his hair, making me both swoony and mopey. How dare he be attractive after what he did? “Wanna go look for seashells?”

I was lying on my stomach reading a book. Trying to show that selfish prick what he was missing, I squished whatever boob meat I had together as I looked up to respond. “No thanks. I’m kinda tired.”

Guy puffed out his bottom lip. “I saw some kid with a really big one, though. You won’t help me?” He cocked his head to the side. Why was he trying to be so playful with me?

“His parents probably bought it at a store and planted it,” I said dismissively. “Take Frank.”

Then Guy was shuffling next to me, moving the umbrella so I was in the shade.

“What are you doing?” I grumped at him.

“You’re turning red. You’ll burn when you nap.” He put my bookmark in my book and closed it for me. “You’ll look for shells with me tomorrow, yeah? Please?”

His brown eyes watched me with a puppyish optimism, like he’d laid a toy in front of me and was wagging his tail for me to throw it. I was still mad at him, but as usual, his cuteness won out.

“Fine,” I huffed.

When Annie and I had showered and were getting ready for dinner, she sat on the edge of her twin bed, combing her wet hair. She eyed me nervously.

“You like Guy.” My throat went dry.

“What are you talking about? He’s like a brother to me,” I managed.

“Kitty.” Annie’s freckles really stood out from her sun-stained face. “You can be real with me.”

I couldn’t say anything. I just nodded. My secret was out.

“Look, I got carried away with him today when I knew better. You’re more important than him. I don’t even really like him,” Annie admitted, eyes trained on her cuticles. “But you do. You should be out there playing with him, too.”

“I don’t know if you recall, but we’ve kissed before and he famously shoved me off of him. He doesn’t want me,” I said miserably.

Annie rolled her eyes. “That was all because of Frank. And because your families are intertwined and he doesn’t want to mess that up.”

“You think?” I asked.

“Yes, I’m sure.”

I groaned and fell back on my bed, wet hair sticking to my neck and shoulders. “I need to find someone else to like. Why does he have to be so, I don’t know, perfect?”

“I’m sorry, Kitty. Life sucks sometimes.”

“It really does.”