Page 18 of When in December

I barked a laugh.

“You think that’s funny,” Aaron said.

“Yes, I do.”

“Why?”

“Because.” I shook my head, looking down at myself. I wore my tightest jeans and a turquoise-blue sweater that I thought made my eyes pop, even with the minimal makeup my mom let me use, still telling me I was too young for such things. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“You’re pretty.”

I shook my head immediately. “No, I’m not. You probably don’t even know who I am.”

He certainly wouldn’t be talking to me if he did, I figured, would he?

“Yeah, I do. You’re nice at least. And smart.”

I felt myself blush so hard that I put a hand on my cheek when he complimented me. He reached up to pull my hand away, and I was forced to look straight at him again.

“That’s a whole lot more than anyone can say for themselves. Your friends. Me.”

“I don’t think so.”

He rolled his eyes.

“I mean it,” I told him, cocking my head to check that he was listening to me. “I think most of the time, you’re a pretty great person, Aaron. You’re a good athlete.”

“A whole lot that does me now. Never even liked it.”

“You didn’t? You’re so great.”

He shrugged. “I mean, I like it. I do, but … my dad was the one who said that it was worth anything. ‘Always keep busy,’ he said. He did. So much so that he was always too busy that he didn’t even show up to the games. Didn’t anyway.”

“Well, you’re a good student too,” I said. “You always have an answer and try to start conversations in English with Ms. Markle. Your interpretation on Romeo and Juliet when we read it last semester as a comedic tragedy and not a romance was really thoughtful.”

“You remember that?”

Embarrassingly, yeah, I did. “I’m sorry about your parents too, you know.”

He didn’t say anything for a long time.

“I guess I’ve just been sitting here, thinking that I have no idea what’s going to happen next,” he said. “I mean, I knew that I was never going to make anything of myself worthwhile to them, not like my sister did, going to school to be a lawyer or that kind of shit. It’s just not me. And now … I’m really not going to.”

He sucked on the inside of his cheek, holding back the water that I watched well in his eyes and sit on the edge of his lashes, never falling.

“You can be whoever you want to be, you know. Make it worthwhile, I mean.”

I tried not to blush again, embarrassment swelling in the pit of my stomach the more I talked. Swirling around with the words I tried to make sound right and sophisticated rather than desperate, like I was sure he must’ve thought I was. He’d basically said so before.

Though as he sat in front of me, red-eyed in a way I could tell then was more sad and tired than tipsy, I didn’t see how we were all that different.

I swallowed. “I think you’re pretty great.”

“Worthwhile,” he whispered.

“Yeah, worthwhile like?—”

I almost missed it when he reached out to hold on to my cheek, bringing my face down to his—and he kissed me. Aaron Hayes kissed me in a pile of random teenagers’ coats that crinkled under our hands as we sought balance.

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