Page 57 of Broken Things

Show me. Show me.

That was more than just messing with me. Or so I thought.

I kissed her.

And for a single, time-stopping moment, her tongue slid into my mouth, warm and needy, like something alive and desperately searching. But almost as quickly, she jerked backward with a sharp quick gasp that to me sounded like glass breaking.

Her smile then was just like a blade. I ran straight up against it; I felt everything it cut apart.

She smiled like someone dying, to prove she didn’t care.

She smiled likeIwas the one who’d killed her.

And afterward I couldn’t walk down the halls without girls hissing at me and calling medyke, and even Summer began to avoid me, pivoting in a new direction when she saw me coming toward her. I knew she must have told everyone, and all the time the memory of her smile was still embedded in my stomach like shrapnel. I felt its pain in every one of my breaths.

“But you are.” Abby’s still giving me that look I can’t figure out.

“I am what?” We’re close, I realize. So close I can see three freckles fading like old stars on the bridge of her nose. So close I can smell her, a fresh smell, like grass after it rains.

The tongue again. Pink. Electric. “Gay.”

“Guilty,” I say. I pull away, widening the distance between us, realizing I’m thinking about that tongue. Wondering whether she’d feel soft to kiss. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to attack you.”

“That’s all right,” she says quickly. “I mean, I’m gay too. Or—bi. At least, I think I am.”

“What do you mean, you think?” She looks like she feels soft. Cloudlike.

“I’ve never kissed a girl before. Don’t tell Mia,” she adds quickly. Her cheeks flush. “I told her I’d hooked up with a girl at Boston Comic-Con last year because... because, well, I’ve alwayswantedto, and there was this one girl in a Wonder Woman costume, and when I saw her, it was just like...”

“Magic,” I finish for her, and she nods.

She looks so naked—scared, too, like a little kid. Like she’s waiting for me to punish her. And in that moment I wonder if maybe Lovelorn wasn’t so special after all. Maybe everyone has a make-believe place. Make-believe worlds where they play make-believe people.

And without thinking any more about it or wondering whether it’s right or really fucking stupid, I lean in and kiss her.

I was right. She does feel soft. Her lips taste like Coca-Cola. I can feel the heaviness of her breasts against mine, and I lean into her, suddenly all lit up, zing, Christmas lights and candy stores, suddenly want to roll her on top of me and feel the weight of her legs and stomach and skin, the heat of her. But just as quickly, she pulls away with a little “Oh,” bringing a hand to her lips, as though I’ve bit her.

“Why—why did you do that?” she asks me.

“Because I wanted to,” I say.

She stares at me for a half second. Now she’s the one who leans in first. Her tongue is quick and light. She’s not used to doing it. But the way she smells, the way she brings her palm up to touch my face once, as if to make sure I’m real, unhooks something deep in my chest—something that’s been locked up for a long time.

Then Summer hisses back into my head.

What are you doing?she whispers, and then Abby jerks away and I realize Summer has spoken in my voice, through me. I’m the one who said it.

“What are you doing?”

And Abby’s looking at me like I just puked in her mouth, and that’s what I feel like, like I just threw up something dark and old, and it’s too late to take it back, too late to do anything but let it all come up.

“What am I... ?” The way she looks at me, Christ, she looks just like an animal. Like that poor crow we came across in Lovelorn, all those years ago, like she’s just begging me to save her, to make it stop. “You kissed me. I thought we were...”

I stand up, feeling like I’m going to be sick. Seeing that bird again, choking on the feel of feathers, Summer’s voice ringing out across an empty space of snow. It’s Lovelorn. It doesn’t want to let us go.

“I’m sorry,” I say. Because that’s what you do. You drown it, you strangle it, you make the pain stop any way you can. “It was a mistake. I shouldn’t have.” She’s still looking at me, those big blue eyes, fringed with lashes, that face all pinks and softness, allpromise. I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore, or why I’m saying it. Words that speak for you. Ghosts that speak through you. “I’m really sorry.”

I’m out of the house and into the summer heat before she has the chance to respond, before I have to see her react.

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