Page 100 of Be Your Anything
Now, Paige can see clearly. She goes back and forth between contacts and a pair of oversized frames in wild colors, opting for the former more often than the latter.
But I’ll never forget that day, how confusing it was for me. It was shocking that someone else could be sitting right next to me, seeing the same things as me, and yetnotrecognizing what was truly going on, not see that the details were fuzzy and blurred.
That’s how I feel now as I take in this declaration from Paige that Lennon’s been interested in me for a decade—in lovewith me since we were kids.
It’s a new pair of glasses. It’s going from standard to 4K.
Like I’m seeing things with a new clarity for the first time.
My mind starts to dig through my memories, plucking out the big ones first—like the kiss at Tinsley’s and Lennon’s practical disappearance from events for weeks after I got back together with Remmy—and then sifting through the others with a fine-tooth comb.
It makes me sick to my stomach.
There were so many hints and clues, times when I should have seen her expression or understood her reaction, when I should have cared enough to notice something was different or off or wrong.
For the first time, I feel like I’m seeing the things I was missing. The little pieces of the picture that made my vision blurry are now making everything clear.
When I find Lennon again, she’s seated on the steps, facing the pool.
“How come you’re out here?” I ask, taking a seat a foot or two away, angling my body so I’m leaning against the post. “Everyone’s inside making fun of Otto.”
I don’t tell her I’m the one who found the video of him as a kid screaming his head off at his eighth birthday—a party I remember vividly—because he was afraid of balloons. He’s still deathly afraid of them, and I have a secret plan to hire a balloon animal artist for his seventeenth birthday.
Lennon lifts a shoulder. “I’m just in the mood for something a little quieter,” she replies. “I always have fun with everyone, but sometimes I just need a break.”
Taking a sip of my drink, wincing at Tinsley’s choice in whiskey, I contemplate that concept: the idea of needing time alone, away from noise and friends. It doesn’t make sense to me at all. I am pretty much always at my happiest when I’m around a group of people. Friends, strangers—it doesn’t matter. I just like to entertain.
“You don’t have to sit out here with me,” she says, and I watch her shift her shoulders back slightly, that Lennon Day confidence shifting into place like a set of armor. “I’ll be in soon.”
“Ah, I don’t mind. Besides, I like spending time with you.”
I see her blush. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Lennon blush before, and something about it makes me want to see it again.
“So, uh…you said you’d never done anything like that before. In the closet.”
I watch her eyes widen slightly, skitter away, and that flush of pink blooms over her cheeks and down her neck.
“Was I your first kiss?”
She laughs, a nervous chuckle that makes me think maybe I was. My chest starts to puff up with pride at the idea.
“Of course not,” she replies, and I deflate a little bit. “I’ve kissed three other boys, thank you.”
I grin at her. “Three, huh? Anyone I know?”
She crosses her arms. “A lady never kisses and tells.”
Barking out a laugh, I slap my knee. “That’s the biggest load of bullshit ever, Len. You were gonna jerk me off in that closet, so the wholeladies don’t kiss and tellshit you’ve learned from Mama Roth doesn’t really apply tonight, alright?”
I see her trying to hide her smile, her jaw tensing and releasing and her eyes narrowing at me even though they sparkle.
“You weren’t my first kiss,” she says, “but youwerethe best.”
Thatmakes me feel like I’ve grown three sizes, and how I feel must show on my face because Lennon rolls her eyes at me.
“You don’t have to look like such a…man when I say that.”
“A man?” I reply, giving her a wink. “And how does a man look?”
