Page 17 of Be My Compass

I get up from the couch. Grab my phone. “I’ll order the orange chicken.”

“You’re just going to let that go?”

“I thought you were hungry?”

She exhales. Digs her fingers into her skirt. “I don’t want predictable.”

“Pasta then.”

She tilts her head. Studies me.

I wait for her to explode. To start that ‘your parents suck’ tangent. It always makes her feel better, so I let her get it out even if I’d prefer not to hear it.

Kaelyn opens her mouth and then snaps it shut. Turning on her heels, she marches to her bedroom. I order the food and load the movie while she’s gone.

When she comes back, she’s wearing a simple cotton T-shirt and sleeping shorts. She takes her seat at the end of the couch and slaps a pillow over her legs. Her dark shoulders are near her ears and her jaw is still tense.

I sigh. Grab the remote. Start the movie.

Suddenly, Kaelyn lunges forward and snatches the remote. She pauses the movie and turns to me. “What if we made our own move? One your mom won’t see coming.”

“What are you talking about?”

She grabs my hands and blurts, “Why don’t you date me?”

Five

Kaelyn

He blinks slowly, his eyes double their usual size and his breath unsteady.

The truth screams from his expression:

Worst idea you’ve ever had.

Maybe he’s got a point.

Maybe I’m crazy with unrequited love.

I’ve been crushing on Kastle since forever. Since the very first moment I laid eyes on him. I was sitting on the back step of our private school, struggling to breathe through a panic attack and wondering if I should end it all so I never had to struggle to breathe again.

He was peace in the middle of my chaos.

A tan-skinned hero with half-moon eyes, black hair and a stoic frown.

I clung to him. He tolerated me. We became friends. My feelings shifted from you’re what I need to survive to you’re all I want for the rest of my life. Can I please have your heart? All the broken pieces? Especially the broken pieces.

Then he gave them to me.

And I realized that I had seen too much.

That we were too close.

We knew everything about each other. All the raw, unvarnished skeletons. The us we didn’t show to the people we wanted to impress, to kiss, to sleep with.

We became one in mind. In emotions. In spirit.

It was all on the table.

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