Page 35 of Best I Never Had

He laughs. “Yeah, but you’d miss the city. I mean, where else can you get cheap, greasy Chinese food at two a.m.?”

I shrug. “True.”

He takes my hand, the same one holding the apple with my teeth marks indented into it, and turns it to the other side before taking a large bite. The juices spritz off and land on my wrist.

“But you’re right,” he agrees through crunchy bites of apple. “This is pretty good.”

His hand is still on mine, covering it as the juices from the apple start to coat my palm. I can see when he swallows, his throat rolling up and down as he looks at me with his light hazel eyes focused and narrowed.

“You still wear those boots,” he says, his voice low and raspy.

“What?” I say, breathing out the question.

“The same ones you used to wear in high school.” He takes a step back, letting go of my hand. We both look down, staring at my worn boots, now stained with a small smearing of dirt from the orchard path. When we both look back up at each other, Hayden smiles. “Like you’re ready to go to war.”

I swat his arm, the bitten apple falling between us. “I love these boots!”

He reaches to pinch my side, making me squeal before he runs from me. When I catch up to him, he dips his shoulder, angling it toward my stomach before scooping me up and draping me over him.

“Hayden!” I pound on his back, hitting him lightly to get his attention, but he ignores me and walks toward our basket instead. When he finally sets me down, my feet landing with a bounce on the soft ground, I giggle uncontrollably.

“I swear, you’re a literal child,” I scold through my laughter. He laughs at me, watching as I smooth my hair down and adjust my sweater after it rode up to my waist.

“I like your boots,” he says through his laugh. And then he stops, his smile shifting into something softer, more contemplative and saccharine. “It’s very much you.” He tugs on one of my braids, making me slap his hand away.

“I hope that’s a good thing.”

“You’re always a good thing, Nat.”

13

Hayden

senior year

The combinedstudents of Mr. Khan’s and Mrs. Morgan’s biology classes are lining up single file as we board a yellow school bus. It’s time for our annual field trip to the Ladera Water Treatment Facility to learn about water waste and our city’s sewage system. Totally gross, but it gets us out of the classroom for the day.

I board the bus, following behind the long line of students, trudging up the steps while searching over the sea of people for a seat. I stop about midway, spotting Natalia looking out the window. Her hair is half up today, a braided crown wrapped around the top of her head with a gold butterfly clipped to the back above a tumble of waves.

I silently slide into the empty seat next to her.

“So I finished thebook,” I say, unraveling a set of headphones from my pocket.

She turns to face me as I kick the rubber sole of my Jack Purcells against her black army boots, the same ones that she wears every day except when she opts for her canvased Vans. I hook an earpiece into the ear facing away from her as she peers at me with curious yet cautious eyes.

“Finally,” she says, sitting up from her seat to face me. “Thoughts?” Her voice is low, almost as if she’s worried that I may have disliked the book. But I didn’t. And I shove away that impulse to tell her she was right all along, that the right book was waiting to present itself to me before I found out I actually do like reading.

“It was amazing,” I say a little too earnestly. “I mean, it’s so honest and raw. And I feel like all of us can relate to Charlie. Even a little bit.”

Her eyes light up, and she smiles so wide that I can’t help the tug of happiness in my chest knowing she shared this little piece of herself with me. Something that now feels like a personal connection between me and her, like a secret or a coveted memory. “I know what you mean. When I finished it, I felt like Charlie had been writing those letters to me the whole time,” she agrees excitedly, squeezing my forearm before tucking her hand back between her thighs.

“Exactly!” I exclaim, patting my hand on her knee.

I slump back in my seat, facing the front of the bus, hooking the other earpiece into my ear as we sit quietly. The bus begins vibrating below us as it accelerates out of the school parking lot. When I notice that she does the same, minus the earphones, I remove one of mine and offer it to her.

She stares at it, the single earbud resting between my fingertips in the small space between us. Our fingers graze lightly as she takes it, smiling shyly before fitting it into her ear. As we both settle comfortably into our seats, my thumb scrolls through the round dial on my silver iPod.

“I didn’t know people still used iPods,” she comments, gesturing toward my hand.

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