Page 45 of What's in a Kiss?

I remember the joint Yogi Dan and Jake gave me just this morning. I spy my purse, hanging from the closet doorknob. I can reach it without even leaving the tub. I dry one hand, stretch behind me, and open the bag’s pearl clasp. I crank open the window next to the tub, light the joint on the flame of the tomato-scented candle, and take a tiny hit.

I cough, then lean back in the tub, closing my eyes, willing the weed to be magical, to take me home. It can even spit me out naked and stoned back at Masha’s real reception and I could figure out the rest.

But I stay right here, extremely tranquil and a little obsessed with the geometric tile of the backsplash until my wineglass is empty and the bathwater is cold.

“I’m not stuck here,” I report to the joint before putting it back in my purse. “There is a way back home. There always is. I just can’t see it yet.”

Maybe I have to smoke it in Santa Monica, on the beach where Masha was married? I’ll make it my first stop tomorrow. I grab a towel, dry off, and decide, while I’m here, to sample the body and face creams in my voluminous collection. I slather on too much.

I enter my closet, large enough it can be entered. I laugh at the clothes I own. There’s no sign of the chenille pajamas Masha gave me, but this plush jersey robe will do. Then I go to the bathroom door and peek out—

Glasswell sleeps in the glow of his bedside lamp, a book opened on his chest, reading glasses on his nose. I draw closer. Gently, I remove his glasses and place them on the table. He doesn’t stir at my touch. I lift the book up, save his place, and clock the cover:Branding Your Business in Ten Easy Steps.

I squint at Glasswell, a lot confused and a little charmed. Does he still feel like he’s finding his brand? Even after six seasons of his show? I study his face, innocent and calm. Handsome. I think about how cool he was tonight.

“Goodnight Glasswell,” I whisper and turn out his light.

I pad down the hallway, searching for a guest bedroom. When I pass the library, I double back and enter the beautiful wood-paneled sanctuary. There must be a thousand books in here, but my eyes fall on my diaries. Maybe I’m my own fairy-apothecary. Maybe my words are the sky for me to fly home.

I find the pale yellow journal. Senior year. It’s the last book on the shelf. My journals from age nineteen onward aren’t here. I look on the shelf below—and find only travel guides. Brazil, the Philippines, Turkey, Budapest. I wander all around the library but don’t find the other diaries. There should be ten more, including the magenta paisley-print book I’m halfway through filling this year. Where are the rest of my journals?

I pause before a framed diploma with my name on it.Olivia Dusk, Juilliard Class of 2018.I press my hand to the glass.

I went to Juilliard? And graduated on time? Which means I must have left for New York mere months after my father died. How could that be?

I grab the pale yellow book from senior year.

In one world, I know that this book, complete with its flailing twenty-seven-page prom diatribe, sits inside the glove box of my LEAF. Which sits in the parking garage at Shutters on the Beach. If it hasn’t been towed.

In this world, maybe it tells a different story. Maybe it holds an answer.

Chapter Twelve

May 25, 2014

Dear Princess Di,

I awoke this morning as a girl. I write to you now as a woman. Seasoned, certain, alive. What changed?

Everything.

What changed it?

A kiss.

It was prom. You know that. I’ve been referencing it for pages. But I did not go into prom with stars in my eyes. I hardly expected a transformative experience. Unlike Masha (for whom prom presented a life or death romantic crisis), I’d written prom off as an eighties relic—monumental for Gen X drama queens, but just another festivity for me. I didn’t shop for a new dress. I barely brushed my hair. The plan was chill: snag a limo, sway with my friends for a few hours, call it a wrap.

But then...

We interrupt this story to fall back on our bed and scream into a pillow.

Jake Glasswell. Jake and Olivia Glasswell. Olivia and Jake Dusk. Jake Dusk. Jake and Olivia Dusk-Glasswell. Olivia Dusk and Jake Glasswell invite you to celebrate their matrimony—

PILLOW SCREAMING.

You know what’s crazy? Until last night, I didn’t evenlikeJake.

I thought he was full of himself and way too competitive, and, generally, all up in my business. From baseball to debate to student council, the boy slid into nearly all of my extracurriculars. Only now I realize why...

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