Page 4 of Kissing is the Easy Part
He straightens himself. “I’d like to stay friends.”
None of his reasons make sense. This situation is so excruciatinglyhard. My satin dress is at the ideal length, showing off three provocative inches of bare skin on my thighs. My makeup is immaculate, winged eyeliner perfectly symmetrical with slim traces of shimmer beneath my eyes, and my hair is a dark river of dreams. What more does he want?
A wave of nausea rises out of nowhere. I put a hand over my mouth.
“You all right?”
“Not really.” I push myself up, tired and upset, suddenly impatient with this conversation. “I’m going home. Consider yourself off the hook. Message received.”
“How are you going to get home? You can’t drive like this.”
“I have enough sense not to drive, thank you. I’m going to walk.”
“You’re going to walk,” Sean repeats. “In those shoes. At midnight.”
“Yes. It’s one of my special talents.” I brush past him and head out of the room, or at least try to. The door is locked, and I keep turning the lock in the wrong direction until Sean reaches over to open it for me.
Please, let this night end already.
Running down the flight of stairs, I push through sweaty bodies, bump my shoulders against everything in the way, and try not to trip over myself. For once I don’t feel like posting snippets to my story.
“I’m guessing the plan didn’t pop off as you hoped. You’re leaving?” Raymond asks as I hustle past him and hand back the key.
“Yeah,” I say, breathing hard to push back emotions. “I’ll text you tomorrow.”
Before I head out, I set upright the toppled snake plant—apparently chosen by Ray’s parents because it thrives on neglect, much like their parenting—beside the front door and get ready to leave my epic fail behind.
A hand taps me on the shoulder. “Let me walk you home,” Sean says.
Half of me is annoyed at him for being nice, because I want to focus on being mad at him right now. Half of me struggles to keep the hurt under wraps. My place is only fifteen minutes away, but late at night, drunk, and in heels isn’t my favorite way to wobble home alone. I shrug, and Sean takes that as a sign to follow me out the door.
The chilly night air hits me, soothing my burning humiliation. The sky is dark with no stars. Aside from the sound of my heels clicking on the pavement, we walk in silence, and Sean matches his pace with mine. I don’t feel like talking to him anymore. His hands are in his pockets as he stares far ahead.
The city is nestled between the water, wrapped in mist most of the year, and on nights like this, I get the hype. Most of our class lives in the suburbs, where the houses are small and dainty. The closer you get to downtown, the taller the buildings rise above the hills. Raymond and I live on this side of the bridge, just a short drive from downtown Seattle, close enough that the skyline is always on the horizon, even if it’s hardly a tier-one fashion capital.
I breathe in the night. Trees and rain, a scent I never get tired of. The fresh air almost makes up for the nine months of gloomy skies.
“You’re probably going to tell everyone you rejected me,” I say.
“I promise I won’t tell anyone.”
I should’ve listened to Madison and not been so direct. The drinking-game buzz has waned but it’s still acting like a truth serum. “How am I ever going to face you in school again?”
“You don’t have to worry. I won’t make this weird for you.” He turns to me, the streetlamp casting shadows along his jaw. He scratches the back of his neck. “We’ll never speak of this again, but for now—thank you for telling me. It can’t be easy, being honest like that. You made me feel special.”
My heart constricts. It almost hurts. He has no idea the effect he has on me. “Well, youare. Special, I mean. And trust me, it’s harder for me tonotsay anything.”
I catch his eyes and his smile deepens.
“Hey, can I ask you something?” I lean in. “Youarethe creator behind CourseView, right?”
In freshman year, some unknown genius designed a platform where students can get a clearer idea of what electives are worth taking. It’s far superior to what the school provides, which is a list of classes with high-level (useless) descriptions. CourseView tracks past grade trends, workload changes, and which teachers are the best (read: breeziest) by pulling insights from buried forum posts and Discord chats.
But no one knows who made it. The most obvious suspect is Sean, but he flat-out denies it every time.
“No,” he says now. “Why would you think that?”
“Oh, come on. ‘Schrödinger’s Elective: Simultaneously easy and hard until you take it’?” Whenever there’s not enough data to suggest whether an elective is worth taking, CourseView slaps that rating on it. “Who else would come up with something like that but you?”
