“Say ‘bikes are for chumps!’”
The camera flashed but even after she lowered it, she kept her head on my shoulder.
“We don’t have to send pics to my mom anymore.”
“Maybe they can just be for us now.”
I’d been so afraid of seeing her today, having to look at her when I told her I wasn’t coming back. I didn’t know if she’d try to brush me off or if she’d let me glimpse any of the pain I was expecting to inflict on her. I didn’t think I’d get to hold her while she absently traced the edges of my license and teased me about how I probably now had my picture framed at the DMV for bestest test taker ever.
I never thought I’d be laughing or that my heart would feel so full.
When she finally lifted her head, she loosely linked her arms around my neck, and there was a hint of pink flushing her cheeks. “I would have driven half an hour.”
“And I would have biked five.”
Jolene smiled at me, and the gap in her teeth did all kinds of wild stuff to my heart. I didn’t mean to stare at her lips, but after not seeing her for two weeks, I couldn’t seem to help it.
“You really want to kiss me, don’t you?”
Heat danced up my neck, and I was glad that she saw it, because she smiled wider.
“Yeah. Constantly. Always.”
She stiffened slightly and pulled back until she was sitting on her heels. When she reached for her hair in that nervous way of hers, I covered her wrists with my hands before she could start braiding it.
“Hey. Where’d you go?”
She lowered her hands to her lap and squinted hard at me. “You can’t just say you’ll always want me. I mean, it’s gonna be different, you know that, right? We’ve been fine seeing each other a couple weekends a month—okay, we’ve been more than fine,” she allowed when I started to say the exact same thing. “But now you want me to meet your mom, and what happens when you realize that you only like me in small doses and—”
I kissed her. I mean I seriously kissed her. My hands went to her jaw and sealed her mouth with mine. I didn’t have to worry if it was the right move, because her hand came up to curl around my wrist, holding on to me. My pulse exploded and my heart raced. We were both gasping when we broke apart.
“That’s not an answer either,” she said in an unsteady voice that had me fighting the urge to kiss her again. But she needed words from me more.
“Yeah, it is.” I brought her palm to my chest so that she could feel my heart beating, fast and strong, for her. “All that stuff I told you about our futures... I want the video chats when we’re at college. I want the holidays where we fly out to meet each other, even if it’s only for a couple hours before we have to fly back. I want the summers together doing I-don’t-even-care-what.” When she tried to lower her head, I bent mine to hold her gaze. “I want to be there for your first movie, and you need to be there for me to talk me down when I want to chuck my first book. And later when it’s published to middling reviews.”
She laughed a little at that.
“And I know you’re gonna break my heart at some point. I might even break yours.” I pressed her hand more firmly against my chest. “But it’s yours to break and mend and hopefully not break again, because, like you’ve said many times, I have fragile boy emotions.” My fingers slid up to her chin and urged her to look at me. My pulse kicked impossibly higher when I drank in the features I knew better than my own at that point. “I want all of you. Prickly, funny, sarcastic, brilliant, and sometimes a little mean you. And I’m not gonna make a joke here even though I can feel you squirming. There’s nothing funny about the way you make me feel. I love you, Jolene. I love you like a movie with the perfect lighting and the sweeping camera, the kind where the music swells and—Jo...?” My voice trailed off and my heart came to a slamming halt because she was shaking her head and tears suddenly spilled silently down her face.
“No,” she said. “Not like that.” She gazed at me, her eyes flicking fast back and forth between mine. “All my life I’ve wanted to change things, to make them perfect and safe and unreal, because my reality was a mess. But I’ve never done that with you. I’ve never needed to. I want this still somewhat dark hallway with the laugh track from somebody’s TV drifting through the walls. I want the thin carpet and the weird smell from whoever burned microwave popcorn earlier. And I don’t care about camera angles so long as I get to see any part of you.” Her fingers dug into my shirt before inching up to brush my jaw. “Adam, I never needed a movie with you, because when you love someone—and I can say it now a million times if you want—it’s already perfect.”
I tasted her tears when she brought her trembling lips to mine, sweeter than any apple pie, and then felt the whoosh of air when my arms locked tight around her ribs. My heart thundered, and I didn’t care about the blood that was no doubt rushing to my face.
And she was laughing against my mouth, kissing me, then pulling back long enough to meet my gaze before kissing me again.
I brushed her cheek dry with my thumb when she finally pulled away, and I couldn’t help grinning at her like an idiot.
She smiled and dropped her forehead against mine. “You gonna make that face every time we kiss?”
“Oh, this isn’t for the kiss. I think I just proved who’ll be crying at the airport when we both leave for college.”
Jolene’s whole body shook when she laughed. “My money’s still on you, but I guess we’ll see.”
* * *
That was the last time I kissed Jolene in the Oak Village apartment building. But I did kiss her at her new apartment after watching the first of many movies with the famous Mrs. Cho, and at my house the next week when she helped me with the dishes after dinner with my whole family. And at Jeremy’s awful play, where she and Erica were not only civil to each other but actually made plans for all of us to go on a double date. And at Venomous Squid’s show the next month. And a million times after that.
If I’m lucky, I’ll be kissing Jolene for the rest of my life.
Jolene would say “I guess we’ll see.”
I’m saying I feel lucky.
Jolene’s Essay
My name is Jolene Timber, and I’m a filmmaker.
I’m not an aspiring filmmaker. I am one now, presently, currently. I was a filmmaker long before I picked up a camera.
When I was little and my parents were fighting, I’d change the story in my head. When I watched my mom yelling at my dad for the cliché lipstick marks she’d found on his collar while he poured himself a drink and told her she knew where the door was, I’d rewrite the story, reframe the shot, even rescore the music I could hear in my head. Sometimes it wasn’t lipstick that she found on his collar; sometimes it was blood, and before she could ask him about it, a gunshot would shatter the window behind her and I’d slow the frame rate down to catch her hair blowing as the bullet whizzed past, and then I’d rush it back to normal speed as my dad tackled her before a second shot fired. They’d both be breathless, staring at each other from the ground as an incongruously happy song played in the background, something from a kids’ show on the TV that I’d left on. He’d spin and pull a gun from his jacket, taking out the assassin that had been sent to kill our whole family, while my mother ran to shield my body with her own.