To my right, Molly and Sawyer are holding hands. Autumn is on the end crying into her popcorn and thank goodness I’m not the only one wiping away tears.
By the time the credits role, we’re up to thirty-two arm-brushing incidents.
We exit the theater, Autumn, Nash, and I trailing behind Molly and Sawyer. They’re always holding hands, and I hate how much I want that. Despite all the friend zone conversation, I would reach out and hold Nash’s hand right now if I could. I hate that in an alternate universe, I could.
Nash bumps against me on the way to his car and my God, why can’t he stop touching me? I’m going to pop a blood vessel before this night ends. My heart rate spikes and my palms start to sweat and it’s a rush of blood to the head every time Nash’s skin brushes against mine.
I know he’s not going to take my hand, even if he’s feeling what I’m feeling, because of Kels. Even if he’s mad at her, mad at the silence, those feelings don’t just go away.
I know I should want it to stop. But I also know that I don’t.
We say goodbye to the rest of Le Crew and the drive home is filled with car karaoke, film banter, and thought spirals. Every time Nash looks at me and cracks a joke, I think about brushing my arm against his one more time, or running my fingers through his messy hair, or holding the hand that’s resting against the gearshift. The thirty-minute drive back to Middleton passes too fast.
Nash can’t maneuver up my snowy driveway in his tiny Prius, so he shifts the car into park at the sidewalk. Middleton was slammed with a blizzard over New Year’s—and I never want the snow to melt. Snow means puffer coats and knitted mittens, learning the shape of my breath, and vats of hot chocolate.
I open the passenger door even though that’s the last thing I want to do.
“Thanks for the ride.”
Nash opens his door too. “I can walk you up, um, if you want.”
I nod, even though Nash has never, not once, walked me up. “Okay.”
We walk along the snow-covered grass, avoiding the icy driveway.
“Sorry, but I still can’t believe you cried.” He laughs.
“And my tears are funny to you because—?”
“It wasn’t a sad movie?”
I swat his arm with my hand, because if Nash can do flirty touching, so can I.
“Can’t I just cry because something is beautiful?”
Nash smiles. “You can. But I will laugh at you. Always.”
The way Nash says always, well, my heart actually skips. Because I have tried so hard to justify my secret, to write Nash off as just a boy, as transient, to avoid doing the hard thing—and then he uses words like always and reminds me that whatever this is doesn’t have to be temporary if I can just figure out the right words to explain everything. Even if we’re only ever just friends.
But the way Nash looks at me, I don’t think he wants to be just friends. I have no clue what’s changed. What about Kels? I know it should matter, but I think of what Ollie said. I’m Kels. I can explain that to him in a way that makes sense. Everything will change, but for the first time, I’m not afraid.
So I stand on my tiptoes, close my eyes, and kiss him.
Because I can. Because I want to. Because I’m going to tell him everything.
It’s a quick kiss. I press my cold lips against his and … Nash just, like, becomes a statue. I mean, I am getting nothing from him and oh my God what did I do?
I step back.
Nash blinks.
Embarrassment slays me.
“Can we talk?” I blurt out.
The cold air whips through the space between us. If I were Kels, I’d delete that last sentence before I hit send. Come up with something witty. Actually, it doesn’t even need to be eloquent or profound or witty. Not a cliché will do.
“I really, really don’t want to just talk to you, Halle.”
His lips smash against mine before I even have a chance to process the words. Lips that are ice cold, but the kiss is fire and I melt into him. Nash’s hands are on my hips and mine are in his perfect hair and oh my God, I am kissing Nash.
Nash is kissing me. Halle.
When the kiss breaks, it’s like coming up for air, except I don’t want air anymore.
“Wow,” Nash says.
“Wow,” I say.
I know I should say something, but now I really, really don’t want to talk either. And then Nash kisses me again and my mind goes blank. I forget who I am, where I am, and how to be a rational human. All sense of dignity flies out the window because I taste the want in Nash’s kiss. I get lost in that want, in his hands on the small of my back and my hands on his face, pulling him closer to me, if that’s even possible.
It’s possible.
Until he pulls away.
“Is this okay?” he asks.
“Kels,” I say.
I mean to form a full sentence. To blurt it out, lay it all on the table while my head is still foggy from Nash’s kiss, in this moment when we are so close.
I am Kels.
Nash’s mouth parts in a perfect O and his arms drop. “We should—”
I step back. “Yeah, we should.”
It’s almost two-thirty, according my cell phone. If we go inside, Scout will a hundred and ten percent wake the entire house up. Don’t wake me up was literally what Gramps said when I asked if I could go to the movies tonight, when I told him it’d mean I’d be out past curfew. But we can’t leave it like this, so we walk back down the driveway to Nash’s car. I don’t realize I’m shivering until he cranks the heat. We sit side by side in the front seats, looking straight ahead. There’s an awkwardness to this moment, like the weight of what just happened slaps us in the face, but there’s somehow still a charge in the air between us, too.
Nash chews on his bottom lip.
I play with my hair.
“So,” Nash says at the same time I say, “Kels, I—”
“I’m so into you,” Nash blurts, followed immediately by his deep blush. “Kels doesn’t matter. It’s just imaginary internet bullshit I’ve held on to since I was, like, fourteen. I spent so much time waiting for her to give me a hint, but it’s never going to happen. Seriously. Kels isn’t real. This—you, are. Real, I mean. This is real.”
Kels isn’t real.
“I can’t believe I just said that out loud,” Nash says.
Words, Halle. Form words.
Nash waits for me to say something, but I can’t. Nash chose me, but Kels isn’t real. And I get it, but she also is. She’s half of me, half of us in a way—but now she’s reduced to just a series of zeroes and ones sending messages to a boy who loves graphic novels. For Nash, this supposed “hiatus” isn’t temporary. Kels and Nash? That’s over.
Truth is a bomb; it’ll desecrate this moment.
I don’t know how to form the words, so I lean forward and kiss Nash.
Because it’s easy. Because I’m Halle, and I’m so into him, too.
Because Kels isn’t real.
From: Alyssa Peterson <[email protected]>
To: Kels Roth <[email protected]>
unique cupcake inquiry!