“This is top secret stuff, Upstate.”
A tear—my tear—splashes on REX #224.
I don’t know when everything between Nash and me got so real.
Nash looks at me, eyes wide. “Whoa, hey. Why are you crying?”
“It’s beautiful,” I say. “You’re beautiful.”
Then I lean forward and kiss Nash because I want to remember this moment, this feeling while I still live in a world where Kels isn’t real. It always starts off innocently, our kisses. Slow and sweet, until I’m tired of slow and sweet. Then I deepen the kiss and twist my fingers in his hair—did I ever mention how much I love his hair? His hands slide down to my hips and we rotate so I’m now straddling him and his lips are on my jaw, my neck, and oh my God I want.
I want, I want, I want.
Every week, I find that I’m the one initiating the next move, I’m the one pushing the boundaries closer and closer to the point of no return. I’ve kissed boys—I’ve even fooled around with some boys. Temporary flings with other temporary doc kids. We’d just make out and okay, maybe my bra would come off at some point—but that’s as far as it’d go. I never let it go further, because I never wanted to.
With Nash, I want to. And it’s so unfair, because I kiss him and touch him like I’ve known him for years because, well, I have. Sometimes when I’m like this, I forget that for him, it’s only been six months, that we’ve only been officially a thing for thirty-four days.
Caught up in the moment, in Nash showing me, Halle, REX, I take his shirt off for the first time.
“I’m—I mean, I haven’t …” Flustered Nash babbles, unable to find the word.
“Me either,” I say.
I’m not exactly surprised, but I am relieved.
“Should we slow down?” I ask.
“Probably,” Nash says.
We don’t.
In between kisses, Nash slips my cardigan off my shoulders.
Then he pulls my T-shirt off over my head.
It’s cold, so I pull one of the fleece blankets over us. I’m still on his lap, kissing Nash, his skin hot against mine and oh my God this is so good. Nash’s fingers graze my lower back and his hand slides slowly up, up, up to the clasp of my bra. I don’t even feel self-conscious, not for one second.
But then his hands are gone and his lips are too far away from mine. I push forward to kiss him more but he pulls away.
“Oh my God.” Nash pulls the blanket off and it’s too bright. I blink to readjust to the florescent basement lights. When I do, Nash is putting his shirt back on. Inside out.
“Nash?” I ask.
He doesn’t say what? or offer, like, any sort of explanation.
He just throws my shirt at me.
I’m not even joking. It lands on my head.
“My parents,” he says. “They’re, like—right upstairs. What if they—and we were … ?”
“Oh,” I say. Oh.
I got so wrapped up in Nash, in us, I totally forgot about that. Andrea and David upstairs while we were … well, Nash is right. Oh my God. I pull over my T-shirt and button every single button on my cardigan. Brush out my tangled hair with my fingers. Sit up straight against a chair, like how we started, and let my breathing steady. I look at him, my cheeks flaming.
It’s okay, though, because his are also on fire.
“That was the opposite of slow,” I say.
“I wanted to.”
“Me too.”
“I just don’t want our first time to be in my parents’ basement while they’re upstairs watching Seinfeld reruns.”
Oh my God, you can legit hear Jerry’s voice through the ceiling. I cover my hand with my mouth and laugh so hard.
“So romantic,” I say.
Nash joins my laughing fit and we are okay. More than okay.
We restart the episode of Stranger Things and cuddle until I have to be home for curfew. I can’t focus on the show because I can’t stop thinking about Nash and me. How did we get so intense, so fast? I’m not sure.
But I am sure that I want to keep kissing Nash forever. Getting carried away with him forever.
I’m sure that I’m falling for him, and not only for a moment.
And I’m sure, I am finally sure that I can’t keep this up. Nash shared REX sketches with me, Halle—and I said I know because I do know. Because I’m Kels. And as much as I’d like to continue to compartmentalize and pretend it doesn’t matter now, it does. Of course it does. I can’t keep doing things like this. I can’t keep waiting for the right moment or finding reasons not to tell him.
I know I can’t lose him; I don’t know why I ever thought I could.
I know I might lose him, and if I do it’s my own fault.
He was never going to wish Kels was someone else because she couldn’t be. She’s real. It’s all been real.
He’s not going to hurt Kels online or any of the other million excuses I’ve come up with.
If he hurts me, well—I probably deserve it.
March 1
BookCon @thebookcon 1hr
We are SO EXCITED to announce the fantastic lineup of our very first Bloggers IRL panel:@BooksOnTape,@LilahClarkRead, @OneTruePastry,@AnnalieseWritesYA, @MGPete,
@IambicPentara.
[101 comments] [584 ] [2k ]
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Elle Carter @ellewriteswords 45min
WHAT. CC @AmysBookshelf @s_lee244 @Nash_Stevens27 PLEASE CONFIRM I AM NOT HALLUCINATING. HOW CAN A GHOST BE ON A PANEL? I’M SHOOK.
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Amy Chen @AmysBookshelf 40min
… you are definitely not?! this is WILD.
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Samira Lee @s_lee244 37min
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Nash Stevens @Nash_Stevens27
mI thought I’d never be more confused. I was wrong.
TWENTY
If Grams were still here, she’d be laughing so hard.
I’d tell her everything, the whole Nash situation, and she’d become the laughing tears emoji.
Not everything has to be this hard, she’d say.
I can still hear her voice, her laugh.
How has it been almost a year since we lost her?
It’s a quiet ride to Stamford, to the Jewish cemetery where Grams is buried. Rabbi Goldman would say laid to rest, but I hate that phrase. Rest is a temporary action. Grams is stuck at the Stamford Jewish Cemetery forever.
Breathe.
I did not want to do this.
Cemeteries are the worst. The necklace that rests against my beating heart is more Grams than a plaque with her name on it and her decomposing body six feet under. I haven’t been to a cemetery since my uncle’s funeral, which triggered my first panic attack. So I can’t understand how doing this is going to help anything. It’s going to be horrible.
Ollie said we had to do this for Gramps. Gramps’s voice broke when he asked us if we would come. And it’s not just a trip to the cemetery—it’s the unveiling ceremony, a Jewish custom. It’s a small ceremony that occurs usually in the final months of the first year of mourning. Gramps says we’ll say some prayers and the headstone with Grams’s name on it will be unveiled.
How could we say no?
The minute I step out of the car, I wish I had. Tears start to fill my eyes and we haven’t even left the parking lot. Spring emerges in a vision of cherry trees in bloom and freshly planted tulips. It’d be pretty if this weren’t so terrible. Cemeteries shouldn’t be beautiful.