“You sleeping?” he mumbles.
“Not yet,” I say. I’m trying to make my breath rise and fall with his. I’m feeling satisfied, which does not always happen when he and I are together. I’ve never told him this though; since I’m always silent when he kisses me, all I have to do is say nothing when he stops moving against me and he assumes I’ve finished too.
Today though, my toes curled and my fingers dug into his back. Nearly skin-to-skin, it felt so real that I couldn’t think of anything but the moment I was in, with him.
“I love you,” Jamie says. He moves his hand over my breast as he says it.
“Do you really?” I ask.
“You know I do,” he says. I think about our future together, how perfect it will be. We’ll buy a house and have a family and be happy together. Jamie is perfect and his life will be perfect, so if I am a part of his life, then I will be perfect too. I trace my fingers down his chest and he flinches away. “Don’t,” he says. “That tickles.”
“Sorry,” I say. I lay my hand back on his shoulder. There is another silence. My eyes start to drift closed.
“I want you,” Jamie says. I feel my eyelashes graze his skin as I open my eyes.
“I want you too,” I say. “Just not yet.” I feel him sigh beneath me.
“Why?” he says, even though I’ve already told him.
“I want it to be special,” I say.
“It would be,” he says.
“How?” I ask. “Here, in this room?” I look at his room with the rock posters and anime action figures lining the shelves, his dirty socks on the floor, and the view of the back patio from his window. When I daydream about my first time, I see it happening in a beautiful room with a gilt canopy bed and a view of the Eiffel Tower out the window, or in a leafy green forest on a velvet blanket with wild flowers surrounding us.
“Yes,” he says. “Or your room.”
I grimace and struggle for words while trying to control my panic at the very idea of my room or, worse, his.
“No, you don’t understand,” I say. “It has to be perfect. Absolutely perfect.”
Jamie shifts underneath me, trying to sit up. I let go of him and sit back facing him.
“If it’s you and me, then that’s all that really matters, right?” he says.
“Yes.” I draw the word out slowly, feeling the incompleteness of my reply, how much it leaves unsaid.
“And nothing in life is ever really perfect. I mean, what are you waiting for?”
“I’m just waiting for it to feel right,” I say. I look down at his comforter and pick at a ball of lint.
“When will that be?” he asks. I shrug and don’t look up.
“Are you mad?”
“No, I’m frustrated,” Jamie says. His voice is hard and sounds as if it’s coming from very far away.
“Are you going to leave me?” I ask. Swiftly, Jamie moves closer to me and pulls me into a hug.
“I will never, ever, never leave you,” he says.
“I love you too,” I finally say.
16
Sasha and I are sitting on Brooke’s floor with her, reading magazines. Angie is off with Mike. Jamie is spending a week in Chicago with his family. The other boys are off doing something dumb at Alex’s place.
We’re giving each other quizzes out of the magazines. The quizzes are titled things like “Are you a good FLIRT?” or “Do you know how to get what YOU want?” According to these magazines, we are all amazingly well balanced. They’re multiple choice, and it’s easy to know what the right answer is; one choice will have too much of the trait in question, another not enough, and one will be just right, like a teenage Goldilocks. All afternoon, we’ve chosen the same answers and been told that we’re doing great, that we should carry on as we are and everything will be okay. It should be boring but it isn’t; it’s comforting.
“You aren’t afraid of taking risks but you also know to back down when things get too serious,” Sasha reads. “Because of this, your friends can count on you to be a good time without things getting out of hand. You can use your good judgment to help a Shy Wallflower break out or keep a Wild Child reined in. Though you may sometimes make mistakes, like the night you get pulled over for speeding or the party where you’re too shy to ask your crush to dance, your common sense—and your sense of fun—will always see you through.” She tosses the magazine to the side and stretches her arms over her head.
“When’s Jamie coming back?” she asks. “I want to go swimming.”
“Friday,” Brooke and I both say. We smile at each other. We like to make jokes about being cousins-in-law.
“I miss him so much,” I say, because I do and I’m enjoying it. “I can’t believe we’ve almost been together for a year.” It’s early August. I have six weeks until our anniversary, and I can’t wait. To me, it will legitimize us as a couple in a new way; we will be inarguably together for the long-term, and our relationship will be worthy of deference over less established couples.
“Yeah, me and Alex too,” Sasha says. I think back to nearly a year before when Sasha and I battled over Jamie, and how he chose me. I smile at the ceiling and feel smug.
“Noah and I will have been together for a year and a half in October,” Brooke says. I feel less smug.
“You guys are so cute,” Sasha says. I have to agree that they are. Brooke and Noah never seem to argue—though Brooke swears they do every once in a while—and they do anything that the other asks them to do, so they’re constantly jumping up to get sodas for the other or to rub their shoulders.
“It’s been forever since we’ve gotten to be alone,” Brooke moans. I pick up a different magazine. Sasha makes a sympathetic noise in reply to Brooke and I glance over at her suspiciously. She’s flipping through a new magazine, looking for the quiz at the back.
“Oh my God,” she says, “Here’s one for Autumn.”
“What?” I ask, sitting up and leaning over. I’m curious and liking the idea of special attention.
“‘Does he like you as MORE than a friend?’” she reads. I look at her blankly.
“Who?” I ask. Sasha laughs.
“Finn Smith,” she says. “Remember in seventh grade how he used to stare at you during lunch?”
“No,” I say. I remember waving to him across the cafeteria. I don’t remember anyone staring.