“Night, Tate,” she whispers before tucking Mr. Bunny further into her trench coat and spinning on her heels.
I stand back and watch her walk away with my hands in my pockets.
We were just two fourteen-year-olds walking through Manhattan hand in hand. The city is crazy with people on this New Year’s early morning, where darkness still blankets the sky, but I focus on her. Only her. I want to make sure she makes it home all right.
London is about twenty feet away before she stops in her tracks.
Oh.
My breath halts.
Is everything okay?
All the worry is replaced with a huge grin when she turns and begins running toward me with a girly smile. It’s only when she’s inches away that she slows down.
“I forgot to give you a goodnight kiss!” London pants, and I think I straight-up die when she rises on her toes and plants a long kiss on my cheek. She pulls away, grinning. “Good night!”
I chuckle. “Sweet dreams, LonLon.”
London jogs backward with that goofy smile I love until she turns around and runs home. When I see her slip inside an apartment lobby, I wait a few seconds before turning around and walking toward my own brownstone.
She’s safe. She’s home.
Yet my jaw clenches because I still want to know who hurt her, but maybe next year she’ll tell me. Maybe, just maybe, she will.
With every step I take, I feel that rosy vanilla blend still with me. My cheek burns with her sweet kiss. I’m never washing my freaking cheek again. I swear I’m not. Ever.
I smile into the night, never wanting to let this feeling of such happiness go.
And suddenly, I’m not cold anymore. Not in the slightest.
Because London Héroux is all I feel… still.
PAST.
Six Months Later.
London and Tate are fourteen.
With my fifteenth birthday in only six months, I know what’s also coming… Tate.
Dreamy, beautiful, real-life James Dean—Tate Meadows.
The thought of seeing him has made me giddy for the past one hundred and ninety-eight days. My palms get all sweaty just thinking about him.
I’ve spent the past six months reading back the journal entry I wrote last New Year’s, every single word making me relive the moment my hate for Tate Meadows melted into like. I really like him. Like I like like him… a lot.
A lot has happened in the last few months—for one, I advanced to being a level seven gymnast. Challenging myself on the bars, beam, floor, and vault has always consumed my life. Apart from being the perfect A+ student my parents force me to be, gymnastics and ballet are all I ever do. But it’s been good. A good distraction from missing Tate so much.
So yeah, I miss him.
A heck of a lot.
Especially on nights like these when I’m in bed alone and bored at 7:00 p.m. because that’s my bedtime. Yeah, you heard me right. I just graduated from middle school. It’s the summer break before ninth grade. I’m turning fifteen in a few months. Seven o’clock is my bedtime.
*Insert eyeroll*
Oh! And I’m finally growing bigger tits. Halle—freaking—lujah.
So, on lonely nights like these, my only option is to either write more in my journal or read past entries. I do the latter. I go back and read about everything I wrote down the night Tate found me crying in Central Park. And how the worst night of my life turned into the best…
All because of him.
Entry Five: The fireworks were for us.
Tate,
I haven’t stopped grinning since I said good night to you and sneaked back into my apartment not even five minutes ago. I think I’ve blushed so hard tonight my cheeks are about to explode from just how red they still are. I thought I hated you. I was wrong. I like you a lot, Tate Meadows.
And I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. But I want to think it’s good.
I like the way you comfort me.
The way you kiss the side of my head.
I like the way you kept holding me so tight.
And the way you clasped my hand all the way home.
I like that we share the same birthdays because the fireworks were for us.
But most of all, I like that you told me I make you nervous because you do the same to me.
There’s something about you that makes me feel different. I don’t know what is, but I wish I knew. Maybe it’s because I don’t really know how to act around boys. All my friends are girls, and the ones I do see at school, ballet, or at the gymnastic center, I rarely even speak to. It’s why sometimes I look away or don’t know what to say because this is all really new to me.
You challenge everything for me… and I like it.
You did that thing again, Tate, that thing where you stare deep into my eyes until I forget to breathe. You did it a lot, and every time, I just wanted to melt right there in your eyes. You’ve got a stare that could kill… in the best, most possible way.
We didn’t talk about the moon tonight; in fact, I don’t even think I glanced up at it because I was so obsessed with you instead. Actually, wait, I did look up at the moon… but that was before you came.
How did you know I was there, Tate? How did you know I needed you?
I ran away from home because it was all too much. I know you kept on asking me who hurt me, and maybe I was wrong for not telling you, or maybe I was right, but either way, I know I would have cried if I told you the truth. And I don’t want to cry in front of you.
Not again.
You told me I looked pretty when I cried (which made me blush again), but I don’t want to be that in front of you. A crier. I want to be strong. And confident. And independent.
I guess that all comes with growing up, right?
Ugh. I just wish I could be eighteen already. That way, I could find you by the lake anytime and any way I like, not just one night out of an entire year. It’s going to be torture… complete torture not seeing you for that long…
But I guess replaying the sparkle in your eyes when I kissed your cheek will be worth it.
Until we reach the moon,
London
PS: Thank you for Mr. Bunny!
Entry Six: You fit me better than my favorite sweater…
Tate,
Okayyy, so I lied. I never did shred your coat in a million little pieces like I said I would over three and a half years ago… I kept it. I caught you looking at my trench coat all those months ago when we met for the second time. It was almost as if you were expecting me to have your raincoat on instead. Did you?
If I’d known you were going to show, I would have.
Truth is because you were so tall for ten, it still fits me.
It still fits me now that I’m almost fifteen.
The raincoat still smells like you, but part of me wishes it were a sweater. That way I could wear it to bed instead. Yes, I would have to take it off in the morning before I stepped out of my bedroom or else my parents would notice it’s not mine, but it would be worth it. Besides, my parents are rarely home anyway.
I like that we don’t talk about our parents when we’re together. The thought alone makes me so sad. I guess you could say my relationship with my parents is… crazy. So it means a lot to me that we don’t talk about them.