I find Saz at an old weathered-looking picnic table, talking to a group of people that includes Alannis and Mara, as well as Yvonne Brittain-Muir, musician and gamer, and her girlfriend of three hundred years, Leah Basco. For the past few weeks, Saz and I have envisioned every possible scenario in which Yvonne dumps Leah and professes her undying love for Saz. Or at least agrees to have sex with her.
One of the guys passes around a joint, and another is telling this long story about the college party he went to last weekend. Leah holds out her hand to Yvonne—pale as a ghost in the moonlight, long yellow hair dyed blue at the ends—and they go rambling off toward the barn of iniquity, Saz staring after them like they just ran over her dog.
I say to her, “Do you want to leave?” Even though it’s not even eleven o’clock.
“More than anything on earth.”
I throw my arm around her and we walk across the field toward the house and the long gravel driveway where we parked. As we go, I sing Saz the cheer-up song we made up when we were ten: “Ice cream, ice cream, freezy, freezy. You can get over her easy, easy.”
A lone figure comes toward us, and Saz is jabbing at my ribs, going, “Stop it, maniac, before someone hears you,” which makes me sing louder, and then the figure steps into the moonlight and of course it’s Wyatt Jones. Like that, I forget about Saz and Yvonne and Shane and boxes and everything else that came before this moment.
Wyatt is going away soon, across the country, across the world, to California and girls with long, swinging hair and sundresses. A fact that makes him seem taller and separate from the rest of us. Saz and I were supposed to go to California too, where I would find him and get to know him, strangers in a strange land, initially bonded by our unfortunate Midwestern roots, and then—gradually—as two worldly adults who discover they are destined to be together.
Wyatt catches my eye, and my bones turn to liquid. There’s a rumor that he likes me. That he wanted to ask me to prom but was too shy to do it. That the reason he and three of his friends toilet-papered my house two months ago was because somehow I was special. Until my dad the marathon runner interrupted them and chased them around the neighborhood on foot. I break our gaze now and stare at my own feet because the memory is still mortifying.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” I say back.
I make myself look at him again. Deep brown eyes, light brown skin, broad shoulders, smiling mouth. Even though my lips are still throbbing from all the kissing I was doing minutes ago, I want his hands on me.
“You leaving?”
“Yeah.”
“Too bad.” He breaks into a full-on smile, as blinding as the sun, and everything fades away except for the two of us. His dad is black, his mom is white, and she died when he was a baby. He doesn’t remember her, but he always says she gave him his smile.
He’s saying something else right now, but it’s drowned out by music and laughter and someone screaming. We turn at the same exact moment, and it’s Kayla Rosenthal, who always screams at parties. She’s standing on the picnic table, waving her drink around like a human sprinkler.
He nods in her direction. “And she got a scholarship to Notre Dame.” I laugh a little too hard. “Did you come with Waller?” he asks me.
“No, but he’s here somewhere.” I wave my hand like, Whatever, and hope these five words imply everything he needs to know: I don’t care where he is because he’s nothing to me. It’s you, Wyatt. It’s always been you.
He nods again, like he’s thinking this over. “Hey, congrats on salutatorian.”
“Thanks.”
“Does that mean you give one of the graduation speeches?”
“A shorter one, but yeah.” Jasmine Ramundo gets to speak for ten minutes, but I only get to speak for five.
“Can’t wait to hear it.” He grins and then does this thing that always makes my stomach flip—contemplates the ground like there’s something profound and important there. He looks up at me. “Are you here for the summer?”
“I am.”
“Me too.”
We are staring at each other, my face getting hotter and hotter, and all I can think is, I want you to be my first, Wyatt Jones. If you ask me to go into that barn right now, I will race you there and be naked by the time I reach the door.
He coughs. Looks away. Glances up. Smiles. “See you around, then.”
“See you.”
He sails past, and it’s just an ordinary party filled with ordinary people, and I am one of them.
“We can stay.”
I turn and blink at Saz. Where did you come from? But even though I want to stay, I see her face. “No way.” Friends first. Always. I sing the rest of the way to the car.
* * *
—
An hour or so later, I lie in my bed and think of Wyatt Jones. Of every dirty thing I want him to do to me. My room is heavy with night, except for the moon, which is making everything glow.
I close my eyes, and I am still me, lying here in these yellow daisy sheets and the navy blue pajama shorts and top I got for my last birthday, books everywhere because ever since I was six years old I’ve liked to bury myself in a pile of them.
So I am me, but right now I am me with Wyatt on top of me. Wyatt Jones, with his soccer legs and swimmer’s shoulders and hair that smells like chlorine and the sun. Wyatt Jones, with eyes that burn when they look at you. He is above me. Under me. His skin on mine. My mouth on his.
My body is warm against the sheet, and my hand is where I’d like his to be. I kick the books away and they go crashing to the floor. My nose starts to itch and I scratch it. A hair tickles my forehead and I blow it away. Holy hell.
Breathe.
Concentrate.
Wyatt.
Wyatt.
And there he is again in all his naked glory.
Wyatt.
After a minute, a thousand little needles start prickling my skin.
He says, Are you sure?
For all his beauty, Wyatt Jones is famously shy. When he does speak, it’s in this soft, scratchy voice that implies great thoughtfulness. I’ve built an entire inner life for him in my head, one where he is kind and empathetic and sensitive, yet strong enough to pick up a girl—me, specifically—and throw her onto a bed.
Yes, I say. YES.
It’s you, Claude. It’s always been you.
Stop talking, Wyatt. Stop talking right now.
The needle pricks are spreading throughout my body, and Wyatt morphs into the boy I saw on a plane once, the one who stared right at me as he walked down the aisle. Now I am on that plane, dressed as a flight attendant—a stylish one, the kind on overseas flights. Red lipstick, red uniform. Or maybe navy because it goes better with my clown hair. I follow him to the bathroom and he pulls me in after him and locks the door, and picks me up in his big, strong hands and sets me on that little counter, the one with the sink, and I wrap my legs around him.