CHAPTER 7 #2
“Want to do another?” He plucked up another fallen flower, this time holding it out so I could set the lighter to it.
I just watched him for another moment. “Does this make you feel better? Lighting things on fire?”
“I’ve never tried. I don’t want to get in trouble.”
“With your parents?”
Beck’s expression fell, but he quickly turned away before I could see it clearly. He dropped the flower and stood, dusting his palms free of dirt. “Maybe you should go back inside,” he said. “Before someone comes out here and sees what you did to the garden.”
“You think I’ll get in trouble?” For a small moment, the thought filled me with glee.
Yes, my parents would be embarrassed that their daughter made such a mess.
They’d finally pull their sights off Destelle and onto me.
I reached the lighter out toward the rosebush, to a budding bloom set in the green instead of the ruined flowers in the dirt. “They’d at least notice me.”
“You don’t want this kind of attention.” Beck walked away. “You don’t want their disappointment.”
D-I-S-A-P-P-O-I-N-T-M-E-N-T. A big word, too easy to spell.
The rose caught the flame, quickly withering to ash.
As it withered, though, so did something in my chest. Disappointment.
I knew what it looked like on my parents’ faces—I’d seen it when they’d looked at my sister all those years ago, when they caught her in a lie.
Disappointment. Shame. I’d rather die than see those expressions on their faces when they looked at me.
I scooped up dirt and threw it on the rosebush flame, blowing on it like a candle to knock it out. Smoke sizzled from the bush, but the fire was gone.
Clicking the lighter shut, I got to my feet, turning toward Beck. “You can’t stay here,” I told him where he now stood at the chess table. He looked down at its glossy squares, touching a finger to them. “They’ll blame you.”
“I’ll hide behind the tree. They won’t see me, just like you didn’t.”
“Come inside with me.” I came closer, my bare feet smushing down the warm grass. “We can sit with Jamie. He’s probably off in the library—”
“I don’t want to go inside.” Beck didn’t lift his dark head, and if his hair were any longer, it would’ve fallen into his eyes. “I don’t want to sit with Jamie. I don’t like being with anyone.”
My lips parted as if he’d knocked all the air from my lungs. “What about me?”
Beck’s shoulders rose and fell hard. He still stayed focused on the table in front of him, as if it were some lifeline to save him.
“You have to like me at least a little,” I mumbled, words still barely above a whisper. “Because I like you a lot.”
It was my first time confessing to a boy—and really, because it was my first time liking one. Really liking one, not just thinking some celebrity was handsome or something like that. This was serious. From the moment I first laid eyes on Beck, it’d been serious.
“No, you don’t. No one does.” Beck reached out then, as sudden as a lash, prying the lighter from my grip. It was like my confession suddenly made him angry. “The other kids don’t like me. Your dad doesn’t like me. My parents only pretend they like me when other people are around.”
I frowned. “My dad?” I didn’t think Dad seemed swayed one way or the other.
Beck slammed the lighter down on the chessboard. “No one likes me,” he repeated, scowling. “Least of all perfect girls like you.”
Perfect girls. The words sounded ugly. P-E-R-F-E-C-T. The people inside thought they were perfect. My parents thought they were perfect. My sister thought she was perfect.
“I’m not perfect,” I told him, and it was like a declaration, almost as grand as a confession itself. The crickets in the garden even fell silent, as if their breath had been taken away, too. “And I really, really like you, Beckham Jennings.”
His voice was low. “Do you mean it?”
There were butterflies trapped in my chest; I was sure of it. “I mean it.”
When Beck finally lifted his head, I moved. As quickly as he’d moved a moment ago, plucking his lighter from me, I moved. That was another moment—a time to turn back before it was too late. In the scant second that stretched as I moved, I knew I had enough time to stop, but I didn’t.
The narrow window of time was closing.
I pressed my lips to Beck’s.
I’d never kissed anyone before in my life.
Honestly, I turned away the few times my parents ever kissed in front of me, and closed my eyes when people kissed on TV, so I didn’t know exactly what I was doing.
I kissed Beck anyway, with all that I knew how to, reaching to grab his hand and squeeze it tight.
His lips were soft as I pushed against them, my heart thundering loud, so loud, in my ears.
I couldn’t think of any words to spell—I could hardly think at all.
I felt warm all over, as if the sun had risen from the horizon to burn between us.
A soft crackling was in my ears, and at first I thought it was my heart cracking under so much pressure, but then I realized it must’ve been the leaves in the tree rustling. Cheering on my first kiss.
Beck’s fingers slowly curled around my own, his lips returning the pressure, and he kissed me back. The quiet boy of Alderton-Du Ponte was finally kissing me back.
The heat became hotter, except not in my chest—at my back. As if the sun had appeared behind me. When I opened my eyes, I found Beck’s face, and the rest of the garden behind him, glowing orange. The crackling sound was not the leaves in the tree shifting—it was the rosebush behind us.
Burning.
The whole row of greenery, up in flames.
Too late.