Chapter Twenty
I don’t go back into the dance. I can’t see Chase now, can’t prance around in a tiara, and I definitely can’t see Jasmine. Luckily, when someone does surface to find me in the hallway, it isn’t either of them—it’s Kiki.
“You know,” I say.
“I know.”
“You always did, didn’t you? How?”
Kiki taps her nose. “I have pretty excellent powers of deduction. Also, you stare at each other a lot when you think no one’s watching.
Like, a lot. And a few of the things you’ve each said about your summers line up, and that fire pit picture you texted us—Jasmine has a really similar one on Instagram.
Finally, I looked up her dad. It wasn’t hard from there. ”
“Kiki’s on the case.”
She smiles proudly. “Always.” Her face turns serious. “Look, I know Chase has been the dream for literally ever, but … how do you feel? Unless you don’t wanna talk about it.”
Do I wanna talk about it?
How do I feel?
THEN
Carter’s end-of-summer party is a lot like his beginning-of-summer party, which doesn’t have anyone complaining.
On the beach laughing and drinking and dancing and staring into the bonfire with everyone else, I know this is going to be the summer I think about a billion years from now.
I can’t believe I’m leaving tomorrow. I can’t believe I won’t be living steps away from the ocean anymore.
I can’t believe I’ll never fall off Derek’s Jet Skis again or get destroyed by Keisha and Carter at spades or have spa nights complete with Brea’s sheet masks.
I can’t believe this is it for me and Jasmine.
As much as I’ll miss everyone, it’s killing me that we’re spending our last night with a billion other people.
I keep trying to make eye contact with her, but every time I do, she’s swept away by someone wanting her to play flip cup, or I’m yanked into a selfie by Owen or Brea.
I keep wanting to drag her close, to imprint the feeling of her skin on mine, but I don’t have any excuses.
My mind can’t come up with a single justification for why I need to grab her hand right now, or how to pull her away for a walk along the water, just the two of us.
We’re all about the excuses, the setup, the ways we happen to fall onto each other’s mouths and hands.
It’s just what happens when you’re hanging out alone and watching a movie, or swimming, or lying in the hammock together, or spreading out on the grass to watch the stars, or taking pictures of sunsets, or feeling lazy in a canoe.
It’s just what happens for us over and over again and it’s so good I can’t stop thinking about it, wanting to kiss that spot on her neck, wanting to touch the incredibly soft skin on her shoulder blades, wanting to feel her hands tracing my hipbone on a path to making me see stars.
How can I not have an excuse for our last night?
Watching her flirt with Carter certainly isn’t helping any, so I decide to give myself a little breathing room and take that walk on the beach myself.
I have my phone to keep me company, and I scroll through pictures hoping the sight of Gia smiling hugely from a pyramid at cheer camp or Shannon posting a picture with yet another cute Parisian guy will get me excited enough about what I’m going back to that I’ll stop being sad about what I’m leaving behind.
But it’s Kiki’s latest post that stops me. She’s been working on her lettering, writing cheesy quotes in funky fonts and posting them to Instagram. Her newest is “Seize the Day,” written in swirly hot pink gothic letters, and it’s such an un-Kiki quote that it makes me laugh.
I’m still laughing when I take its completely cliché advice and retrace my steps on the beach right back to the party, to Jasmine, and whisper in her ear.
“Look, I don’t have a clever way to say this, but it’s my last night, so I’m going to set the bullshit aside. The only thing I want to do tonight is go back to your house and take our clothes off. Can I say that?”
For the longest minute in the world, I brace myself for a literal or metaphorical slap in the face, or worse.
The words came out easily enough, but my entire body is trembling.
Then she squeezes my hand and like magic it stops, long enough for me to make my rounds hugging and kissing everyone goodbye when Jasmine announces that we’re heading back.
I make promises to text and otherwise keep in touch but I barely even know what I’m saying because I’ve just flat-out told a girl I want to have sex with her and we’re on our way to do that and I feel like I’m gonna burst into flames.
We don’t say a word on our way back. We don’t say a word when we crash into each other the second we make it inside the house, kissing so furiously I expect one of us to draw blood.
There’s no talking as we pull at each other’s clothing and fall onto her bed, shutting and locking the door behind us.
There’s no talking, but it isn’t silent either.
For the first time, I don’t waste precious energy holding in every desperate sound that rises into my throat at the scrape of her nails on my skin.
I make no effort to hold still against the way her teeth have me writhing on the sheets.
This is the most in the moment I have ever been, and with every gasp of air I’m grateful for the scrap of honesty that got us here.
Beyond that, I’m not doing any thinking.
Her breathing goes fast and shallow as I kiss and touch down her body to her hip bones, and look up for an okay for more even though I’m not a hundred percent sure that I’m okay.
Her nodding is fast and furious but it’s the sight of her hands grasping the sheets with white-knuckled fists in anticipation that halts any hesitation I might’ve had at venturing into new territory.
It isn’t silent, not when she cries out minutes later, and not when our bodies find new ways to fit and rock together, and not when we grasp each other so tightly we leave claw marks in each other’s skin.
Every time I think we can’t get any closer, I learn I’m wildly underestimating us.
We spend so many tangled and sweaty hours exploring each other that I’m not even sure at what point I finally pass out.
It takes a second for the night to come rushing back, for me to remember why I’m completely naked in Jasmine’s bed and clutching a sheet around myself. I spent last night having sex—so much sex, incredible sex—with a girl. A girl I’m leaving behind today when my mom and I fly back to New York.
A girl I might never see again.
A girl who might’ve left me behind first.
Then I hear the clanging of pans out in the kitchen, and I’m filled with mixed emotions as I think about seeing Jasmine again after last night. But I only have a few hours left, and I still need to pack, so I’ll take being uncomfortable if it means I’m not missing my chance to say goodbye entirely.
I rummage around on the floor for my bra and underwear and grab shorts and a T-shirt from Jasmine’s drawers—I’ve certainly spent enough of this summer lifting her clothing.
But I still think oh, shit when I walk out of her room and see she’s not alone in the kitchen—Declan’s with her, sipping from a mug of coffee.
“Larissa! I thought you’d be packing.”
I don’t even know what to say. Jasmine and I have had plenty of sleepovers this summer but for some reason I am convinced he can tell I slept with his daughter last night in a very, very different way. I will my tongue to unstick itself but can’t seem to get a single word out.
“We wanted to hang out after the party, and Larissa fell asleep. I couldn’t, so I let her have the bed and passed out watching a movie on the couch,” Jasmine explains, pushing scrambled eggs around a skillet. “These are just about done, Dad.”
There’s no invitation for me to stay, and I really do have to pack, so I say my goodbyes and a lukewarm thank-you to Jasmine for letting me stay over.
We don’t talk when we hug goodbye.
It is, in fact, silent.
Later, at the airport, she texts me a single heart emoji. I text her one back.
It’s the last we ever speak until she shows up at Stratford High.
NOW
Do I wanna talk about it?
How do I feel?
“She thinks she’s in love with me.”
Kiki smiles without any trace of sarcasm. It’s weird and I don’t think I’ve ever seen that on Kiki’s face and I’m not sure what to do with it. “How’d hearing that feel?”
The first word that comes to mind is confusing.
I didn’t think love was in the equation.
I didn’t think feelings were even an option.
I don’t know what being in love means to her, and I definitely don’t know what it means to me.
I thought I was in love with Chase all those years, but that wasn’t this.
That made me feel feverish and ridiculous and like I wanted to follow him everywhere, to have done all these things with him.
But now I’ve done so many of those things, and it feels like what I did was check off a list.
With Jasmine, I don’t have a list. And I don’t want to follow her anywhere; I want to go everywhere together. I want to do things with her. I want us to make that list.
My feelings for her are so different from what I thought love was, but does that mean it’s not love? Does that mean it is love?
“God, I don’t know.”
Kiki tugs one of my curls. “I may not have any relationship experience, but I’m pretty sure that’s okay. It is for tonight, at least. Look—you’re Homecoming queen, and ditching Chase would be kinda public and humiliating. I don’t think you’re really looking to do that.”
“Definitely not,” I say quickly, my stomach sinking at the thought. “Chase has been amazing, and he’s having such a good time.”
“Well, you deserve that too. Jasmine is already gone—she called an Uber. So, here’s what I think.
Let’s finish out the night. Let’s go have fun.
No big decisions, no deciding your romantic future, no stress.
Just dancing and drinking and having one last big high school night.
Tomorrow, you can deal. What do you think? ”
I think … it feels like finally taking a breath. “I’m in.”
“Well, that is delightful,” says Kiki, linking her arm through mine, “because I am currently down a date and I could use the company.”