Chapter 1 #3
Could you fall in love with someone based only on a kiss in the dark?
“I’m positive I’ve never kissed you before,” he whispered the next time we pulled away.
“Oh, yeah?” I asked. I didn’t pull my arms away from him, even though I knew we probably didn’t have much longer together. It would feel too weird to speak into the dark like that, without any sense of where the other person was. “Why’s that?”
“Because I’m positive I would have remembered it.”
Generally, when a boy said something like that, I chalked it up to them just sweet talking me to get something.
Because they thought it would keep me happy and wanting to date them for that much longer, and though I wasn’t particularly proud of it, they were usually right.
But this boy didn’t know me and he had no reason to lie.
“I would’ve remembered it too,” I murmured back.
It was easy to be honest when I couldn’t see him and knew he couldn’t use my words against me later.
I didn’t feel him move, but he kissed me again, only briefly this time.
Just as he pulled away, there was another knock on the door.
My heart sank in disappointment as I realized our time together was finished.
“Thank you for this,” the boy whispered in my ear. He pulled his hands away. “I think it’s safe to say you were the best kiss of my life.”
“Wait—” But my words were useless because before I could finish the sentence—before I could even decide how I wanted to finish it—the door opened and he slipped out into the dark hallway, leaving me alone like he was never even there.
Just like that, it was over.
I sighed deeply and took a few seconds to run my fingers through my hair and smooth down my clothes.
I couldn’t see anything, of course, so I had no idea if I’d made myself any more presentable, but I hoped that I wouldn’t look like I’d just been making out with someone in a dark closet, at least. Once I was sure that it was safe for me to leave, I cracked the door open and slipped out.
Nobody batted an eye in my direction as I started down the hallway, intent on going back to the backyard to get something else to drink—something stronger than a Coke, preferably.
I didn’t make it far, though, before a hand wrapped around my bicep and yanked me back the way I came.
“Hey!” I yelled as I stumbled back.
“Come on.” Matthew’s voice was tight and angry. Of course. I should have guessed he was the one grabbing me. Who else would it be, really?
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked. “You look like you want to kill someone.”
His only response was to pull me harder down the basement stairs and into the empty laundry room down there.
The music and yelling from the party were faint down here, making the place feel strangely isolated.
I had a feeling we weren’t supposed to be down here, but I didn’t risk mentioning that to Matthew right now when he looked so mad.
He finally let go of me and crossed his arms over his chest. Between his stance and the way he was glaring, I felt like he was towering over me.
“What?” I repeated.
“Tell me you did not kiss him,” he said. I just blinked at him. What the heck was he talking about? Matthew didn’t care if I kissed people, and I definitely wouldn’t care about his feelings about it, even if he did.
“Who?” I asked. There was only one person I had kissed this week, and I couldn’t think of a single reason why Matthew would care about the closet boy.
“You know who.”
“I honestly have no idea what we are talking about right now.”
“We’re talking about the fact that you just kissed my friend,” Matthew said, throwing an arm toward the stairs like I wouldn’t know where it had happened.
“Your friend?” I squeezed my eyes shut for a second and shook my head. What were the chances that of everyone I could have ended up in that closet with, it was one of his friends? Why couldn’t the boy have been somebody from Falcon High or something instead? “How do you know?”
Matthew snorted. “Don’t play stupid, Madison—I saw you both leaving the closet, and he told me you were playing seven minutes in heaven.”
I felt like the world was tipping and turning under me. I thought I would be sick if I stayed there for much longer. One of my brother’s friends told me I was the best kiss of his life. I couldn’t decide whether this was better or worse than having to live without knowing who it was forever.
“Did he say it was me?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter if he—”
“Did he or didn’t he, Matthew?”
“No. But I saw you coming out and—”
“I’m not denying that I kissed him.” I pressed the base of my palms to my eyes and took a deep breath. How had everything gone so wrong so quickly? “We weren’t playing seven minutes in heaven.”
“He—”
I was too tired to have an argument with him about this. “It was an anonymous game, Matthew. I didn’t see who he was, and he didn’t see who I was.”
“That’s a stupid game.”
“Well, it’s not like I made it up,” I said. I dropped my hands again and looked up at him pathetically. “Who was it?”
“What?”
“I never saw his face. I don’t know who we’re talking about right now. So… who was he?”
Matt frowned. “I’m not sure I should tell you.”
“Why not?”
“I think it’s better if neither of you knows,” Matt said. He backed up a couple of steps, and I sighed in relief. Now it felt like we were actually having a conversation instead of him deciding whether he wanted to fight me. “That way, nothing else can come of it.”
“You really think it’s that easy?” I asked.
“You think I’ll just forget about this if you don’t tell me?
Because I promise that is not going to happen.
And if you don’t tell me right now, then I promise I will ask every single one of your friends if they participated in this game until I find out who it is. ”
Matt knew me well enough to know that I would follow through on my threat, which I was pretty sure was the only reason why he looked away angrily and muttered, “Charlie.”
It took a good ten seconds for the thought to sink in and a lot longer than that for me to properly understand the implications of it.
“No,” I said. “No. There’s no way it could have been him.”
“What, you think I would just make this up for fun?”
“He said he was going back to the pool.” I was grasping at straws here, but I was desperate for any reason that could prove this was some bizarre mistake.
Anything that could reassure us both that Matthew’s best friend in the world had not just said I was the best kiss of his life.
“He was going to lifeguard for those girls. And—”
“He came inside instead,” Matthew said flatly. “I saw him.”
“No,” I whispered. But the reality was staring me in the face, and I could do nothing to avoid it.
I kissed Charlie Owen.
I kissed my brother’s best friend.
And worst of all… I wanted to do it again.
“It can never happen again, Madison,” Matthew said as if he was reading my mind.
“I know,” I said distantly. He was right.
While part of me wanted to fight back and say he couldn’t boss me around like that, we both knew it wouldn’t do any good.
Even if I decided I didn’t care what Matthew thought, I knew that Charlie did.
He would never cross his best friend just for me. “Are you going to tell him?”
“No,” Matt said immediately. “He doesn’t need to know.”
I knew he was right, but I also knew I wouldn’t be able to keep the secret forever.
Sure, I could hold it in for now, but it would come out one day.
Probably not for a while and not until it was so late that it wouldn’t even matter anymore, but one day, I promised myself, Charlie Owen would know it was me in that closet.
One day, I would kiss him again.