Chapter Twenty-Four
Twenty-Four
I FORGOT TO breathe for a second. The wind on our cabin balcony thrashed all around me.
But then I shook my head. “No. It was Finn.”
“It was me.”
What was Cooper doing right now? “It wasn’t.”
“How do you know?” Cooper demanded. “You had a blindfold on.”
“Because,” I said, digging in, “Finn was the one who got the dare.”
Cooper squinted. “Why does that prove he’s the one who did it?”
“Because!” I said, like that was a legitimate answer.
Because this was a bedrock, unchangeable fact of my life.
This was a basic cornerstone of my personality.
This was what I’d believed for almost twenty years.
Cooper couldn’t just go around changing facts!
It was like he’d said my parents weren’t my parents.
Or the sun rose in the west. Or the sky was made of water.
Some things just were what they were—and you couldn’t alter them without altering everything else.
I like to think of myself as somewhat mentally nimble.
But in this moment, under these circumstances? I just wasn’t.
“Look,” I said. “You can’t tell me I’ve been wrong about that kiss my whole life.”
“Yes, I can,” Cooper said. “Because it’s true.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Cooper, this isn’t funny.”
“JoJo, I’m not kidding.”
Cooper was leaning in, studying my eyes, waiting for me to believe him.
But I couldn’t just rewrite my life story in twenty seconds like that.
“You don’t believe me?” he said then.
I frowned. I didn’t know what to believe.
The wind was relentless. Without breaking eye contact, Cooper brought his hand to one end of the open tie draped against his shirt and yanked until it slithered free from his collar.
Then he gathered the tie up in his hands and said, “Do I have to prove it to you?”
“What are you doing?”
“You said you’d know that kiss anywhere. You said you could pick that kiss out of a lineup.”
“Cooper—”
“Let’s see you do it.”
He took a step closer, so I took a step back—and we kept going like that until I’d backed up against the separation wall between us and the next balcony.
Who was cornered now?
Then Cooper said, “You’re not the only person who could pick that kiss out of a lineup.”
“Cooper,” I asked. “What are you doing?”
He lifted the tie up, like he wanted to see if I’d object. “I’m changing the story of your life.”
“Are you blindfolding me right now?”
“I’m letting you see for yourself.”
“This isn’t going to work.”
“This is going to work.”
“You’re not the right person.”
“I’m exactly the right person.”
“You can’t do this!” I said.
“If you really want me to stop,” he said, meeting my eyes, “say so right now.”
He waited for my answer. He gave me a good several seconds.
But I guess I didn’t really want him to stop.
I could tell Cooper to stop in my sleep if I wanted to.
But I didn’t.
Finally, he said, “That’s a yes—yes?”
But saying yes felt like too much. So instead, I just said, “This is so dumb.”
“Hold still,” Cooper said next, placing the tie across my eyes. I felt the weight of his arms over my shoulders as he reached behind my head, and then his hands pushing my hair out of the way, and then the tug of the silk as he pulled everything taut.
“This isn’t going to work,” I said.
“Only one way to find out.”
Next, he started talking—his voice softer now, like he was telling me a secret.
“Pretend it’s that day. It’s after school, and our whole street gang is goofing around on the playground.
It’s spring, but it’s still cool out, and you’ve got a pink-and-purple argyle sweater on.
You’ve been playing so hard on the monkey bars that your flower barrette has slipped all the way down beneath your ear, and it’s just dangling there.
You’re waiting for the boy who was dared to kiss you to show up.
But he’s not showing up. Because he’s not going to show up.
He rode off on his bike with some other kids and ditched you.
“Luckily, you’ve got a friend—a really good friend, a devoted friend—who saw it all happen.
And he runs to find you and explain, so you won’t just sit there waiting until sundown.
But when he arrives, he sees how nervous you are in that blindfold, and how you’re fidgeting and biting your lips.
He sees how hopeful you are—like this moment might turn out to be something good in your life.
Then he sees you tuck your hair behind your ear and knock that barrette to the ground without even noticing.
“And he just can’t tell you. He can’t disappoint you. So he kisses you instead. Problem solved. Just a peck—it’s over as soon as it starts. And then, before he runs away, he picks up that barrette of yours off the ground and sticks it in his pocket.”
At that, I felt Cooper put one hand and then the other on my shoulders, just the way Finn had that day.
And then I felt him step close. And then I could just sense his warmth, or his breathing, or his presence, push through that force field we all wear around our bodies all the time that keeps us, so often, from ever getting close.
Was he really going to do this? Did he think he could re-create that kiss with any kind of historical accuracy? Did he think he could prove anything?
The real kiss on the real day all those years ago had been an age-appropriate ten-year-old peck.
But I guess Cooper had no interest in historical accuracy.
That’s not what he did.
Not at all. Not even remotely.
And we certainly weren’t ten anymore.
Cooper hovered close to my mouth for a good, long buildup of anticipation until I felt like a hot-air balloon—floating and drifting at the mercy of the wind.
Then he lifted one of his hands from my shoulder and cupped it behind my neck.
“That never happened,” I said.
“I know,” Cooper said.
Then he slid his other hand behind my waist.
“That never happened, either,” I protested. But weakly.
“I know that, too,” Cooper said.
I was practically lightheaded from all the waiting.
“Here’s another thing that never happened,” he said.
True, I couldn’t see right then. But, maybe because I couldn’t see, I could sense him. More than usual. More than ever before. I could hear his breath. I could sense his warmth. His hands on me shone like bright things in the universe—something to navigate by, like stars.
I couldn’t see what happened next, but I could feel it. I could anticipate his movements the way you sense the rhythm of a song. I could read my senses like sheet music, giving in to the crescendo of it all as Cooper—my lifelong friend Cooper—pressed his mouth to mine and kissed me.
Kissed me like …
Like …
Like his life depended on it.
He kissed me like nothing else existed. He kissed me out of time and space.
He kissed me like this one kiss was the answer to everything.
He brought us there and then he kept us there, pressing and kneading and cajoling me to soften and open and kiss him back.
Which—with no resistance at all—I did. And that’s when he shifted closer and brought the rest of his body into the project, pressing me into place against the wall.
It was insistent. And urging. Like an argument he had to win.
It might have given me a glimpse of eternity.
I can’t be sure.
At the minimum, it was very, very convincing.
Convincing of what? I don’t know.
Maybe of how everything can be totally wrong and exactly right at the same time?
One thing was certain: I didn’t need to know. Or maybe I’d known all along.
I just let that kiss have its way.
Cooper pressed and brushed and savored—and I did all those same things right back to him. It was as good as the hickey—all the shivers and the waves and the astonishment—but it was also better. Because this time, I got to kiss him back.
Had we just been fighting? I couldn’t for the life of me think why. I was melting, and flowing, and getting so lost—in ways that felt exactly like being found.
And then, abruptly, Cooper stopped.
And stepped back.
And then I was alone, chilled by the breeze. I put my hands back against the balcony partition to steady myself.
I waited for a second, still blindfolded—thinking for sure this couldn’t be the end. Why on earth would anyone ever stop doing something so lovely?
But we didn’t start up again.
I reached up in slo-mo to pull the tie down from my eyes like I was lost in a dream, and I saw Cooper right there, looking right at me like he was waiting for my answer—though any chance of clearing anything up with Cooper from my end was now completely gone.
My brain was fully scrambled.
“The same, right?” he said, searching my eyes, expecting me to agree. “Exactly the same.”
I’m surprised I could even corral enough breath to respond. “Not even close,” I said.
But I guess he didn’t realize I meant that in a good way.
At my answer, his expression hardened like a slammed door. He remembered he was angry, and I remembered he was, too.
I guess he must have thought I was sticking to my story. I was choosing Finn.
Finn, who, looking back, Cooper thought I’d just spent the night with.
A thought that seemed so laughable now.
But it was like I’d been drugged.
I just couldn’t break my daze. I stayed slumped against the wall and watched as Cooper turned away. He moved back inside and shoved the sliding door closed behind him.
For a minute or two, all I could do was stay braced and still—just me and the wind, chaotic and alone.
What just happened?
Had Cooper actually, truly just changed the story of my life?
I turned to watch him through the glass door, but the reflection of the sky blocked my view.
I stepped closer and leaned my forehead against the glass, looking through my own shadow.
He was moving around the room, opening and closing cabinets and drawers, and it was Cooper, of course …
but it was like I’d never seen him before.
The way his shoulder muscles flexed under his shirt.
The press and release of his calves with each step.
And his forearms—good god, his forearms—as he packed up his things.
Wait—as he what?
I slid the door open and stepped inside. “What are you doing?” I asked, alarm sobering me up.
“I’m done,” Cooper said. “I’m out.”
“Out? Out of what?”
“I can’t stay here,” Cooper said. “I’m losing my mind.”
“I’m losing my mind, too,” I said. “I’ll come with you.”
“You’re not coming with me,” Cooper said.
“But we still need to talk!” The daze was burning off now.
“I’m done talking,” Cooper said then. “I’m done with everything. I quit.”
“You quit? What is this—a job?”
“Worst job I ever had.”
“Are you—packing?”
“I’m leaving.”
“Leaving?” I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Was he getting off the ship—permanently? “Are you just going to live here? In the Bahamas?”
“I’ll find a prop plane or something.”
“A prop plane—back to London?”
“I can’t watch it anymore,” Cooper said.
“Watch what?”
“You making the worst possible choices for yourself every single time.”
“I don’t!”
But at that, Cooper dragged his eyes deliberately down my body to settle his gaze on my tragic, mangled, blistered feet, still in those ridiculous heels—and he stared at them until I looked down, too.
I mean, he wasn’t wrong. “Not every single time.”
But Cooper just shook his head. “I’m going.”
“Don’t go! I need to talk to you!”
“I’m done talking. Make your awful choices. Live your worst life. I’m done looking after you. Look after yourself for once.” He hoisted his bags onto his shoulder, and then he said, “And for god’s sake, put some better damned shoes on.”
Then he grabbed my hand and pressed something into it like he was tipping me.
And then he was out the door so fast, it was closed before I looked down to see what he’d handed me.
I unfurled my hand.
It was my flower barrette.
The one I’d lost on the playground when we were ten.