12 | The Treehouse
Twelve years ago. Spring.?
We were in the treehouse, the one in my backyard that my dad had built when I was eight—too small for us now, fifteen and seventeen, knees almost touching in the narrow space, the wood still warm from a whole day of sun. But we still came here when we needed to talk. We always had.
Tessa was nervous. I could tell by the way she was picking at the hem of her shirt, methodical and absent, the way she did when she was working something out. I’d been watching her do that for years. I knew every version of her nervous.
I knew too many things about her. That was the problem.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“T.”
She sighed. “It’s stupid.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“I’m stressed about the homecoming dance.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Why? You’re going with Jake. He’s fine.”
Jake Matthews was not fine. Jake Matthews was exactly the kind of guy who thought showing up for someone was the same as just showing up, and Tessa deserved better than that. I’d thought it for months and said none of it because it wasn’t my place and she hadn’t asked.
“I know. It’s not that.” She paused, looking at her hands. “It’s just—everyone’s going to be there. And I don’t know what I’m doing. And what if I mess something up?”
“You won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.” I shifted closer, close enough that I could see the faint scatter of freckles across her nose that she’d been trying to cover with makeup since freshman year for reasons I’d never understood.
“I really wish I could just go with you,” she said.
“You can.” The words came out before I could think better of them.
“What?”
“We can go together if you want.”
Something crossed her face—surprise, maybe, or something softer than that. My chest did something stupid.
Then she shook her head. “You’re already going with Sarah.”
“I can cancel.”
“Theo—”
“I’m serious.”
She’d find someone else. It wasn’t like she was my girlfriend or anything. And Sarah was fine—nice, easy to talk to, completely unremarkable in every way that Tessa wasn’t.
She was quiet for a moment. “You’d really do that?”
“Yeah.”
She smiled—small but real, the one that I liked the most.
“Thank you. But it’s okay. I’ll be fine.”
She always said that. She always meant it. She never needed saving and somehow that only made me want to be there more.
We sat in silence for a while, the sun dropping behind the trees and pulling the warmth with it, shadows stretching long across the yard below.
“Can I ask you something?” she said finally.
“Always.”
“Have you kissed anyone yet?”
The question landed somewhere I wasn’t prepared for. “What?”
“Have you? Kissed anyone?”
I hesitated. It felt like admitting to something—that I’d been waiting, maybe, though I hadn’t let myself think about who I was waiting for.
“No.”
“Really?”
“Really.” I looked at her. “Have you?”
“No.” She picked at her shirt again, cheeks going faintly pink. “That’s the problem.”
“How is that a problem?”
“Because everyone else has. And dance is coming. And what if he tries to kiss me and I don’t know what I’m doing?”
The idea of Jake Matthews kissing her sat in my chest like a stone I couldn’t shift.
“You’ll figure it out,” I said.
“But what if I’m bad at it?”
“You won’t be.”
“How do you know?”
“Because—” I stopped.
Looked at her.
Red hair catching the last of the light, gone amber and warm at the edges. Blue eyes wide and genuinely worried, fixed on mine like I might actually have an answer. The freckles she hated. The way she bit the inside of her lip when she was embarrassed.
I’d been looking at her my whole life. I still wasn’t tired of it.
Something moved through my chest—slow, familiar, the thing I’d been calling friendship for years because the alternative was too complicated to hold.
“Because,” I said again, quieter, “you’re perfect at everything.”
She laughed softly, and her cheeks went a shade pinker. “That’s not true.”
“It is.”
The air between us shifted. I felt it the way you feel weather changing—pressure, charge, the sense that something was about to happen.
“Theo?”
“Yeah?”
“Would you—” She stopped. Her fingers stilled on the hem of her shirt. “Would you kiss me?”
My heart kicked hard against my ribs. “What?”
“Just—just for practice. So I know what I’m doing before homecoming.”
Practice. The word landed somewhere it had no business hurting.
I should have laughed it off, made a joke, put distance between us and the thing I’d been pretending not to feel for longer than I could honestly remember.
I should have said no.
I leaned in instead.
“Okay,” I said.
Her eyes widened. “Really?”
“Yeah.” My voice came out lower than I intended. “If you really want it.”
“I really want it.”
I moved closer. She was warm and still and I could smell the strawberry lip balm she’d worn since she was twelve, and for a second I just—stayed there, close enough to feel her exhale against my mouth, giving her time to change her mind.
She didn’t.
“You sure?” I asked.
“I’m sure.”
I kissed her.
Soft. Careful.
Her lips were warm and she tasted like synthetic strawberries.
Neither of us moved.
And then her hand came up and touched my face—palm against my jaw, tentative at first, then certain—and that was it. Whatever I’d been holding back—gone.
I kissed her harder. My free hand found her waist without thinking, fingers curling against the fabric of her shirt. She shifted closer—just an inch, just enough—and the movement pulled the hem up slightly, and suddenly my thumb was against bare skin.
She made a small sound against my mouth.
I went very still.
Then she pressed closer instead of pulling away, and I stopped thinking entirely.
Not thinking about the dance or the word practice or any of the hundred reasons this was going to make everything more complicated.
Just her—the warmth of her skin under my thumb, the way she tilted her head like she knew what she was doing even though she’d just told me she didn’t, the way her fingers tightened against my jaw like she was afraid I’d stop.
I wasn’t going to stop.
When we finally pulled apart, we were both breathing differently.
“Was that okay?” I asked. My voice came out rough.
“Yeah.” Hers was soft. Unsteady. “That was—yeah.”
Neither of us moved.
The treehouse felt smaller than it had ten minutes ago. The wood was still warm under my hands, the last of the light was turning amber through the gaps in the boards, and Tessa sat six inches away with flushed cheeks, a slightly swollen lip, and eyes that wouldn’t quite meet mine.
I should have said something. Made a joke. Given her an easy way back to normal.
I couldn’t think of a single word.
She was picking at the hem of her shirt again—that same absent motion, except her hands weren’t steady the way they usually were. I watched her fingers slow. Stop.
“Theo?”
“Yeah?”
She looked up at me then. Really looked—the way she did when she was about to say something she’d been working up to, the way I’d learned meant she’d already decided and just needed to say it out loud.
“I want you to take me to the dance. After all.”
Something warm cracked open in my chest.
I looked at her for a long moment—at her freckles, her flushed cheeks, the girl I’d known my whole life now looking at me like maybe she was seeing something new.
“You sure?” I asked.
“I’m sure.”
“Fine,” I said, trying to sound casual and failing completely. “It’s a date.”
Her smile was brilliant.
I leaned in and kissed her again—softer this time, slower. Not practice. Not for any reason I was willing to name out loud.
A promise neither of us put into words.
We never talked about it again.
The fire in Nate’s living room had burned lower. Tessa was still in my arms.
The game had moved on, and someone was telling a story about spring break while people laughed around us.
I looked at her.
She was already looking at me.
And I wondered if she was thinking about it too.
About the fact that we’d called it a date.
And never went.
????
Sooooo... they never made it to that dance?
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