28. Kate
“Impossible,” I say, throwing myself onto the couch.
“So then why are you still swiping right on these randos?” Ellie glares at me from the other end of the couch, wrapped in my fuzzy polka-dot blanket.
“I just can’t risk what we have based off one kiss—especially one concussed kiss. He doesn’t even remember it! He’s already back to his usual broody self and everything.”
I skim the most recent match that graces my screen.
Glen.
An accountant with a pet guinea pig and a weird collection of Russian nesting dolls. I assumed it was a photo of his grandmother’s house, but he was eager to confirm that they are, indeed, his dolls. Vintage. Timeless. Dolls. With orange-painted hair and thick triangle-shaped eyebrows.
“Did I tell you about the first time Benny kissed me?” Ellie swoons dramatically as she remembers her first kiss with my cousin.
“Ugh, yes, Eleanor. You’ve told me many a time how perfect, and wonderful, and majestic it was,” I say, a damsel-like, high-pitched emphasis to my words, “giving you these feelings you didn’t even realize you could feel.” I flutter my lashes and fake faint, just for her benefit. She’s unamused, with her lips pursed, as she gives me an I-hate-you-sometimes face.
“Anyway…” She sits up straighter as Frankie, the disgusting naked cat my cousin loves with every fiber of his being, readjusts in her arms to present me with a rather unwelcome display of her wrinkly, bare backside. “That kiss was impossible to forget too. And it’s hard to imagine having that with anyone else. Just think about this Glen guy.” She waves at my phone dismissively. “How would he feel if he went to kiss you, and you’re over there thinking about kissing Malcolm?”
She has a point.
But I can’t worry about it. It was one kiss, and half of the participants were disoriented and a tad unhinged. The thoughts of Malcolm’s playfulness and flirting come flooding into my mind, sending a tingle of excitement up my spine.
“I’ll forget it eventually—”
“You just said it was impossible to forget.”
“Ellie! Can you not recall every little detail for once? We’re forgetting it happened.”
“We?” she asks, offended. Knowing her, she will cling to this information like it’s her source of oxygen, waiting for any moment she has to ask about it. I love her, but she’s the worst little meddler that’s ever existed. And she’s a therapist? I feel bad for her patients.
“Yes, we. Now drop it.”
Just when I think Ellie is going to press me again, she lets out a small sigh of defeat and strokes the feline in her lap. “Let’s watch something.”
The first commercial shows a group of girls skipping down the street—probably an advertisement for some beverage or tampon. One of the girls is wearing a miniature veil in her hair and a white sash that says Miss to Mrs. in silver glitter. The girls with her are all wearing different colored wigs, snapping photos of the bride-to-be doing a plethora of poses by the traffic light. My gut twists at the sight, the sheer joy she must be feeling as her big day approaches.
The pit of loneliness starts to stretch in my stomach, emptying me out from head to toe, physical effects of bleh washing over me as the commercial fades.
I have no idea what’s wrong with me. For years, I was content with where I was at in life. The desire to be with someone was so far out of my mind I was starting to think it would never come back to focus, and I was fine with that. But then, like the flip of a switch, everything changed. Watching my friends get engaged was my undoing.
The universe clearly wants me to avoid this downward spiral by redirecting my attention to a slew of faculty messages, all revolving around the biggest event of the term…prom. Emma has been on a scary level of party planner lately. Maybe it’s the pregnancy hormones. Instead of nesting, she’s planning. Ellie groans as she reads through the list of messages from her side of the couch. We don’t speak of the tyrant Emma has been lately. It’s an unspoken fact that she’s been a tad exhausting.
EJones:Decorating starts tomorrow!!! One week, people!! - Emma
She has had four “urgent faculty meetings” since last week, all revolving around prom.
Ugh, prom.
Every year, we’re required to stand around in a humid gymnasium, guarding the punch bowls, watching the bathrooms, and separating the grinding Neanderthals from one another in the middle of the dance floor. I once called it our final battle of the year. Teachers versus students. Malcolm just balked at me the first year, telling me I didn’t know how to be intimidating. Let’s just say he was painfully surprised at the work we put in to keep the kids sober and abstinent the entire night.
After an evening full of rom-coms and wedding planning, I head to Lola’s so I can relieve her sitter. Helping plan Ellie’s wedding has been a mixed bag of emotions, adding in her constant, “We don’t have to do this,” interruptions, and I am spent. My duty as a bridesmaid is to help, even if it threatens to swallow me whole in the process. It comes with the territory.
I pull up to Lola’s house just as Malcolm is taking out the trash. He gives a small nod before pinning his eyes to the ground. “How was wedding planning?” he asks as he beelines for his truck, not giving any indication that he really wants to hear how it went.
“It, uh…went well.” I stand in the middle of the yard. “How was Lola?”
Looking over the roof of his truck, he laughs. “She kept asking me to take her to the casino. I compromised and let her beat me at blackjack.” His laugh is short, restricted, like he’s restraining himself around me. The thought of Malcolm not being himself around me sends a sharp pain down into my stomach. He’s felt so far away since we got back from camp, and that was the exact opposite of what I wanted. I just wanted things to go back to the way they were, where he was my best friend, the person I shared everything with and went to for pity parties over shared tubs of coconut ice cream. These last few days have sucked. Lola’s health, being back in class, and now this weird, stand-offish interaction has been enough to send me crawling to the nearest grocery store to empty out their supply.
I grip my elbows, the distance from him feeling almost unbearable, and hug myself. The loneliness ignites in my chest even more as he forces himself to keep from looking at me. “Well, thank you. For everything.” I ignore the stinging in my eyes and force a smile.
“Always.”
I watch him climb into his truck, giving me a small wave before he pulls out of the drive. Dirt stirs up around his tires, leaving a cloudy trail behind.
Tears are streaming down my face before he’s fully out of sight. The distance he’s left in his truck feels more than just physical. I think it’s safe to say I’ve done what I didn’t want to do and made things weird with Malcolm. A small breeze tickles my ear as I stand on the front porch, staring into the darkness, a quiet whisper of, “Don’t lose him.”
Blaming him for kissing me in such a way that I can’t think straight might seem like the obvious choice, but the concussion speaks for itself. He doesn’t even remember it. He doesn”t remember the feeling of his lips on mine, and he probably never will. But I do, and that’s the issue. That kiss is burned into my brain, obliterating everything in its path. I can’t let something like this come between us. I won’t let it. So, I have to backtrack and make things right before I lose my best friend.
Over a kiss.
An impossible-to-forget kiss.
“Alright, people! We have five days, and this place looks horrendous!” Emma projects across the gymnasium floor with her hands on her hips, stewing over our lackluster attempt at decorating. The theme is A Night Books Are Written About—a theme I’m still trying to wrap my head around as I glue old book pages to the inside of vintage picture frames.
“So, this theme…” I trail off, trying desperately to rid myself of the glue residue that encases my fingers. “What does it mean?”
Emma scoffs at me. Not just a light scoff, but a forceful, how-dare-you-not-get-it type of exhale that has me wishing I had kept my mouth shut. “Books are tangible representations of life, and love, and stories you dream of.” She waves her arms overhead, as though giving a world-changing speech, and I wince in regret even more. Emma on an artistic, life-is-better-with-art tangent is my least favorite version of her. She gets very pompous, and it takes her a long time to come back to Earth. “Books are art in the simplest of forms,” she continues, “speaking to us in a thousand different ways. You know George R.R. Martin said he has lived a thousand lives because—”
“He reads,” we all say in a monotone unison before she can finish.
She jabs a finger in the air at us individually—first at Benny on top of the eight-foot ladder, weaving string lights around the basketball hoop, then at Ellie who is knee deep in glitter and hot glue, then at me with my plastered page fingers, and then behind me.
“Don’t shove that finger at me. I just got here,” Malcolm grumbles.
I turn and see him carrying a giant wooden sign—probably something Emma forced him to make by hand—as he sets it down and presents it to our dictator.
It’s a huge carved, wooden sign, standing just a few inches taller than him, painted cream with intricate vines and small books engraved around the border, with the words Glendale Prom 2024 in deep red painted script at the top. It”s beautiful.
Emma gasps and clasps her hands at her chest, then sniffles, “It’s perfect.” Her tyrant aura fades as she gives Malcolm a hug, easing the tension in all of us. He winces at the affection, trying to avoid colliding with her growing belly before conceding and hugging her back. I catch his eyes for a moment, the icy blue warms at me for a moment before freezing over again.
Don’t lose him.
It’s probably just me overthinking, but this whole going-back-to-normal thing is starting to feel less and less friendly than before. Maybe I became so engrossed in his closeness that anything besides that is jarring. Or maybe it’s the fact that I can’t get the thought of his lips out of my head. Or his hands. Or his scruffy jaw rubbing against my cheek.
I press my fingers to my pulse point, the beat erratic and bounding, as I watch the corners of his lips twitch up in conversation as he focuses on Emma and not me. Why is this bothering me so much? He’s allowed to have friends other than me. He’s allowed to talk to other people and not immediately come up to me. Get over yourself, Katherine.
“Dude, it looks so good!” Benny says, climbing down from the ladder.
Malcolm nods. “Well, I still have to finish the banners—”
“I thought I was in charge of the banners?” Ellie asks from the floor, insult pinching her eyebrows.
“Well…” Emma gnaws on her lip. “His are back-ups. In case yours…” She trails off as she gestures to the unsightly crinkled banner at Ellie’s knees. The letters are different sizes and off center, angling toward the corner. A huge blob of glitter from where she dropped the bottle earlier has now been turned into a lumpy moon, with a Sharpie border encircling it.
She gazes up at all of us. “Is it bad?” I have to bite my lip to keep from giggling at the sincerity in her voice.
“It’s beautiful, babe,” Benny says, rubbing her back. “We will definitely use it, won’t we?” He eyes Emma and me for support. I look away. His puppy-dog eyes are unbearable sometimes.
“We. Will. Use. It.” Emma says through gritted teeth.
“Maybe in the bathroom,” Malcolm mumbles quietly to me.
The response is startling. I look around to see if anyone else heard him or if it was really just for my ears only. I turn to face him and watch as his smile deepens before he gives me a wink and focuses on the banner at our feet. The glitter reflects the sunlight and shimmers under us, accentuating the silver in his eyes.
“Hi,” I breathe. I feel my heart hammer in my chest as his smile widens, his perfect teeth on display.
“Hey,” he whispers softly, still eyeing the banner.
I’ve missed you. It’s all I can think and all I want to say. Even standing a foot away from him, he feels so far away. He scratches his jaw, and it sends a jolt through me, the memory of that scruff rubbing against my face and neck plowing through my mind with force. It threatens to throw me into hysterics right here in the middle of the gym. I can’t deny that I want to kiss him again, that I can’t stop thinking about it. But I’d be kissing my best friend. A man older than me, a man with a different life than me, and different interests. I can’t imagine Malcolm wanting to be with someone like me. A girl so flippant and erratic at times. A girl who can’t commit to a paint color in her kitchen because her mood changes like the seasons. I have eight different colored brush strokes in the center of my island, welcoming guests. Malcolm has one color throughout his entire house—white.
“Where is your brain at right now?” he whispers to me, leaning so close that his minty coffee breath tingles the corners of my mouth. I blink away from his lips and watch him rake his fingers through his tousled hair. “Do you need some food?”
My stomach growls in response.
“Come on, let’s get out of here.” He tugs on the hem of my shirt.
I feel elated for the chance to spend time together, hope swelling inside me at the chance to make things right. We can get back to normal. Maybe we just need more time—pending the universe ridding me of the lingering memory of his tongue gliding over mine, of course.
That’s all we need. Time. Time to get back to the way things were, hanging out like the pals we are.
Just the two of us.
“We’ll join you!” Benny says.
Or not.