His face gets serious again. “What you wrote here…” He fingers the note, folding it and unfolding it, his eyes dazzling, swirling with gold. “The last bit…the hero thing…how did you—?”
My heart is beating frantically, and for one second I think he knows—I think he remembers. The silence is heavy between us, everything past and remembered and forgotten and wanted swinging there like a pendulum. “How did I what?” I can barely breathe the words.
He sighs and shakes his head, gives me a weak smile. “Nothing. Forget it. It’s stupid.”
“Oh.” I realize I’ve been holding my breath, and I exhale, looking away so he won’t see how disappointed I am. “Thanks for your rose, by the way.”
Of all the roses I’ve gotten it’s the only one I kept. It’s my favorite, I’d said, when Marian Sykes delivered it to me.
She looked up at me, startled, and then looked around, as though I couldn’t possibly be talking to her. When she realized I was, she blushed and smiled.
You have so many, she said shyly.
The problem is I can never keep them alive, I said. I have, like, a black thumb.
You have to cut the stems on an angle, she said eagerly, then blushed again. My sister taught me that. She used to like to garden. She turned away, biting her lip.
You should take them, I said.
She stared at me for a second as though suspecting a joke. Like, to keep? she said, reminding me of Izzy.
I’m telling you, I can’t have any more flower homicides on my conscience, I said. You could take them home. Do you have a vase?
She paused for a fraction of a second more and then broke into a dazzling smile, transforming her whole face. I’ll keep them in my room, she said.
Kent cocks one eyebrow. “How do you know that I’m the one who sent it?”
“Come on.” I roll my eyes. “No one else draws weird cartoons for a living.”
He puts a hand on his chest, acting offended. “Not for a living. For the love of it. Besides, they’re not weird.”
“Whatever. Then thanks for your totally normal note.”
“You’re welcome.” He grins. We’re standing close enough that I can feel the heat coming off him.
“So are you going to be my knight in shining armor or what?”
Kent does a little bow. “You know I can’t resist a damsel in distress.”
“I knew I could count on you.” The hallways are empty now. Everyone is at lunch. For a moment we just stand there smiling at each other. Then something softens in his eyes and my heart soars. Everything in me feels fluttering and free, like I could take off from the ground at any second. Music, I think, he makes me feel like music. Then I think, He’s going to kiss me right here, in the math wing of Thomas Jefferson High School, and I almost pass out.
He doesn’t, though. Instead he reaches out and touches my shoulder once, lightly. When he removes his fingers I can still feel them tingling on my skin. “Until tonight, then.” A flicker of a smile. “Your secret better be good.”
“It’s amazing, I promise.” I wish I could memorize every single thing about him. I want to burn him into my mind. I can’t believe how blind I was for so long. I start to back away before I do something wildly inappropriate, like jump on top of him.
“Sam?” he stops me.
“Yeah.”
His eyes are doing that searching thing again, and now I understand why he told me before that he could see through me. He’s actually been paying attention. I feel like he’s reading my mind right now, which is more than a little embarrassing, since most of my thoughts for the moment involve how perfect his lips are.
He bites his lip and shuffles his feet a little. “Why me? For tonight, I mean. We haven’t really talked in, like, seven years….”
“Maybe I’m making up for lost time.” I keep backing away from him, skipping a little.
“I’m serious,” he says. “Why me?”
I think of Kent holding my hand in the dark, leading me through rooms crisscrossed with moonlight. I think of his voice lulling me to sleep, carrying me off like a tide. I think of time stilling as he cupped my face and brought his lips to mine.
“Trust me,” I say, “it can only be you.”
SECOND CHANCES
Kent’s Valogram was only the first of several adjustments I made in the Rose Room this morning, and as soon as I enter the cafeteria I can tell that Rob got his. He breaks away from his friends and lopes up to me before I can even make it over to the lunch line (where I’m planning on ordering a double roast beef sandwich). As always, his stupid Yankees hat is barely balanced on his head, twisted around to the side like he’s in some rap video from 1992.