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the collection I've got going on my bed. "What chapter is the test on?"
"Seven. I think."
He readjusts his baseball cap, sending a curl of his scent just under my nose. It smells like sticky
sweat on skin, like worn-out cologne expired over the day, like pasty musk deodorant mixed
with green-apple shampoo. A smell I want to bottle so I can open it up at will and wash it all
over me.
"So why do you think your grades have slipped?" he asks.
"I don't know," I say. "I guess I just have other stuff on my mind."
"Oh yeah?" He closes his book. "Like what?"
I flip the pages forward and back in my textbook, my eyes scanning down the review questions
in chapter ten, even though the test is on chapter seven.
"If there's something bothering you, you can tell me," he says. "Did you get another prank after
we hung up?"
"Relax, then. He's not calling now, is he? Maybe he knows I'm here."
"Why do you say that?" I ask.
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"I don't know. Maybe he only wants to call when you're alone. Or at least when it's just girls
around. Maybe a guy would intimidate him."
I feel myself swallow. Chad's eyes travel over my neck to notice the gesture.
"I wish he would call while I was here," he says. "Why?" I ask.
"Because at least you'd know for sure it wasn't me." Yikes! A huge allegation, but I can't object.
"Is that how you think I feel?"
He shifts from Drea's bed to mine, plunking down atop a bunch of papers, making me scoot over
to avoid hip touchage. "I don't know. How do you feel?"
I focus down on my notebook, on the three-dimensional trapezoid scribbled near the spiral. I
can't look at him. I can't answer what he's asking me--the same question that's been looming over
our heads for the three years we've known each other.
I flip a page in my notebook to stall. "How do I feel about what?"
I feel him get all frustrated. He swivels his baseball cap around so that the visor sticks out in
back. 'About me?" he says. "How do you feel about me?"
I can't believe he's actually saying it. Actually asking it in real, live, verbal language. I look
around the room for something, some idea to segue myself out of this line of questioning. There,
sticking out from beneath his left butt- cheek, is one of my lab reports.
"You're sitting on my nanoclusters," I say.
"Huh?"
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Did I really just say that? I motion with a nod at the report beneath his perfectly rounded butt
cheeks, and he slides the thing out, all mangled from sittage. Still, the newly formed butt-
indentations in the soft white paper almost make me want to frame it.
"Just tell me," he says--his face completely serious. "I need to know"
"You want to know if I think you're the one who's been stalking Drea?" I feel so dumb talking
this way, asking questions that purposely skirt the real question, but I just can't bring myself to
admit it. Not until I know for sure it's over between him and Drea.
"Okay" he says. "To start with. Do you?"
I look into his eyes and really consider the question and how I feel. I think about the dream I had
of him at the window. How his jersey disappeared from our room, but then he was the one to
show up wearing it, claiming that someone left it in his mailbox along with one of the notes.
I think about how he tried to scare us with the hockey mask, how he's always calling at just the
right time, and how we saw him on the pay phone in front of the library just minutes after one of
the pranks.
I think how it kind of makes sense, how it would be the perfect way to get Drea off his back. Or
just punish her for playing so many mind games over the years.
And then I think how disappointed I'd be if it really was him.
I study his face for some flinch or falter, anything that might give me some sign that it isn't him,
that he isn't involved. But I just can't tell. I just don't know
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"Well?" he asks.
'Are you the one?"
"I wish you didn't have to ask."
"Is that a no?"
He shakes his head and lifts my chin with a finger, the minty smell of his toothpaste filling the
air between us. He moves in toward me, stopping just inches from my mouth, so close that I can
see the tiny points of baby-blond that surround his upper lip.
"Wait, is that a yes? I have to know, Chad."
I hate myself for asking, for being so loyal, for having to know the truth, for caring either way.
He moves even closer, so near that the skin of our lips touches. Soft and moist and hot-tea minty.
It makes me want to burst out crying out of mere frustration. But I don't. I keep my eyes from
fluttering closed, my lips from quivering against his. And wait for the answer.
"It's a yes," he says, finally. "I am the one." He closes his eyes and presses his lips fully against
mine. At first I don't know if I should kiss him back, but then my mouth just does. A full-lip,
tongue-twirling, tingle-all-over kiss.
When we break, my eyes remain on his mouth, almost afraid that if I look up into his eyes, I'll
wake out of the most blissful sleep. He touches my cheek with the nubs of his fingers and then
brings my lips up for one more taste.
"I've been waiting to do that since the last time," he says.
"Really?" I try to stop the smile on my face.
"Remember?" His eyes shift from my mouth to my eyes. "The last time?"
I nod.
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He moves in for another kiss, but my words pause hum. "When you said that you were the one,
you didn't mean you were the one, I mean the one who's after Drea, did you?"
"What do you think?"
"I don't think you are." And I don't think he is. But I sstill want--need--to hear him say it.
He smiles at me, relieved, and leans in for that kiss. "What about Drea?" I say, stopping him
again. "I mean, what about how she feels about you?"
"She doesn't really feel anything about me." He sighs and draws his mouth away from mine.
"She just thinks she does. If I wanted to ask her out again and I don't, but if I did--she'd say yes,
enjoy the victory for a few days, and then want to break up. It's always been like that with her,
like some game."
"Do you think that maybe you still have feelings for her'?"
"Sure, I mean, we've grown up together. I care abolut her. A lot. Just not the way she thinks she
wants." He takes my hands and sandwiches them between his own, sendinig warm and sparkly
tingles up and down my back. "Me and Drea get along much better as friends."
"Is that why you want someone else?"
"Don't you get it? I don't care about someone else."
Our eyes lock and I'm not sure what comes over me, id it's the way his eyebrows furrow, begging
me to understami him, the way his lips sit, begging to be kissed, or pure unadulterated, all-
American hormones, but all of a sudden, I'm on him. My hands, my mouth, my lips, my heart.
We kiss--a long, soft, pulpy, winter-under-the-blankets-by-the--
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fire kiss. But then I push him away. We can't," I say, all out of breath. "We can't do this. I mean,
want to, but. . .
Chad wraps his arms around my oulders and holds me to his chest. I listen to the rhythm o his
heart beating and give up on saying anything more. I ctly want to cry.
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twenty
There is no way any studying is going to get done now. I'm sitting on my bed, flipping pages
back and forth between chapter summaries, running my eyes over the columns of meaningless
physics terms, but my mind is not absorbing anything at all.
-Maybe we should get some fresh air," Chad suggests, closing his book.
I nod, relieved to change the scenery, hoping the cool night air will shake me out of this funk.
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And as if by some celestial force, we end up at the tree where we first kissed, though neither of
us points it out. Instead, we just walk by it, flashlights in hand, beyond the lawn and into the
woods, making awkward small talk about hockey schedules and Chinese food, about things that
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