What She Found in the Woods

She grins at me. ‘Awesomeness is all the fuel I need.’

I roll my eyes and grin back at her. The sun glows behind her hair, twice as bright, as if it loves her more than other people. She looks wistful as she leans closer to me. ‘You’re so beautiful,’ she says.

And then she kisses me. It’s a fluttering, barely-there kiss. Her skin is warm, but her mouth is cool. I think of a kiss given to me long ago by someone so much like her I almost call her by the wrong name again. She moves closer, but I stop her.

‘I can’t.’

She shakes herself, like she’s as surprised as I am that she kissed me. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, embarrassed.

‘No, don’t be,’ I tell her. ‘But I’m with someone, and I can’t do this to him.’

She laughs and covers her face. ‘I don’t know what got into me.’ She scrubs her blushing cheeks and looks over at me. ‘Just forget I did that.’

I pop open my door. ‘Mila. I sincerely doubt anyone who’s kissed you will ever forget it.’

She smacks my thigh with the back of her hand. ‘Get out of my car, you tease,’ she says, still blushing and grinning.

I laugh and go inside, worried that despite my best efforts, I might be starting to think of Mila as a true friend.

26 JULY. MORNING

If someone had told me nine months ago that I would be running to and from the middle of the forest every other day looking to hook up with some home-schooled tree hugger who’d never been kissed before me, I would have asked for some of whatever they were smoking.

Because to look at me then in my up-and-coming-designer-only wardrobe, carrying my It bag and wearing the shoes that you’ll need as soon as you see them, you would know that anyone who would guess that in a few short months I’d be making out with a Marxist Mowgli would have to be smoking some pretty powerful shit.

And yet here I am. Literally running to throw myself into Bo’s arms. It’s pathetic. I’ve never been this happy before.

I wade through the river. I shuck off my backpack. I’m hot. I’m cold. I’m effervescing out of my skin. I can’t remember feeling anything this sharply before. Not even regret. It’s remarkable, considering the current chemical composition of my blood. No, more than that. It’s simply remarkable to feel this. Period.

He catches me easily and swings me around, and I wrap my legs around his waist, like we’ve done this a million times before.

‘You’re good at catching hurling bodies,’ I notice.

‘I’ve had lots of practice,’ he replies.

I jerk back. ‘With who?’ I demand. I’m jealous – wildly, insanely jealous in an instant. Probably because I feel so guilty about killing some poor animal and I haven’t told him. Yet. I’ll tell him eventually.

Bo laughs, but his look is cautious when he sees I’m not kidding. ‘I have five little brothers and sisters,’ he reminds me. ‘I can’t walk ten feet without one of them jumping on me.’

‘Oh,’ I say sheepishly.

‘Moth, my littlest sister, thinks it’s a game. She jumps out of trees to see if she can surprise me. It’s like she’s trying to make me drop her.’

I imagine a little four-year-old girl tossing herself at Bo, and I soften. ‘Have you ever?’

‘Dropped her? Of course not,’ he says, like that’s a crazy thing to ask. And maybe it is. Bo doesn’t let people down.

He kisses me. I feel him smiling inside the kiss. The smile builds into a laugh.

‘You got jealous,’ he comments, grinning against my lips.

‘Of course I got jealous,’ I say

defensively. ‘You told me you’d never had a girlfriend before.’

‘I haven’t,’ he says. And then his eyes slide down. ‘Is that what you are? My girlfriend.’

‘Ah . . . yeah,’ I say. I gesture at my legs, still wrapped around his waist. ‘This is not the way I greet buddies.’