I stand over him with my arms folded, wondering which of my besties squealed. Not that many people know I run at lunch on Thursdays.
I look from him to myself. I’m not wearing running clothes because today I’d planned to find him in the lunchroom. I’ve got on a comfy pair of skinny jeans, my favorite ankle boots, and a flowy, paisley scarf-necked blouse. I dressed carefully for him before the morning went to shit.
Wake up, I tell him—with the powers of my mind.
His lashes flutter, and I can’t help grinning.
Sit up, Galante. Your eye still looks horrific, and it makes you even more attractive. That should be a crime.
He opens his eyes. A gentle smile flirts with the corners of his lips, and then he’s doing what I asked. He pushes up on one elbow, clutching Pandy in the corner of his other arm.
I laugh. “You brought him.”
He smiles. “I did.”
I sink down into the grass beside him, sitting cross-legged, and he passes me the bear.
I thumb one of Pandy’s ears. “Wow, this is crazy. He looks almost new again.” His white spots look beige now instead of faintly brown.
My mother and I had an ugly fight this morning about Pandy and a lot more. But I won. I’m bringing Pandy home, and she said Becca could keep him.
I lay the bear on his back in the grass and trace my fingertip over his fine hairs. I feel Luca’s eyes on me, can sense that he’s still lying partway down, which feels too intimate. My neck and cheeks burn from the proximity.
As if he can hear my thoughts, he sits fully up, crossing his legs and leaning over a little, tracing Pandy’s fur like I am.
“How old is your sister?”
My throat knots, so tight and painful that I don’t know how I’ll get words through. Somehow, I say, “Twelve.”
“Yeah? I’ve got a brother who’s twelve.”
“Really?” I look up, and his gaze holds mine, his lips quirking in a small approximation of a smile. His eye today is shades of deep blue-purple, like petals of a poison flower. As we look at each other, I notice it’s slightly squinted. “Does it hurt?” I whisper.
“Nah.”
He tries to open the eye wider, but his mouth tightens, so I can tell he’s lying. For a heartbeat, I think I’ll run my fingers softly over his cheekbone… I don’t know why, but I feel like this when I’m near him—this guy I hardly know.
“How’d it happen?” My throat tightens on those words, so they’re soft and kind of raspy.
He smiles again, but this time it’s a thin line. “It’s not important.”
“I think it’s important.”
“But it isn’t.”
I narrow my eyes slightly. “What if it’s important to me?”
“It isn’t.”
I frown. “How do you know?”
“Because I know things.” He’s still smiling, only with the corners of his mouth. His eyes are somber.
“You don’t know me.”
“No?” he murmurs.
“Not even a little bit.”
He lies back again, folding his arms behind his head. He’s wearing a thin, white T-shirt, so I can see his biceps and his forearms in great detail. I can see the blueish veins beneath his soft skin. He looks like Michelangelo’s carved marble.
If this were a snapshot, I would think he’s beautiful—a study in ruined beauty, maybe, with his eye the way it is. But I’m living this moment. I can feel things swimming in the air between us. His eyes shut, and I think he needs to sleep.
“Are you a nice guy?” I ask him, impulsively. “Or an asshole?”
His lips curve—and this time, the smile is decadent.
“That’s a game we play, my friends and I—nice guy or asshole. My friend Sheree thinks you’re an asshole. I think it’s too hard to tell.” I smile, even though my heart is beating so wildly that I feel like I might die right here beside him.
He opens his eyes, peering at me with a notch between his brows. “You think I’ll be honest?”
I look down at my nails. “People almost never are. One time I read about something called radical honesty. It was in a magazine of my dad’s, and this man, he tried to tell everybody the whole truth, all the time.”
“That sounds…terrible.”
I nod. “And interaction is performative by nature, so I think it’s never possible to be completely honest. There’s always the echo of the other person influencing your ‘truth.’ Even if they’re like you are right now—just lying there. Your face or mannerisms will give feedback to what I’m saying. And I’ll feel compelled to bend my truth to you.”
I stop to grab a quick breath, my face burning as I realize I’m rambling.
“Um, so anyway, I don’t think you’ll be honest,” I manage. “But I’m asking so I’ll get a chance to try to read you. If you don’t ask at all, then you can be sure you’ll never know.”