You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone

“You doing okay about Johns Hopkins?”

“From one sore subject to another.”

He turns his mouth into a guilty scrunch. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“No, it’s okay. Thanks for asking. I’m managing. I applied to other schools over break and barely made the deadlines. Obviously I’m still hoping I get in. But I guess I could really end up . . . anywhere.” It’s impossible, though, to imagine myself anywhere except Baltimore. I release the tension in my jaw. “Let’s talk about something else. Let’s talk about this.” I gesture to the canvas, which is half-covered with price tags and candy wrappers and even a math test marked with a fat red C-plus—all objects I’m sure Zack has found.

“Before you ask,” he says, “it actually does mean something.”

“Yeah?”

He plants one palm on the table, right next to my thigh. His thumb brushes against my jeans. Then his eyes trap mine and he says in a serious voice, “It’s about passing AP Studio Art.”

“Ha, ha.” I examine it. “It’s looking a little . . . sparse.”

“You wanna add anything?”

“Wouldn’t that be cheating?”

Zack sweeps his thumb back and forth across my outer thigh. If this single finger scorches my entire body, I can only imagine both his hands would explode me. “I won’t tell.”

I consider the colors

, then dip the paintbrush into cobalt and streak it onto the canvas, forming the Hebrew letters chet and yud.

“I’m not very good at this.”

“I like it, Tov,” he says.

He moves closer so that his entire right hip is pressed against my leg. I swallow hard. Forget exploding: I might be made of sparks. There’s something in me that some days is stronger than the guilt, and it’s this: the flippy feeling I get whenever I’m around Zack. I could get addicted to that flippy feeling. Overdose on it.

“Of course you’d paint something in Hebrew.”

“Do you know what it means? I mean, I know you’re not as Jewish as I am, but . . .”

He squints at it. “Ah, fuck. They’re gonna un–bar mitzvah me.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t tell you.”

“Why, is it dirty?”

“No!” I swipe the brush across his cheek—to punish him? Flirt with him? Both?—and pull back, covering my mouth with my other hand to hide my laughter. “I am,” I say through my giggles, “so sorry.”

He’s grinning too. “You are not. But it’s fine, because”—he dips his middle finger into violet, then dabs it onto my cheek—“I’m going to get you back.”

“You’ve started a war, you know that?” I ask, smearing canary yellow on his chin.

Soon there’s emerald on the tip of my nose. Persimmon along his eyebrow. He drags garnet red along my collarbone, and the combination of his touch and the coldness of the paint makes me inhale deeply, closing my eyes.

When I open them, he’s staring at me, daring me to make the next move. This time I paint him with my mouth, and he cups my face with rainbow fingers and kisses me back.

My body’s electrified: neurotransmitters shooting off in every direction, oxytocin—the hormone associated with social bonding—levels rising. That’s all science I can understand, but what’s new to me is the labored sound of his breathing, the sounds he makes deep in his throat. I’m doing that to him. I’m making that happen.

When we break apart, I’m breathing hard too, like now that I can suck back in oxygen, it isn’t enough. Isn’t as good as whatever Zack was giving me.

“Hi,” I say, which feels like it fits. I’m saying hi to a new version of him and who he is to me now.

“Hi.” The way he’s looking at me, his eyes unblinking, lips slightly parted—it’s not the way he was looking at me before. I’m someone new too.