Southern Storms (Compass 1)

I freaking love summer camp!

I didn’t know what to do, so I just stood there with my arms at my sides, wondering if this was what it was supposed to feel like. It was as if my heart was going to tear out of my chest and do somersaults on the sidewalk, as if I could run a million laps around the camp and still not be out of breath, as if I was flying. Am I flying?

Am I kissing her back?

I couldn’t tell. I didn’t know how to kiss. My older brother always told me I wouldn’t have to even worry about kissing until I was like forty-nine years old, and I was nowhere near forty-nine years old.

She stopped kissing me.

Dang.

Do that again.

I stood there like a dork, unsure what to do. Kennedy stepped back, and her cute cheeks turned red. I didn’t remember her cheeks being so cute last summer, but that was the thing about Kennedy Lost, I supposed—she got better and better each year.

“Basorexia,” she mumbled. She mumbled! Like me. My heart was still trying to run away.

I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t know what that means.”

She smiled. “I looked up a lot of words in the last year, and basorexia was one of them. It means a desire to kiss.”

Oh.

My new favorite word.

I couldn’t form words because I was too busy looking at Kennedy’s perfect cheeks. She combed her fingers through her loose curls and kept pushing her cheeks higher when she smiled. “I just really love this gift, Jax, so I felt basorexia. Thank you.”

She came back in toward me, only this time she gave me a hug.

Double dang.

“Sorry if that upset you,” Kennedy said, growing nervous, which was weird because I hadn’t known a person like Kennedy could ever be nervous. “But that was my first kiss, and Yoana was telling me your first kiss should always be with someone you care about, and well, you’re my best friend and all, and I thought—”

She stopped her words, because I kissed her. This time I knew it was me kissing and not just me standing still, all because I had intense basorexia.

16

Kennedy

Present day

I went out to the field of flowers every day that week. I’d sit in the middle of the beauty and practice my breathing. One breath in, one breath out, heart still beating, I’m still here.

I’d stay in that field as long as possible, feeling as if I was returning to my roots, getting back to the person I used to be. Late one evening, as I sat amidst the daisies, Jax appeared, looking a bit shaken up. The moment he noticed me, he took a step backward, as if he was going to retreat, but some kind of heaviness sat in his eyes as he stared my way.

I wondered if he saw the heaviness in my eyes, too.

I patted the spot beside me for him to join, but I had strong doubts that he would take the invitation.

My breath caught in my throat as he took a step forward and walked in my direction.

In the stillness of the night, Jax sat beside me.

After that night, I learned when he traveled to the field, and he learned my periods of meditation, too. I couldn’t stop myself from arriving whenever I knew he’d be there, and he kept showing up whenever I was sitting upon that bench. Time would speed forward and somehow stand still all at once when I was out there with Jax. When it felt as if nothing in the world made sense, at least sitting in that field calmed me. We didn’t talk out there. It was as if words weren’t even needed for us to find our common thread of peacefulness. His stillness felt so comforting, as if his silence was the warmest blanket he was wrapping around me.

Never in my life had I known silence could feel so good until I sat beside Jax Kilter.

It wasn’t until late one afternoon, after about an hour of sitting, that I built up the courage to finally break our silence with words. It was quiet, almost a whisper. If nature hadn’t been so still, he would’ve missed the words falling off my tongue.

“Daisy,” I said, staring out at the field of flowers. “My daughter’s name was Daisy. I named her after my favorite flower.”

Jax turned toward me with a perplexed look on his face. “So when you came upon this field…”

I sniffled and brushed my hand beneath my nose, then nodded. “It kind of knocked me backward. The day before, I’d asked my parents for a sign, a sign that everything would be okay, that somehow I’d find my footing again, and then I went for a walk in the woods and found a field of daisies. I figured that was the sign my parents sent me.”