Shuffle, Repeat(56)

I gasp with the realization, and this time when I pull back, he lets me. “Aren’t you going to say anything?” he asks.

It’s like he can actually see my mind spinning, or maybe it’s that he can hear my heart flinging itself against the wall of my chest. I shake my head, because Oliver has a girlfriend, one who is pretty and popular and nice, and I am the one who is at fault here; I am the one whose feelings changed, and—

“No animals.” Oliver spreads his arms wide. “No vandalism. No destruction of property.”

He’s talking about the prank.

Just the prank.

Not us.

Because there is no “us.”

I’m just the charity case he drives to school.

So I nod. I force a smile. “Great job. Really, really great job.”

“Good news.” Oliver beams huge. “You’re here for the coup de grace.”

“Amazing. You’re even bilingual when Theo’s not around.” Since I’m clearly not going with honesty, I guess I’ll rely on my old friend Glib. I want to leave, run, escape, but there’s no way to do it without Oliver’s wondering why.

Oliver jogs to a duffel bag by the far wall. I watch him, finally admitting to myself that I like the way his body moves, that I am the same as any other girl watching his muscles and his hair and his…Oliver-ness.

If I could punch myself in the soul, I would do it right now.

Oliver hefts a gallon jug from the bag and carries it back to me. I squint at it. “Vegetable oil?”

“Don’t freak out.” He turns it upside down and thick oil glunks onto the floor.

I jump out of the way. “What are you doing?”

The oil oozes, spreading out into a big, slick circle, and Oliver tosses the empty jug to the edge of the room, where it clunks against the wall. “Come on, you’re more observant than that.”

Apparently not observant enough to notice I was falling hard for the school jock.

“It’s a winter wonderland,” Oliver explains. “Hence the snowflakes.”

I point to the widening circle. “And you’ve made a wintery, wondrous oil spill?”

“This is the ice-skating rink.” I think he mistakes my avoidance of his eyes for recrimination. “It’s not hurting anything. Easily cleaned up with soap, and there’s caution tape around so no one will be surprised by it. It’s what you wanted, right?”

Except that everything I thought I wanted has suddenly been turned on its head. “Sure,” I say with what I’m pretty sure is a sickly grin. “It’s great.”

Oliver grabs my right hand and pulls me into the slick circle of ooze. I skid toward him, nearly falling, and he catches me against his body. For the briefest of seconds, I’m circled by his arms, my entire length against him, and I know every other girl has had it right this whole time, because even my shins are tingling from the nearness of him. My left hand is against his chest and—totally acting on their own—my fingers flare out, feeling the muscles beneath them, feeling Oliver’s hand slide over mine.

And surely—surely—this time he has to hear my breath catching in my throat, but he doesn’t mention it. He only pushes me backward, holding both my hands in his own. “We’re skating,” he says, and pulls me into a spin. I squeal and he laughs, but his laugh is cut off, because now he almost falls…and then I’m laughing, too, because even though none of this is real and even though it’s going to end in pain…for this moment only, I’m holding hands with Oliver Flagg and we’re skating together in a winter wonderland.





The lights cut off and the glare is replaced with darkness. I can’t see him, but I can hear his voice.

“June, what are you doing?”

I know I need to say something important and epic and romantic, because this is a moment that requires an important, epically romantic gesture, but the words aren’t there. Instead, all I have is the overwhelming fear that I’ve already lost the one person I want the most to find.

So I blurt something out—something that hasn’t always come naturally to me.

The truth.





My cocoon is soft around me. Protective. Warm. I’m nestled inside, happy and comfortable, and when a muffled sound edges against my consciousness, I shake my head in irritation. I bury myself deeper in my own shell, no reason to become a butterfly, no need to change….

But it’s not a cocoon; it’s a quilt. And the sound is coming from somewhere outside.

A horn.

The behemoth’s horn.

Ack!

I fly out of bed, and now that I see my phone on the nightstand, I have a fuzzy recollection of turning off its alarm. I grab the skirt from last night, the one I dropped on the floor before crawling under the covers a couple hours ago, but it’s greasy with vegetable oil, so I rush to my dresser. I find a pair of jeans and am yanking them on when my door opens. I squeal and whip around, thinking it’s Oliver, but it’s only Mom. Her hair is stringy against her face and she has mascara smudges under her eyes. We stare at each other. “You don’t look good,” I finally tell her.

“Speak for yourself,” she says, and I remember that I didn’t even wash my face or brush my teeth before falling asleep last night. And by “last night,” I mean “earlier this morning,” since that’s when Oliver dropped me off. “I told Oliver to go,” Mom says. “I’ll drive you.”