Shuffle, Repeat(80)

A year ago, a month ago, a week ago, that fear would have been enough to keep my mouth shut. But now something has changed, and that something is Oliver Flagg, and I have to tell him that.

“What?” I hear it in the word. I see it in the tense way he’s holding his mouth, in the way his upper body is leaning toward me. It’s hope.

So I answer it. I answer it with a hope that is just as strong.

“This is the moment.” That doesn’t make much sense, so I elaborate. “It wasn’t the night of the senior prank, Oliver. It’s tonight.”

“What’s tonight?”

“The night I’ll come back to, the one I’ll replay over and over and over again like a song in my head.” I smile through my tears. “The one when I tell you the truth.”

He’s standing in a way that makes me think of that deer we startled on our drive to school. Like if I make the wrong move, if I say the wrong thing, he could bolt and I’ll never see him again. “What truth?” he asks.

I take a slow, careful step toward him. I reach out to touch him. His muscles are tensed beneath the tuxedo jacket as I slide my hand down his arm and rest my fingers lightly against his. I open my mouth, and when I speak, all those jagged little heart pieces pour out. “The truth is that this is the single stupidest thing I’ve ever done, showing up right before everything changes and our lives turn upside down and time runs out, but I have to, because I’ve finally figured out that some things are uncontrollable, and one of those things is my heart and the fact that it absolutely, without question, loves you.” We stare at each other and I watch his eyes widen. Just in case I wasn’t completely clear the first time, I tell him again. “I love you.”

“I got that part,” he says. One corner of his mouth is twitching up, just a little. I take it as an encouraging sign, but even if it’s not, I’m too far gone to stop the rest of it.

“And it matters,” I tell him. “It matters because you matter and I love you.”

The words hang between us. My heart stops beating and the world stops turning and every twinkling star in the sky freezes into a bright pinpoint of white-hot light.

And then Oliver smiles, and I feel it everywhere, like he’s touching me everywhere. “Well, obviously I love you, too,” he says. “So now what?”

The tiny jagged pieces of my heart coalesce into laughter. The laughter bounces off the hood of the behemoth and rings out over the parking lot.

“Now we go to prom,” I say.

? ? ?

I’m walking into my senior prom, onto the dance floor, where it seems like everyone I’ve ever known is jumping up and down to some sort of Beatles house remix. It’s like a thousand high school dances I haven’t attended, except that this time I am attending and I’m doing it while holding hands with Oliver Flagg. Our fingers are interlaced, like they were always meant to be that way. As we wend our way through the craziness, we see Darbs. She and Ethan Erickson are holding hands and bopping around in a group with Lily. Nearby, Yana Pace dances with a girl in red sequins.

Oliver pulls me to a halt in the middle of the crowd. A few people glance at us, but Oliver doesn’t seem to notice, because apparently, I am the only thing he notices. In fact, his eyes are roaming all over me. “You look kind of amazing,” he says.

“Thank you.” It seems weird to tell a boy he looks beautiful, so instead, I slide a finger down the lapel of his tuxedo. “You look like a spy.” One of his eyebrows arches up, so I attempt an explanation. “An international spy. A dashing, handsome international spy who sort of has this thing about him that makes all the girls crazy and…What?”

He’s smiling that blinding smile down into my eyes. “It’s another one of those moments,” he says.

“Which moment?” I ask, even though I think I know the answer.

“The one where I kiss you.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re right,” I answer, my heart speeding up. I want him to kiss me so bad, but I’m also a little terrified of it—of how it’s going to make me feel. “We haven’t had any tequila….”

“Good,” he says, and then his mouth is on mine. I was right to be terrified, because Oliver Flagg’s kiss destroys the entire world. Everything around us drops away, and all I know is the feel and the taste of him. I don’t care who’s looking or who’s surprised or what administrative official could run up and tell us to knock off the public display of affection. Oliver is everything, and it’s even better than when we were on the hood of the behemoth, because this time I’m not pretending about anything. This time, I’m just me. With him.

And it’s so real.

After a moment (okay, a few moments), Oliver pulls away and gazes down at me. I suspect I look the same way he does—a little rattled, a little exhilarated, a lot in love. “We’re going to do more of that,” he tells me. “When we don’t have an audience.”

“I can’t wait.” And yet I can, because I’m going to savor every last second of this prom.

Oliver slides his hands down my arms, linking his fingers with mine again. “Hey, guess what.”

“You’re trading in the behemoth for a smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicle?”

“Oh, that’s right. I had forgotten how bad you are at guessing.” He leans over and pecks me on the lips again. “I got that summer bank internship—”