I Kissed Shara Wheeler(3)

Chloe pulls a skeptical face. “I’ve literally never seen you speak to her in my life.”

“You don’t even know her, do you?” Rory counters. “What are you doing here? Why do you care if she’s gone?”

Why does she care? Because she and Shara have both spent every day of their high school careers dedicated to the singular goal of graduating valedictorian, and the only thing Chloe has ever wanted as much as that title is the satisfaction of knowing Shara Wheeler can’t have it. Because Shara Wheeler has everything else.

Because if Shara’s really gone, that’s a forfeit, and Chloe Green does not win by default.

Because two days ago, Shara found her alone in the B Building elevator before fifth hour, pulled her in by the elbow, and kissed her until she forgot an entire semester of French. And Chloe still doesn’t know why.

“Why do you care?” she snaps back at Rory.

“Because I—I get her, okay? Her stupid-ass friends don’t, but I do.”

“Oh, you get her.” Chloe rolls her eyes. “So that makes you qualified to lead the search party.”

“No—”

“Then what does?”

There’s another pause. Rory shifts his weight from one foot to the other. And then he looks down at the desk, raises his dark brows, and says, “That.”

When Chloe follows his gaze, she finds an envelope sitting innocuously in a pink letter organizer. Shara’s cursive spells out Rory’s name on the front.

Rory’s name?

Rory’s arms are longer, but Chloe reacts faster. She snatches the envelope up and opens it with one finger, taking out a piece of that pink monogrammed stationery, and reads Shara’s flawless cursive out loud.

Rory,

Thanks for the kiss. If you thought I never noticed you, you’re wrong.

XOXO

Shara

P.S. peach100304

P.P.S. Tell Smith to check the drafts. Chloe should have the rest.

“You kissed her?” Chloe demands.

Rory looks ready to dodge a punch, which he might want to save for when Shara’s actual boyfriend finds out. “She kissed me!”

The anger comes screaming back, and Chloe grinds out, “When?”

“Last night. Before prom.”

“Where?”

“On … the mouth?”

“Geographically, Heron.”

“Oh. On my roof.”

Shara kissed Rory. And now Rory is standing here, in her room, defending her to Chloe, because he—oh God.

She’s the girl next door, and he’s in love with her. That’s what this is. How absolutely, annoyingly predictable.

“Well, don’t get too excited,” Chloe says. “She kissed me too.”

Rory stares. “You’re fucking with me.”

“I’m really not,” Chloe tells him. “At school, on Friday.”

He squeezes his eyes shut, starts to run a hand through his curls, then stops himself before he can mess up the way he arranged them.

“Okay, so, this”—he gestures between the two of them and the room at large—“makes more sense.”

A miserably awkward silence settles like a cloud of jock B.O. in the school gym on a pep rally Friday. Chloe bares her teeth to speak—

The front door opens downstairs.

“Hell,” Chloe says. She checks the clock on the nightstand: 12:13 p.m. Rory made her lose track of time.

“You’re gonna have to take the ladder,” Rory says, already on the move.

“Shara fucking Wheeler,” Chloe mutters, and she launches herself out the window so violently, she almost misses the first rung.

On the ground, Rory puts the ladder on one slight shoulder and clumsily tries to move it back to the fence. He really is just a very nice face on top of a broomstick, physically speaking. She gets why so many junior and sophomore girls are obsessed with his hot-surly-guy-with-the-guitar-in-the-school-parking-lot vibe, but it’s sad to watch him lift something.

“Here,” she says, reaching for the other side. He grunts unhappily but doesn’t complain.

They climb into his backyard, which is as pristine and lush as the rest of the country club. Back in California, Chloe had never been inside a country club with a subdivision in it, sprawling acreage with a manned gate like a golf course bouncer. She had to pretend she was someone’s nanny to get in.

“Okay, screw it,” Chloe says, wiping at her leftover eyeliner. The back of her hand comes away black. “What does the peach thing mean? From the note?”

“I have no idea,” Rory says.

“Then we’ll tell Smith everything tomorrow at school and see if he knows.”

Rory makes a face. He looks ridiculous, standing inside a gated community pretending to be some kind of dirtbag indie softboy.

“We?” he says. “You want to tell Smith you kissed his girlfriend?”

“Don’t you want to know what she’s doing? Where she is?”

“Why don’t we just wait until she comes back and ask her?”

“What makes you so sure she’s coming back anytime soon?” Chloe demands. “What if she has some kind of—some kind of secret second life in another town, or some sugar daddy she’s holed up with, or something? What if she doesn’t come back before we all leave for college? What if she ghosts everyone forever? What if you spend the rest of your life wondering why, in the name of God, Shara Wheeler kissed you?”