I Kissed Shara Wheeler(47)
“I just realized I—” Shara must have seen Georgia reading Austen at school and figured that if she bought a book by the same author, Georgia would mention it to Chloe. She pulls Persuasion next, but there’s nothing inside either cover except book smell. “I think I left something in one of these books.”
“What?” Georgia says, putting down the hardback she’s holding. “Why?”
“I, um, was gonna buy it but I changed my mind,” Chloe lies, shaking out Northanger Abbey to no avail.
“You don’t remember which one?” Georgia asks, audibly perplexed.
The last one Chloe tries is a hardcover of Mansfield Park, and there, tucked into the front flap, is a pink card. And inside the card is a piece of loose-leaf, folded three times.
“Found it!” she says, tucking both into her pocket before Georgia can see. “But, oh, crap, I just remembered I’m—I’m supposed to be doing puzzle night with my moms, so sorry, gotta go!”
She’s out the door and in her car before the entry bell finishes jingling behind her.
* * *
Parked in the driveway at home, she reads the letter for the third time. It’s by far the longest one Shara’s left behind, and it’s addressed only to Chloe. She can’t stop touching the pen strokes on the paper.
Hi, Chloe,
Nice one. I was a little worried the book would get sold before you found this, but I figured Mansfield Park was a safe bet. And let’s be honest … the books aren’t exactly flying off the shelves here.
Anyway . Would you be surprised if I told you I asked Mr. Davis to make us lab partners in chem?
What if I told you that I pretended my shoe was untied so I could wait outside Mrs. Farley’s room until I saw you walk in on the first day of school this year? What if I told you the truth, which is that I made sure to brush three fingers across the top right corner of your desk before I took the seat in front of you, and I sat there for an hour trying to picture the look on your face when I did it?
What if I told you that, in the three years of English classes we had together before that one, I would sit across the room from you and think about all the ways I could ruin your perfect record? I tried reporting you for uniform violations, but that never seemed to stick. Sometimes I’d picture breaking into my dad’s office and figuring out a way to change all your 99s to 89s. Sometimes I’d dream up a whole conspiracy to frame you for plagiarism. I even thought about slashing your tires the night before the AP exam (not my most Christlike moment, I’ ll admit).
Sometimes, when I was feeling especially creative, I would imagine how I could make you fall in love with me. As soon as I knew you liked girls, I saw my way in. I could drag my fingertip along the curve of your jaw, I could almost kiss you in the library. I could break your heart so exquisitely, you’d forget you ever cared about winning. It’s always been so easy, making people love me. I was sure I could do it to you.
I tried, sophomore year. You remember precalc? I pretended not to understand something because I knew you didn’ t either. It was supposed to get me close enough to you to bring out every trick I know. But you figured me out. You’re not like anyone else. The same tricks don’ t work on you .
I think that’s where this started to go wrong for me . There are things that don’ t make sense about me. I don’ t know if I belong here . How can that be possible, to feel estranged from a place where everyone loves you? To owe your life to a place and still want to run? I’ ve been trying and trying to figure out what it is about me that makes me feel this way and why it feels so deep and so big that it must be most of me, the skin stretching between my knuckles and across my shoulders and then the bones under them too.
Knowing that I couldn’ t have you if I wanted to—that stings almost the same . It’s almost the same feeling. They’re right beside each other. What do they have in common?
I’d prefer if you kept this one to yourself,
S
When Chloe was in sixth grade, she won the California state spelling bee.
It wasn’t easy—not because she had any trouble spelling, but because her school didn’t believe in “creating a competitive environment for students.” At nine, she came home with a stern note for forcing her friends into an underground fight club of timed math quizzes during unstructured play time. They were not going to be pitting kids against one another in the spelling bee qualifier rounds.
But she saw the previous year’s winner on the local news and refused to let it go until her moms had figured out how to get her independently qualified and she had crushed every other eleven-year-old in the state with the final word, “dipsomaniac.”
The moment she set foot on Willowgrove’s campus, she signed up for the Quiz Bowl team. She joined the French Club on the promise that there would be tests at the convention and started quietly tracking the highest grades in each of her classes, and she discovered that her only real competition was Shara.
This letter is finally, finally proof that Shara has always seen her the same way. They’re equals. That’s what she’s thinking as she drags her fingertip down the crease of the paper.
But she’s also thinking about Shara researching how Georgia’s dad is the owner of Belltower. That Chloe likes to spend her afternoons there with the books.
Did she figure out Chloe’s plans that weekend so she could come by the shop when Chloe wasn’t tucked into a corner with Little Women? Did she check the street for Chloe’s car? How many times did she write the note out before she settled on the exact loops in Chloe’s name? Did she sit on her ivory quilt and plan a whole day around creating this moment, right now, Chloe sitting here with this letter, thinking about Shara thinking about her?