I Kissed Shara Wheeler(66)
“Mom, Jas called me an asshole!” Smith yells.
“Jasmine Parker!”
“You suck,” Jas says, glaring, and then she disappears as Smith laughs into his fist.
“I’m gonna miss that girl next year,” Smith says.
“Is that why you texted me about MarioKart?” Chloe says. “Because of Rory?”
Smith shrugs. “I was gonna invite you.”
“You two can hang out on the weekend without a Chloe buffer,” Chloe points out.
“I know, it’s just … been a while,” Smith mumbles. “Anyway, what’s up? You look weird.”
Right. “Can we talk?”
Smith nods. “You wanna come in?”
Chloe leaves her shoes at the door and follows Smith through the living room and down a short hall lined with framed photos: Smith in his football uniform with the national championship trophy, Smith’s parents smiling on a cruise ship, his two youngest siblings in matching Easter outfits, Jas on stage with a microphone.
Smith’s room is at the end of the hall, the pull-up bar in the doorway effectively a nameplate declaring it his. It’s small and messy, but in a cozy way, not in the grimy way that Dixon’s room was messy. The walls are citrus yellow, and there’s an aloe plant on the dresser and final exam study guides scattered across the desk. A pile of books sits on the windowsill between a half-peeled orange and a scuffed football helmet, and the twin-size bed is covered in pillows. The Bluetooth speaker on the nightstand is playing Frank Ocean quietly. Half-hidden behind it, there’s a bottle of silver nail polish.
She’s barely been there for three seconds when a pretty middle-aged woman with Smith’s exact same eyes and curl pattern appears at the doorway.
“Smith,” she says, “who’s this?”
“This is Chloe, Mom,” Smith says. “She’s my friend from school. She was in the play with Ace.”
“Just a friend?”
“Yes, Mom,” Smith says, sounding mortified.
His mom nods, looking Chloe over. “There’s brisket in the kitchen,” she announces. She leaves with a point over her shoulder at Smith’s bedroom door, sing-songing, “Door stays open!”
“Sorry,” Smith says. “I’m not technically supposed to have girls in here, but they’re starting to give up now that I’m almost in college. Also, you should probably take her up on that brisket, my dad smoked it this morning and it’s amaz—”
“I saw Shara last night.”
Smith stops.
He doesn’t react at first, just looks at her for a long second like he’s trying to figure out if she’s joking. Then, satisfied that she isn’t, he pulls out the desk chair and sits on a pile of discarded hoodies.
“I figured out where she was, and I went by myself,” Chloe tells him. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I know I should have told you, but I was—I was so mad at her—”
“Chloe,” Smith says finally, holding up a hand. There’s a speck of glitter on his thumbnail, like he painted it and then scraped it off. “It’s fine. Did she tell you why she left?”
“She said she did all this because she lied about getting in to Harvard, and because she wanted to distract me so she could win valedictorian,” Chloe rattles off. “And to force you and Rory to talk to each other, because she thinks you’re only dating her because of him.”
Smith doubles over, forehead to knees, and Chloe thinks he’s taking the news hard until she hears him laugh out, “Oh, thank you, Jesus.”
“What?”
Smith straightens up again, still laughing. He swipes a hand across his forehead. “I thought I was gonna have to tell her myself. Whew.”
There’s no way. She saw Smith’s call log after Shara disappeared. He couldn’t have faked caring that much. “You—what are you saying? She was right?”
“It’s,” Smith says, sobering with a wince, “complicated.”
“I defended you!”
“Look, it only started that way!” he insists. “It was … okay, so, freshman year, I went to a party at Dixon’s house and found out Rory had moved in next door to Shara. And he didn’t want to talk to me at school, but I realized I could still stay close to him, and I wanted to know he was okay. I was worried about him. The last few months we were friends, we talked a lot about how he was afraid his dad would have to move, and how his brother wouldn’t be able to drive us around introducing us to music anymore because he was going to college. I knew it had to be rough for him. So I—I asked Shara to homecoming, so I could go over to her house and see him.”
“You spent twenty dollars on carnations for that?”
“I wasn’t sure she’d say yes,” Smith says. “It was only supposed to be homecoming, I swear, but then I liked her. Like, as a person. She was cool, and I could be myself around her. And everyone liked us together, and it worked for both of us, and I felt so guilty about how it started, but it was too late to tell her the truth. And every time I said I loved her, I meant it, just, you know. Not like that. And I tried to forget about the Rory thing and be a good boyfriend, but he was—he was always there, and I couldn’t think about her because I was thinking about him—”