I Kissed Shara Wheeler(89)

It’s a prom night they never had, and she’s found the only person like her in a small town the size of the world, and they’re alone in a quiet room kissing in front of God and everybody.

Someone calls Shara’s name from downstairs.

“Let’s go!” Shara’s mom yells. “We’re supposed to be bringing cookies! We gotta stop at the store on the way to church!”

Shara breaks off, eyes wide.

Chloe whispers, “My car’s around the corner.”

One second of consideration, two, and then Shara calls out, “I’m almost done with my hair! Hang on!”

She throws off her robe and grabs a pair of sneakers, spinning around to show Chloe the open back of her dress.

“Zip me up.”

When Chloe reaches for the zipper, her fingertips graze warm skin, and her heart is five million bits of stage glitter swirling in an overture spotlight, and then Shara’s stomping her sneakers on and climbing over the windowsill. She pauses at the top of the ladder and looks back at Chloe.

“Are you coming or what?”

“This was literally my idea!” Chloe hisses, but Shara’s already out of sight.





FROM THE BURN PILE


Rejected drafts of Shara’s final card for Chloe, scribbled in the margins of her notes for the Chem II exam Chloe,

You win. I hope that’s what you wanted.

Chloe,

Of all the things I’ve tried to hide under my pillow, you’ve got to be the most persistent.

Chloe,

There was this one weekend, a million summers ago, when I sat on the shore drinking a frozen limeade, and I realized the only thing I wanted to look at was the way the sun hit the girls swimming in the lake.

The problem has always been this: When I look at you, I taste lime, and I see light on water.





23


DAYS SINCE CHLOE CLIMBED THROUGH SHARA’S WINDOW (THE SECOND TIME): 0


They jump the fence and take off running.

Shara’s fast when she wants to be, which Chloe probably should have expected. They clear Rory’s yard in seconds. As soon as they’re around the corner, Shara grabs her hand, and Chloe nearly shouts a laugh at the feeling of Shara’s fingers between hers. This is really happening, huh?

The dolphin fountain is overflowing now, spilling laundry suds all over the pristine grass and puddling around Chloe’s tires.

“Where are we going?” Shara asks her.

“My house!” Chloe says, out of breath. “My moms have pottery class in Birmingham on Monday nights.”

“Okay,” Shara says. She releases Chloe’s hand, breaking for the driver’s side. “Throw me the keys.”

“It’s my car,” Chloe points out.

Shara flips her hair over her shoulder, like that’s irrelevant. “I’m fast.”

She’s never considered “getaway driving” as one of Shara’s skills, but she has to admit, Shara’s been good at everything else she’s tried to do so far. She loops around to the passenger side and tosses the keys over the hood.

“Don’t wreck it or it’s my ass.”

Shara catches the keys in one hand and rolls her eyes. “I’m a great driver.”

And then she’s sliding into the driver seat, stealing the sunglasses out of Chloe’s cup holder and putting them on.

It takes half a minute for Shara to turn Chloe’s hand-me-down Camry into a music video. She rolls the windows down and takes the right turn out of the country club toward Chloe’s house without asking for directions, and she’s right—she is a good driver. She stays perfectly between the lines. One hand on the wheel, pink hair flying, knees apart under her church dress. They pass a car with a missing headlight, and Shara slaps the ceiling.

Chloe wonders how a month away turned Shara into this, but when Shara shoots her a look over the top of her sunglasses, she remembers that Shara’s always been this person. This is what I’ve been trying to tell you, she wrote on a card stuck under an auditorium seat. Shara’s not nice. Shara’s so many more important things than nice.

Then they get to Chloe’s house, and there Shara is, standing in Chloe’s kitchen, next to Chloe’s mama’s boob painting. Titania winds around her ankles before slinking out of the kitchen.

They’re alone. This is real.

Chloe realizes that she’s never actually been the one to kiss Shara first. She doesn’t know how to do it.

“Do you—” Chloe says. One of the crystal wind chimes is turning in the window, and the light falls across Shara’s face in a Botticelli swipe from cheek to jaw. “Do you, um, want something to drink?”

“Do y’all have sweet tea?” Shara asks.

Chloe beams a telepathic thank-you to her mom. “I do, actually.”

She pours two glasses. She even gets Shara a straw and a little paper cocktail napkin out of the junk drawer.

“Well, aren’t you a nice Southern hostess,” Shara says, watching Chloe add ice cubes to her glass. Chloe glances up and finds her smirking.

When Shara looks at her like that, all airy and sly, it makes Chloe think of the first time her mama brought home an icebox pie. It was strawberries and cream, her mom’s favorite, and the whole thing seemed to be a feat of mechanical physics. It didn’t make sense how the strawberries held effortlessly together when you sliced it, or how the cloud of meringue sat weightless on top. She remembers studying the layers from the side and having the inexplicable thought, This is a Shara Wheeler kind of pretty.