Don't Kiss the Messenger (Edgelake High School, #1)(26)

“Oh, naked’s good,” Bryn said.

“What about the very first time you saw Emmett, before you even spoke? What did you think?”

“That I wanted to jump his bones?”

She smiled and reached out for the keyboard again and I stopped her.

“Bryn, you can’t just write I wanted to jump your bones. Be more descriptive, more sensual. Like, you felt moved, aroused, alive. You felt every cell in your body wake up from a dormant sleep.”

Her eyes widened. “Wow. You should be writing this,” she said.

“I’m just trying to help you open up.”

“I did,” she said. She pointed at the screen. “And I opened up about school and how the teachers can be so controlling. I was honest about that.”

I skimmed through the email once more and pushed her laptop away.

“You can’t send him this.”

Her eyes fell on the bedspread between us. “Oh.”

“It’s a first draft,” I said. “It’s a shitty first draft, but that’s okay. They usually are. That’s what rewrites are for.” I tried my best to balance brutal honesty with constructive criticism.

“It’s not a first draft. I’ve been working on this all day. This is draft twenty, at least.”

I winced. I wondered what her first draft had looked like. I picked up her laptop and sat against the bed frame.

“Let’s go for a more creative opener,” I offered. “You feel like you have no time for yourself, right?” I asked her and she nodded. “Okay.” I deleted the first two paragraphs and I stared at the keyboard. I began to write, and talked out loud as the sentences poured out.

“Quotes tend to stick in my head, even nonsensical ones. Sometimes an image just implants itself in my brain, its meaning evolving over time. There’s a stoner rap song on my classic rock playlist that compares time to a piece of wax. That image—the idea of time as something soft, transformable, flexible—has taken hold because of its contrast to my own experience of time. If diamonds are the hardest substance on the planet, my sense of time is extraterrestrial. Some kind of hyper-solid meteorite, accelerating inexorably towards Earth.”

I stopped typing and looked up at Bryn. Her mouth was dropped open.

“Holy crap, CeCe. That’s amazing.”

I looked down at what I had just written and shrugged.

“You write it,” she said.

“What?” I said.

“You’re so much better at this than me. Seriously, it took you two minutes to write that, and that would have taken me two years.”

I didn’t argue because I believed her.

“Send it,” she begged me. “It’s perfect.”

“It’s not even ready yet,” I said. “It’s just a start. I’m not sure if I like that last sentence. Maybe we should say something about time being structured down to the nanosecond.” I handed the laptop back to Bryn but she held up her hands.

“You do it,” she said. “I trust you. When it’s ready, send it.”

“Isn’t that a little misleading?” I asked, and she shook her head.

“Whatever, it’s fine. It’s just a few emails. I’ll make up for it when I see him in person,” she said with a seductive lift of her eyebrows. “Besides, this is just an icebreaker anyway.” She grabbed the laptop out of my hands and I watched her type. A sinking feeling settled in my throat, slipping its way down to my chest. I didn’t like this plan.

“Here,” she said. “You can use one of my email accounts. I hardly ever check it. It’s the one I give out when I sign up for products. I’ll send you the password and you can just email Emmett with it? Cool?”

She waited for me to nod, her eyes wide and expectant. I opened my mouth to argue but she was already standing and walking toward the door.

“Thanks so much, CeCe, I totally owe you,” she said before she closed the door.

I stared after her and wondered what I had just gotten myself into.





Chapter Nine


Emmett


I opened my email and scanned down to the message Bryn titled Thoughts Viscous. She sent it yesterday, when they were on the road. It was strange and surprising and raw, all the things I had been craving.

I reread the message slowly, savoring each word like it was poetry. Finally, this was the inspiration I needed. The more she let me into her head, the more I wanted to see. I settled back against my pillow and typed a response.

Emmett: You think in quotes. I think in music. Instrumentally.

Lately, I’ve been fixating on you. I don’t want to come off as creepy, but you’ve become my writing muse, and it’s a nice diversion from memorizing football plays and regurgitating class notes. I’ve been trying to write you, as a song. That’s how tightly you’ve wrapped yourself around my thoughts. But I need more material. I see what’s on the surface, but it’s too clean. Too pure. I want to know your faults. I want the dirt on you. Get messy with me.

I hit send. I couple of minutes later she responded. She was online. A shot of adrenaline ran through me as I opened the email.

Bryn: What instrument are you using to write me?

I smiled and started typing.

Emmett: You are definitely piano music. Smooth, slender keys. You would respond to my every touch. Mostly high notes. Smooth crescendos.