Famous in a Small Town(43)

This one was a soft press of lips to start, barely parted, the lightest bit of pressure, and then we pulled back for a moment. I looked up at him, but his eyes were turned downward. His eyelashes were unfairly long.

Then we kissed again. And again. And so on, slow and deliberate, each one growing longer, each one spreading through me. This was kissing, but it felt a little like talking too. Like I like you and You make me laugh and I want you to feel good, I want to make you feel good— I threaded my fingers through his hair, and he wrapped his arms around my waist, and we talked, or didn’t, until a door opened up at the end of the hall.

We froze as a couple emerged, laughing and talking, and walked right past us.

August pulled back and looked at me, eyebrows raised in question.

I slipped my hand in his, and pulled him toward the open door.



* * *



It was happening again, the slow slide of time, same as the first time in that respect, but different in that this felt … purposeful. This was building, moving toward something.

The pillows on the bed were too soft; it was like sinking into a cloud. August slipped a hand behind my head—like he knew—and kissed me deeper, meanwhile his other hand slipped under my shirt, resting tentatively at the dip of my waist.

“This okay?” he murmured between kisses.

“Yeah.” My voice stuck in my throat. “Yes,” I said as he traced higher and higher on my rib cage. I didn’t know where I wanted to touch him beyond everywhere. I didn’t know how to narrow that down, what to focus on when it all felt like so much.

“August.”

“Hm?”

He pulled back. His lips were red, wet with spit.

I just wanted to say your name. Could I even say that? Was it too much? Jesus, I was in deep.

He looked at me for a moment, and then swallowed, and something was happening behind his eyes that I couldn’t decipher.

He rolled over suddenly and sat up, swinging his legs around and placing his feet on the floor.

“No, don’t stop,” I said. “I didn’t—That’s not what I—” I sat up too, scooted toward him. I wanted to reach for him, to press kisses to the line of his shoulders, but I didn’t. I rested my hands on my knees, just to hold off.

“I—” He didn’t turn around. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

“What are you—”

But before I could finish the question, he was across the room, slipping out the door and shutting it softly.



* * *



I waited.

For a while I still felt the pulse of blood through me, warmth high in my cheeks and elsewhere. I also felt, increasingly, the irrational desire to burst into tears.

I don’t know how people did it—making out, hooking up—because to me, being with someone that way seemed to bring every possible emotion right to the surface. I felt unbearably vulnerable in moments like that, whereas Brit viewed it more like a recreational activity. Like Ping-Pong, or online gaming. I envied her. I was an open nerve. I didn’t know how to be exposed like that.

I adjusted my shirt. Fussed with my hair in the mirror over the dresser. The longer I waited, the more I knew August wasn’t coming back, but I also knew that the moment I went downstairs, it would be an actual fact that actually existed, a thing that genuinely happened. August Shaw kissed me. And then he left me.

Eventually I opened the door. Stepped into the hallway and moved to the top of the stairs. The floorboards creaked under my feet, but it was too loud downstairs to draw any notice.

August was there, right there in the front hallway at the bottom of the stairs, standing at the half-open door with Terrance and a few girls from the color guard.

Terrance had his arms raised in the air, in the middle of some story, and the girls were laughing. August grinned, and I wanted to say it looked distracted, like it didn’t quite reach his eyes, but that would be a lie. It looked the way it always looked—happy and roguish, almost too big for his face.

He leaned into Terrance and said something to him, and Terrance turned and clapped one hand into August’s.

My thoughts battled it out:

He’s heading this way. He’s coming back up.

No he’s not. Fuck that, call his name, make a scene.

I just wanted to say your name.

I just wanted …

I watched as August left, the front door shutting behind him with a definitive click.





thirty-one


I watched Megan Pleasant videos that night.

I wasn’t in the mood for performances—didn’t think I could handle a lovesick ballad—so I focused on interviews, bouncing from one to the next in the recommended-videos section.

I eventually came across a clip of a sixteen-year-old Megan at some minor award show red carpet.

“My first red carpet ever. Ever! Can you believe?”

“Megan, you look incredible, tell us about what you’re wearing.”

Megan described her outfit, and then smiled at the presenter. “You look really pretty too.”

The presenter, stick-thin and bigheaded, turned to the camera, blinking heavily smoky-eyed lids. “Isn’t she just a sweetheart? That’s what everyone says about you, honey. You are so genuine, and it’s so refreshing, lemme tell you.”