Look Both Ways(31)

Pandora shrugs like it’s no big deal. “It was hot.”

“Hot like sexy or hot like too warm?”

“Both,” she says. The guy nods slowly, and I can tell he’s thinking about doughnuts. He clears his throat.

“Never have I ever had a crush on someone at this festival,” he says, then immediately drinks. Pandora flushes with pleasure but keeps her own cup on the ground. The choppy-haired non-eq drinks, and so do Kenji and Todd, who share a sweet little kiss afterward. Russell drinks, and then he glances around the room, like he’s checking to make sure no one saw him. I assume he’s thinking about Olivier. It must suck when you have to see someone every day but you can’t express how you really feel about them.



There’s a sudden clap of thunder so loud that I feel it all the way to my core, and everyone squeals. The rain is coming down hard now, and the girl who played Helena in Midsummer starts closing the common room windows so the water won’t blow in and wreck the decorations. I wish she’d leave them open. We rarely get summer storms like this in the city, and I love the raw power of them, the way they make you feel edgy and dangerous even if you’re actually safe and dry.

It’s my turn now, so I say, “Never have I ever cheated on my significant other.”

One of the non-eq girls half raises her cup, then lowers it, then raises it again. “Does it count if your significant other knew about it and said it was okay?” she asks.

“That’s not cheating,” Zoe says. “That’s an open relationship. Totally different.”

“Oh, actually, wait,” the non-eq says, and then she drinks anyway, and everyone laughs.

Another flash of lightning bathes us all in blue-white for a split second. The thunder is almost simultaneous, and this time the common room lights flicker and die. Everyone goes “Oooooh!” at the same time, and then we’re all laughing and talking over each other much louder than usual, like our noise will chase away the dark. Cell phone screens blink to life everywhere and float around like a swarm of giant, rectangular fireflies.



It seems like our game is over; there’s no point in playing Never Have I Ever if you can’t see who’s drinking. But then the choppy-haired non-eq digs an LED flashlight keychain out of her bag and tosses it into the center of the circle. It’s not superbright, but when we scoot in a little closer, it’s enough to see each other. Zoe’s knee is pressing against my thigh, and I think about moving away to give her more space, but I don’t.

“Whose turn is it?” Kenji asks.

“Mine,” Zoe say. “Never have I ever kissed a girl.”

Everyone but Livvy, Kenji, and I raise our cups. Zoe drinks, and I wonder if her kiss was for a show or a party game or just because she wanted to. I feel bizarrely let down that she hasn’t told me that story yet in one of our late-night conversations.

“Never?” Todd’s saying to Kenji across the circle.

“Babe, why would I kiss girls when I can kiss you?”

“I don’t mean now. What about before you came out?”

“I came out when I was ten. You know that.”

“I kissed a girl at a Halloween party last year,” Pandora announces, though nobody asked her. “We were both dressed as sexy Hermione Granger.”

I turn to Zoe, trying to think of a nonchalant way to ask who she kissed, and I find that she’s already looking at me. It’s probably the weird glow of the blue LED light, but her eyes look a little brighter than usual, a little more mischievous. Before I can speak, she reaches out and puts her hand on the back of my neck, her fingers cool and wet from the condensation on her cup. And then, before I can process what’s happening, her mouth is on mine.



I’ve played Spin the Bottle before, and the kisses are always either quick and perfunctory or incredibly showy performances designed to get a reaction out of the group. For a second, I’m positive this is the second kind of kiss; everyone around us starts whistling and screaming the way you do when you’re slightly drunk and everything is way funnier than it should be. Zoe doesn’t seem like the kind to beg for attention, and for a second I feel used and start to pull away. But she holds me in place, and I’m suddenly not sure whether she’s kidding or not. I can’t even figure out whether I want her to be kidding.

Zoe finally ends the kiss and opens her eyes. For a few seconds, she hovers a centimeter away from my lips, still so close to me that her false eyelashes brush my cheekbones when she blinks. I inhale the smell of her foundation and her grapefruit shampoo and her vodka-cranberry breath, and even though my heart is racing, there’s nothing in me that wants this moment to end. Across the circle, people are still whooping and hollering, but it feels like there’s a barrier between us and them, like their voices are on the radio or underwater.

“There,” Zoe says in a quiet voice meant only for me. “Now you’ve kissed a girl.” She takes her hand off my neck and sits back up like nothing unusual just happened.

Because I have no idea what else to do, I pick up my cup and drink.

And then the world moves forward, like Zoe’s kissing me isn’t a monumentally big deal. Livvy takes her turn, telling us that she has never hooked up with someone older than thirty, and then the girl on her other side says that she’s never lied during a game of Never Have I Ever. But I’m not paying attention anymore. What did Zoe’s kiss mean? Did it mean anything? Would I be disappointed if it turned out to mean nothing? Livvy hasn’t kissed a girl, either, so why didn’t Zoe kiss her? Was she looking for an excuse to kiss me?