P.S. I Like You(67)

Isabel gave a knowing laugh. “So you were both being dumb.”

“Yes. How did you keep Mrs. Clark talking for that long, by the way?”

“What? No. Who cares. Why are you asking that question when you haven’t finished telling me the story?”

I laughed. “Wow. I could really drag this out and make you mad.”

She grabbed my hand and squeezed. “But you won’t do that because you owe me big-time for what I just did.”

“True. Thank you so much.”

“I don’t need your praise. I need the rest of the story. Tell me.”

I sucked my lips in to keep from laughing again. She was portraying perfectly how I felt on the inside, all excitement and manic happiness.

“Okay, sorry, sorry. Let’s see, where was I. So, he recited his letter, which he had apparently memorized, to me, not letting me get it from the desk. Basically he said that he was afraid I wouldn’t like him once I found out who he was and that when he realized I was doing the same thing, he was relieved. And then he told me he liked me. So I kissed him. But then I remembered you were waiting so I ran.”

“Wait, what?” Isabel cried, her eyes on the road as the car swerved a tiny bit. “You’re just going to casually mention kissing him and move on like that’s nothing?”

I wasn’t going to casually mention kissing him. I wanted to go into detail but suddenly with Isabel sitting next to me, squeezing my hand, I remembered something I hadn’t when I was kissing him—that she’d kissed him, too.

“Don’t,” she said as though reading my mind. “Don’t think about that. We’ve both kissed several people since then and I’m sure it’s nothing close to the same. We were young. I wasn’t even thinking about that, Lil. I promise. You two are adorable. It’s not even comparable to what Cade and I had. So spill it.”

I let out a happy sigh. “It was perfect.”

She pulled into a parking lot and I realized she was taking me up on the ice cream sundae offer right this second. “This story is going to be even better with ice cream,” she said.



It was seven o’clock when the doorbell rang. I was already in my pajamas and makeup free. I hardly registered the doorbell because I’d just written several lines of a new song, one that wouldn’t exploit Cade’s tragic life.

It’s easy to judge not knowing the truth Only seeing carefully built walls.

It’s hard to undo years written in youth

But how amazing when the tower finally falls.

And I see you standing there

All sweet and kind of scared.

And you see me standing here.

Hope in my eyes but full of fear.

A knock at my door startled me from the lyrics. “Yeah?”

The door opened and my mom’s face appeared. “Hey, you have a visitor.”

“I do?”

She didn’t give me a chance to ask another question, just swung my door open the rest of the way, revealing Cade. He stood, hands clasped in front of him, his posture reserved, shoulders down, head bowed slightly, like he wasn’t sure how I’d receive him.

“Hey!” I jumped up, a smile instantly on my face. “Come in.”

He looked to my mom to make sure that was okay.

“Keep the door open,” was all she said in return, then walked away.

“I don’t have your phone number,” he said, looking around my room, then choosing the desk chair at the foot of my bed as his landing place. “I wanted to see you.”

I sunk back down to my bed, my smile far from leaving my face. “I will give you my phone number so that I’ll be better prepared for you next time.” I patted my hair and tugged on my T-shirt.

“You look adorable.” He rolled the desk chair around my bed so we were now knee to knee. “You are adorable. I want to kiss you. I can do that now, right?”

I only got one head bob of my nod in before he took my face in his hands and pulled me to him. Given the urgency in his eyes, I thought our lips would collide, but right before they did, he paused, breathed me in, then ran his lips slowly across mine. My breath was gone and I grabbed hold of the front of his shirt and tugged him toward me. The kiss didn’t last long enough before he pulled away again.

“I just wanted to make sure,” Cade said with a smile. “With the way you left today, I wasn’t sure where we stood.”

“You think I just go around kissing boys for fun?”

“I don’t know what to think of you. You constantly surprise me. I honestly thought that you’d be waiting for me after baseball practice.”

I made a face. “You wanted me to wait around school for over an hour?”

He laughed. “No, I did not. That would be boring.”

“Oh!” I said, suddenly realizing something. “That’s what other girls have done. I’m sorry. That probably would’ve been a good show of how much I liked you or something.”

“Don’t be sorry. I like that your life doesn’t revolve around this.” He pointed between the two of us and I grabbed his finger.

“What do you mean by this?”

“Us.”

“Us? I like us.”

He kissed my hand that was still holding his finger. “Me too.”