LATER THAT NIGHT I’M WALKING along the sidewalk when I see Jack sitting on the wooden bench near my dorm.
“Jack?” I say softly. He’s silhouetted in the darkness by the light coming from the lobby. I move closer and he stands up from the bench, and the tiny hairs on the back of my neck wake up. He’s standing there in his army-green coat with an unsure, embarrassed look on his face. Everything about him seems so different than at the dance, and I have the odd sensation that maybe I dreamed up the confident, handsome in his uniform, wildly dancing Jack who literally swept me off my feet and held my hand beneath Christmas lights.
“Hey,” he says. I see him notice me wearing my uniform, but whatever he’s thinking, he doesn’t say out loud. He looks even more sheepish as he stuffs both hands deep into the pockets of his jeans. “Can we talk?”
I nod. We duck into my dorm together without saying anything. There’s a long hallway that leads to a first-floor study room, and that’s where I want to go. It’s always empty.
Jack follows me, and I look at everything but him as we walk down the hall. The floor is a speckled brown marble, and the walls on either side of us are the color of wet sand. (Who picks a gross shade like that?)
There’s a long mirror at the end of the hallway, and it reminds me of that first night when I saw myself in the mirror sneaking out with Jack. But I look different now, stronger and more sure of myself.
Jack and I swing right into the study room and close the door behind us. We sit on a cold iron bench next to a wall of windows looking out onto the quad, and a strange thing happens: I start feeling upset with him. Did I really do something bad enough to deserve a day of the silent treatment? He didn’t even let me explain what I meant. I turn so that I’m facing him, but scoot back so we aren’t too close.
“Why didn’t you answer my messages from last night and today?” I blurt. I lean back on my butt and curl my knees to my chest. He looks a little stunned at the way I said it.
“I-I’m sorry,” he says.
“You should be,” I say.
He lets out a self-conscious laugh. “I was thinking I got to be the one who was upset,” he says. I can tell he’s trying to lighten the situation, but I’m not ready to give him that. Someone shouts outside the window and I glance onto the quad just in time to see a short, stocky boy peg a snowball at a taller boy and miss. A few yards away from the snowball boys are a dozen students in uniform practicing a drill. A tall girl in the center holds a flag, and all the cadets march with such precision that I’m pretty sure they’re the drill team. Joni told me she tried out two years in a row, but didn’t make it. It was the first time I’d heard of her failing at something military.
I turn back to Jack. “We’re supposed to be friends,” I say softly, “and I was just trying to explain something, and you wouldn’t even stick around long enough to listen.”
Jack’s cheeks go pink. “I’m sorry,” he says again. “I didn’t think about it like that, because I guess I couldn’t think at all, because I just started telling myself you were leaving the Academy and going home, and that I was going to lose you.”
I take in his sweet face, and all the worry on his features. “If you’d just let me explain myself . . .”
He raises an eyebrow.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I say. “Not just because of you, but because I like it here, too, and it feels meaningful for me to be here. I want to do things here that make my parents and me proud, and maybe even make the Academy proud.” I take a breath. I have to say it. “I also like you, Jack, a lot.” Now it’s my turn to blush. I’m nervous, but it feels amazing to have said that out loud.
“You do?” he asks. His voice is so incredulous I can’t help but smile.
“Yeah,” I say. “I do.” I don’t know how to make him understand just how much I like him, and I’m scared to let him know because putting myself out there romantically isn’t exactly something I have a lot of practice with. But the big thing I’ve learned here besides discipline and strength is how important it is to be honest and true.
“Back at home I always fell back on this crush I had—on the guy I told you I kissed who had a girlfriend.” I take a breath, feeling really emotional all of a sudden. “My friend Julia pointed out to me recently how I barely knew him. So I guess maybe I mostly just liked the idea of him. But now I’m here, and there’s you, and the more we hang out and get to know each other, the more I like you, and I want to get to know you even better, and the dance, that whole night was perfect until . . .”
Outside the window, the drill team drummer plays his snare drum. It’s that traditional military marching rhythm—ba-da-dum-dum-dum . . . ba-da-dum-dum-dum! Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-dum-dum-dum!—and somehow it makes our conversation seem even more urgent. There’s this term I learned in Military Strategy: non-zero-sum game. It can mean lots of things, but in terms of a conversation, it can mean that both sides feel like they’ve been heard, that they’ve both gained something rather than one winning and one losing. There’s something else I need to say to Jack, because I can’t walk around on eggshells trying to be perfect for him or anybody else. “You have to try harder to trust me,” I say, my voice unwavering. I feel nervous confronting him, but strong, too. “If you don’t trust me, this isn’t going to work.”
Jack nods slowly like he knows what I mean, and then he says, “I’m sorry, Frankie. I promise you I’ll work on it. Maybe I won’t be perfect—but I promise you I’ll try.”
A quiet moment passes between us, and I realize this is about so much more than just us. “There are so many things I’ve done this year that I wasn’t supposed to,” I say. “I lost my parents’ respect, and it felt so, so awful, and I want to prove to them I deserve their trust again, and I want to be a good friend to Joni, too, and a good friend to you. Maybe more.”
“More,” Jack says softly. “I like how that sounds.”
“Me too,” I say.
We’re quiet for a beat, our eyes on each other, waiting.
“So you said you want to get to know each other better?” Jack asks. He seems so nervous.
“I do,” I say.
“And maybe if you like me when you get to know me better, you’ll want me to be your boyfriend?”
My heart lurches. I try to think of something to say to hide how startled I am he just said that.
“Who said anything about being my boyfriend?” I tease.
“You’re killing me,” he says.
He covers my hand with his and it feels like electricity sparking where our skin touches. His eyes hold mine, his gaze so intense it makes me flush, and then he says, “Can I take you out Friday night?”
I swallow. “I can’t sneak off campus, Jack,” I say carefully.
“Not off campus—nowhere that could get us in trouble,” Jack says.
“A date,” I say.
“A date,” he says.
“Yes,” I say, that one word meaning more right now than any other time I’ve ever said it. “I’d like that.”
“Good,” Jack says. He stands and pulls me to my feet, his body strong and sure as he guides me closer to him. The warmth of him feels like everything I need. I think back to one of those first days with Jack when he showed up in the cafeteria wearing a hairnet, ready to help me. Right away it felt easy with him, right away it had been good. I lift my chin and smile, still in his arms, never wanting to leave this place. “I like you more than I’ve ever liked anybody, and I’m so scared of it getting ruined,” I say.
A bugle sounds along with the snare drum, but neither of us looks toward the quad as the music filters through the glass to the space between us. We’re locked on each other’s eyes as the bugle plays on, soft but insistent, and then Jack leans into me until our lips are only a breath apart. “So we protect us,” he says, voice low.
I arch onto my tiptoes. “We protect us,” I whisper. I can see the curve of his mouth, his lips scarlet from the cold. His mouth presses mine, and his kiss tells me exactly how he feels. Warmth spreads through me and I can barely catch my breath. He’s kissing me like it means something—everything—and I can feel us melting into each other; I can feel how much we both want this kiss.
His hands go into my hair, desperate and wild, and then they drop to my hips. A shiver runs through me as his body presses against me, and we kiss until I’m giddy with his nearness, heady with what it feels like to have my feelings returned by a guy, a good guy, someone who puts other people first, someone who thinks about things worth protecting, someone who wants to be brave so that others won’t have to be scared. And it gets me thinking. What if the Academy was everything I didn’t know I needed until I got it?
Jack’s kiss deepens and there’s no more thinking, no more wishing and wondering. There’s just me, here, tonight, fashionably and proudly rooted to the halls of the Academy, and Jack, his warm, brave hands circling my waist and pulling me even closer.