Three
SENIOR YEAR
After the blackout, Principal Fielding reclaims the podium to apologize for the glitch, apparently caused by the power company doing some work down the road. Then the game goes on like nothing happened. But the more I think about it, the more I’m wigging out. Jadie’s reaction when I tell her what happened doesn’t help either.
“Someone kissed you?” Her face contorts like she caught a whiff of something foul. “That’s assault! How gross.”
She, of course, has a point. Who bumps into a girl in pitch-blackness, kisses her, and then walks away without another word? But I didn’t have to kiss back. I chose to. Because it was so far from gross.
And honestly, the first thing that struck me was how familiar it seemed. Like a reminder of something I’d lost. Or someone.
Maybe someone who’d dredge up an old photo from the depths of obscurity and put it where he knew I’d see it.
Even though Joel’s name was the first word to leave my mouth following the kiss, I backpedaled on my hasty conclusion almost immediately. But there were only three people in that picture—Ben, Joel, and me. If my theory is that the picture and the kiss are somehow connected, then Ben is an automatic no, because he’s not here. Jadie and the other girls will see him later, at Buck’s Diner, where the football players will walk in yelling “COLLINSSS,” and he’ll reply “Suuuup!” before dishing up fries and floats for the post-game feeding frenzy we’ve dubbed Friday Night Eats.
And obviously I didn’t kiss myself. Which leaves Joel. I have no idea where he’s disappeared to, but he was onstage when the power went out. Which means he would’ve had to find his way off the platform and over to me in pitch-blackness. It doesn’t seem likely, but it’s not impossible.
It’s very possible, though, that the picture and the kiss have nothing to do with each other. People share throwback pictures on the site all the time. And no one could’ve planned for a freak blackout, so it makes zero sense that someone posted the picture and then waited for their opportunity to sneak up on me.
It’s strange, but every time I remember the likelihood of the kiss-and-the-photo-being-unrelated phenomena, I find myself alternately tracking Noah Granger’s every move and avoiding his gaze like the plague. It’s not like I’m wishing for it to be him. I’ve spent the past few weeks making it crystal clear that We Are Not a Thing. And yet if I superimpose his face onto the memory of that kiss, it’s kind of difficult to remember why I’ve been fighting so hard to stay in the friend zone.
Maybe the world doesn’t implode if a Mortonville Pirate kisses a Ridgedale Raven. Even if there are some serious sparks.
I shake off the thought, opting to study every boy on the field instead. I snap picture after picture in the hope that my lens will see something I don’t—a wink, a secretive look, a flare of someone’s freaking nostrils—any indication that those stolen seconds in the dark were our little secret and not just mine.
When the cheers die down after the final buzzer finds Ridgedale victorious over its visitor, Noah trots over to me. I can’t help but hold my breath.
“Hey,” he says. “Fielding’s offering hot dogs on the school if we go to Fuddruckers instead of Buck’s tonight. You’re in, right?”
Oh.
Call me crazy, but if I wanted to craft the perfect follow-up to a secret, electric kiss, I probably wouldn’t lead with hot dogs. Something deflates inside me. But before I can answer, Joel reappears and jogs up to Noah’s side.
“Hey, Mace,” he says like we’re old pals and not ex-friends. Like he has no grasp on the depth of my contempt for him. “My dad convinced Fielding to spring for hot dogs. You need a ride?”
“She can ride with me,” Noah says, his tone a dismissive block of ice.
“Relax, dude.” Joel gives him a derisive once-over before turning his attention back to me. “Either way, you coming?”
I’m not very hungry, though my answer would be the same regardless. “Thanks, but I’m gonna pass tonight.”
Arms wind around me before I even realize Jadie has bounced over to us. “You pass every Friday night,” she says. “We’re going to keep asking until we wear you down. I’m not a cheerleader anymore either, and I still go.”
“That’s different. Your boyfriend is on the team.” Not to mention there’s way more to it than that, and Jadie knows it.
Noah raises a hand. “Uh, hi. Boy who’s your friend and also on the team, right over here.”
I give him my best regretful smile. “No, thanks. My parents are here. I’ll head out with them.”
“Do you want me to skip out and make you s’mores instead?” Jadie asks.
Jadie is the only person I know who can microwave chocolate and marshmallows into stew. So I tell her I have a bag of S’mores Oreos to keep me company, which leads to her usual fake retching and staunch declaration that Double Stuf Oreos are the only Oreos worth eating. Normally I’d go to bat for my equal-opportunity Oreo eating, but in all honesty, the solitude of my bedroom is the only company I want right now. Nothing is making sense to me, and I need time to sit and process all the questions in my head. So I concede, say my good-byes, and start toward the stands.
“Mace?” Noah calls after me, and I turn around. “See you Monday?” He fixes those smoldering eyes on me as one side of his mouth quirks up into a smile, and my heart stops.
That’s the kind of look I’ve been waiting for.
I’m tempted to backtrack, to stick around after all. But as I hesitate, I spot Joel watching me a few feet away. The way he’s looking at me, like he wants to say something but isn’t sure he should, sets off a flutter of warning in my belly. He turns and walks off as if he’s thought better of whatever he almost said.
In a sudden burst of bravery, I open a text message and type: DID YOU WANT TO TELL ME SOMETHING?
It’s not until I’m dropping into the backseat of my parents’ car that Joel’s response vibrates in my hand:
LOTS OF THINGS.
LIKE? I type back.
I wait for an answer that never comes, my temple pressed against the window and my wrist throbbing dully beneath my brace. Joel’s face is still flashing through my mind long after we get home. Meredith’s, too.
I keep thinking about the way she would look at me only through the lens of Jadie’s camera. Last year we talked about being roommates if we got accepted to UNC, and scheduling all our classes together. Now I think I’ve become invisible to her. I’ve thought the same thing about Joel, about Ben. I’ve asked myself a thousand times how we went from being friends to floating around one another like ghosts, acting like we no longer exist on the same plane. The picture on the Ridgedale’s Finest page is proof that at one time our friendship was real. As I stare at it again on the screen of my phone, I have to wonder—hope?—if maybe that’s the point someone was trying to make in posting it.