THEN
Tomorrow was the first day of eighth grade. We were twelve. And I was madly, hopelessly, in love with my best friend.
I didn’t hide it, Gavin either, but we were kids. Holding hands sent me into a storm of hormones, and butterflies filled every single cavity in my stomach. Sometimes, I could feel their wings brushing over my heart, that’s how much the boy next door affected me.
We were in my bedroom, and we were packing our backpacks for tomorrow. I hated how little school supplies he had. He’d mowed every lawn in the neighborhood once a week all summer to pay for his school supplies since his foster family didn’t have any extra money. They’d kept him, instead of sending him away like all the other kids, and anything more was up to him.
Mom and Dad had given me one-hundred-dollars to buy my own school supplies. I didn’t tell Gavin that part. I bought a pack of gum and just brought a twenty with me, so he wouldn’t feel left out. I bought some more school supplies when he wasn’t looking and kept them, so when he asked for an extra pen, or a notebook, I’d be able to give him what he needed.
Gavin deserved to have everything he wanted. But no one gave it to him. I tried, sometimes so hard I couldn’t sleep at night thinking of ways to make his eyes less sad.
He frowned at the school supply list. “Crap, I don’t have a ruler, or a binder.” He sighed heavily, and then forced out a shrug. “Oh well. What do I need a ruler for? I’ve got a great eye. And I’ll just use my notebook as a binder.” He smiled, like that solved everything.
But it didn’t.
I studied his lips. They were smooth and soft looking. I loved the smell of his breath when he got close, and the feel of his lips on my cheek. He’d been kissing my cheek a lot lately, holding my hand longer, tighter. I was sitting on my bed and he was sitting on the floor. And I hated the distance.
“I have an extra ruler.”
“You do?” He looked at my single, transparent pink ruler with a doubtful lift to his brow. “Is it pink?”
“It’s blue. Like your last name.”
He rolled his eyes. “Just because my last name is Cobalt, doesn’t mean I like blue, Jassy.”
I giggled. “Really, because I bought something today.” I pulled my blue lip gloss from my pocket and produced it proudly. “I thought you might like it.”
“What’s that?” He snatched it from me. “Blueberry lip gloss?” he read the words on the bottle slowly. “Why would I like this?”
“On me, stupid.” I snatched it back. “All the older girls wear it.” I shrugged. “I thought you might like it, because it was blue.” I felt stupid and wanted to throw the stupid gloss in the garbage.
He swallowed hard and his lips parted. He looked confused and nervous. “The older girls wear it for different reasons.”
“What reasons?” I asked, having a hard time meeting his eyes.
“They wear it for guys. So it’ll make us want to kiss them.”
Is that why I bought it? So Gavin would stop kissing my cheek and start kissing me? “Do you want to kiss… other girls? Like Kristy Lowen. She’s always trying to get your attention.” I couldn’t breathe around the ache in my chest. Stupid Kristy Lowen. She was thirteen, older, and she even wore a two piece at the pool all summer. Every boy there had gawked at her.
Everyone except Gavin. We played Marco Polo until our throats hurt from laughing. But she never stopped walking by us, never stopped trying to talk to him. Her lips were bright red and shimmery. One day, he might look up and notice her. Take away my best friend.
My lips were naked, and my braces weren’t set to come off for another six months. I was just Jasmeen DeJones.
He shrugged, his eyes shooting from the lip gloss to my lips, and then back to my eyes. “I don’t want to kiss girls like Kristy, but I do want to kiss someone.”
Devastation devoured the butterflies in my stomach, leaving behind lifeless, gossamer wings and pain. I wanted to cry. I nodded, looking down at the glossy tube of blue lip gloss in my hands. “Yeah, well, I want to kiss boys too.”
“What boys? I’m the only boy you hang out with.”
I lobbed the lip gloss tube at him. “Not true. I hang out with William too.”
He stopped moving. His entire body became hyper focused on me. “When?”
“We had to do that history project at school together. And that one day when you were sick this past summer, I got bored and went to the pool, and he taught me how to float on my back.”
He stared at me, a flush rising in his cheeks. “William?” he said coldly. “The red headed kid who eats freaking carrots for lunch?”
I was addicted to the fire burning in his eyes. He looked angry, and I loved it. “Maybe I’ll kiss him with my blueberry lip gloss.”
He grabbed it up where it lay, a heartbroken look entering his eyes. I hated myself for putting that look in his eyes. He glared at the tube, and then he looked up at me. “No.”
“No what?”
He pushed to his feet and sat on my bed. He unscrewed the top and pulled the applicator out, the smell of artificial blueberries swirling around us. The soft tip of the applicator glowed a deep, rich blue. He met my eyes determinedly. “Make a kissing face.”
I couldn’t breathe as I did what he asked. I puckered my lips and he stared at them. He slid the applicator over my bottom lip, and then carefully over my top, doing that two more times until I guessed it looked good to him. Then he plunged the applicator back into the gloss and twisted the top closed, dropping the tube; it fell between our touching knees.
He grabbed my face between his hands and leaned close to me. His sticky toffee eyes looked like they were burning. “You’re only allowed to kiss me. Only me.”
And then Gavin Cobalt kissed my twelve-year-old heart into complete and utter oblivion.
The smell of fake blueberries filled the air between us. The butterflies he killed earlier were alive again, stronger, bigger, filling my insides with intense warmth.
I’d never felt anything in my entire life as good as Gavin’s warm lips brushing over mine. I’d never felt so gone, but so completely found.
He found me when I found him.
And my heart was his.