it wasn’t. It was crazy. Our lips met and that déjà vu feeling nearly swallowed me. Then Smith’s hands went into my hair and I freaked out. Pulled away, babbled something. He was freaked too. I could tell. He kept looking down at his right hand and clenching it like it hurt him or something. We nearly sprinted in opposite directions and have kept our distance since then.
So no. No Smith and me. No me and Smith. It’s not gonna happen. Even if a part of me wishes that it would.
Besides which, I have bigger things to think about than double dates. Tomorrow I finally get out of the hospital and then it’s on to senior year and after that—the rest of my life.
I’m feeling pretty good about that, though. Something about being bulletproof makes me optimistic about the future. My uncles can see me turning over the possibilities in my head. They know it’s not in me to lay low the way they have. I’m gonna do things my own way, and it’s probably gonna get messy. Or as Uncle Jet put it a few minutes ago, “If you’re not careful, by the time you’re twenty you’ll be so full of bullet holes, people’ll think you’re made of Swiss cheese.”
I told him he was acting like an old lady and he stormed out. Then Uncle Dune and Uncle Rod went after him, leaving me alone for the rest of the night. Which is how I like it. Having them hovering at my bedside like little old ladies makes me nervous. It feels good to fall asleep with no one watching me, worrying I’ll slip back into another coma.
You can never get rid of them for long, though, and the next morning I wake up with someone once again holding my hand. I try to jerk it away, but Dyl is holding tight this morning. Peeling my eyes open, I turn to ask her how the third date with Larry went. Instead, my mouth falls open and I blink stupidly.
It’s Smith. His hair is mussed and his expression uncertain, but only for an instant and then that confident smile slides into place.
“Smith,” I say. The word nearly gets caught in my throat. “What are you doing here?”
“Lennie,” he answers, that smile not wavering. “Everyone was asking about you at Kayla’s party last night.”
It takes a minute for me to remember what he’s talking about. Then I do. Michaela’s Labor Day party is an annual event for all the people who matter at our school. Smith is on this list. I am not. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been to the party. On the contrary, I make it a point of going every year, just as Michaela makes a point of humiliating party crashers. Except she’s never been able to catch me. I’m actually a bit notorious for being the only person to crash her party and get away unscathed three times running.
“Everyone knows I’m in the hospital,” I say now. “You know, that whole being in a coma thing?”
Smith shrugs. “I guess people figured that wouldn’t stop you. Or maybe they were hoping against hope to see you there.” His eyes meet and hold mine in this significant way that seems to be saying he specifically was hoping. But then he looks away, and I wonder if I imagined it. “Anyway, you didn’t miss anything. Not even the challenge of crashing. I don’t know if you heard, but after you were shot, Michaela had some sort of weird ‘come to Jesus’ moment or something. She started this whole anti-bullying thing, and apologized to everyone she’d ever hurt, and to top it all off, started dating Wee Willie Winkie.”
“Yeah, Dyl told me about some of that. She also said Michaela brings the pain to anyone who dares call Todd Wee Willie Winkie.”
“True,” Smith admits with a laugh. “But I like to live dangerously.”
I laugh too and then Smith entertains me with a story of how Zinkowski and Turlington were the bright spot of an otherwise boring party. Apparently, they showed up totally baked and starting doing this Jedi mind trick thing. According to Smith, it was pretty cool at first. They sat facing each other and would then say the same thing at the exact same time like, “Cheetos touch” or “wisdom of the ages, man.” They swore it wasn’t rehearsed, but after a while everyone lost interest and started drifting away. Turlington and Zinkowski didn’t even seem to notice.
It’s a pretty funny story, but when he’s done, I can’t help but ask the question that’s been on my mind this whole time. “So what are you doing here, Smith? Why aren’t you passed out on Michaela’s floor like everyone else?”
Smith shakes his head. “No one is passed out on Michaela’s floor. A little after midnight, she turned off the music, turned up the lights, and began dumping all the liquor down the sink. Then she went room by room telling people to get out. I asked her what the deal was, and she just said she had this nervous feeling that if they didn’t leave now, she might be stuck with them forever. It was crazy, but I also sorta think she had a point. You know?”
“Yeah,” I agree, without quite knowing why. Then, refusing to let him off the hook, I ask again, “Why are you here, Smith?”
It comes out a little too cool, almost like I’m trying to get rid of him. But apparently Smith isn’t bothered ’cause he leans in closer and rests his head beside mine on my pillow. “Would you believe I woke up this morning and could think of nothing I wanted to do more than hold your hand?”
He holds up our interconnected hands. Making me see how right it looks and feels to have his palm pressed against mine. Our eyes meet over the tips of our matched fingers.
“Some new kind of kink?” I ask, my voice low and raspy like it was when I first woke up from my coma. Funny, ’cause this feels like another kind of waking up.
“Maybe,” Smith replies.
This is the part where I should jerk my hand out of Smith’s and put a lot more space between us before blushing and babbling about how we’re just friends and it doesn’t mean anything and of course he doesn’t like me, or not like that, anyway.
But that feels like something another version of myself would do.
A lamer, play-it-safe Lennie, who can’t see that sometimes you gotta take risks.
A Lennie who’s afraid to admit she wants so much more.
A Lennie who thinks “be careful what you wish for” means never wishing for anything at all.
Yikes, right? Thank God I’m not that girl.
Grabbing hold of Smith’s shirt, I pull him closer, until it’s more than only our hands pressed together. “I’m gonna make all your wishes come true,” I say, grinning at him. “And mine too.”
And then—without the aid of any shine—that’s exactly what I do.