I’m touching. “I’m still here.”
The essay disappears first, then the thick arm I was using as a pillow. Wallace pushes me onto my back and buries his head in the crook of my neck. I giggle because I can’t help it. My hands find his shoulders. He does this sometimes: one slow, careful kiss gets pressed to my collarbone; another against my neck. The neck one wrecks me. Instant ball of nerves. He can’t know how that one feels, or else he wouldn’t stop. He pushes himself up so we’re eye to eye. Our noses nearly touch. His eyes are downcast. I snap my mouth shut. His fingers run up my sides and I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe at all.
“Good,” he says.
I lock my arms around his neck and pull him down so the weight of his torso rests on mine and his forehead presses to the pillow. His breath hitches. Before I can stop myself I run a hand up through his hair. The short, sharp bristles along the base of his skull and the back of his head. The smoother, longer strands on the top. He turns his face toward me, and I trace a finger along the hair that’s fallen over his forehead.
Water rushes through the pipes overhead. A clock ticks in the darkness. One of Wallace’s eyes turns amber in the yellow light of his lamp. Want rises up in me, sharp and fast, and I know in that instant that I can’t hold myself back anymore. I don’t want to be the frozen girl, but I can’t wait for someone else to thaw me.
I tip my head forward. Wallace meets me halfway. Heat rushes through my face and he must be able to feel it in my lips. He must be able to tell I’ve never kissed anyone before. I pull away, ducking my chin. Wallace’s head follows.
“I thought I was supposed to surprise you,” he says.
“You took too long,” I say. I turn my face to the pillow so my hair makes a curtain. He brushes it back and kisses my eyebrow. Then my cheek, then my nose, then he leans over me and nuzzles my ear. Warm shocks race down my spine.
It makes no earthly sense how another person can do this. Not even with words, just touches. Just looks. He just looks at me and I feel simultaneously like myself and someone else, like I’m here and I’m not, like everything and nothing.
“What are you thinking?” I ask.
He rests on his side, still partially draped over me, and says, “You know that part in Monstrous Sea where Dallas asks Amity to kiss him once before she leaves, because he’s afraid he won’t live to see her again?”
“Yes.”
“And what he says after she does it?”
Of course I do. I wrote it.
“‘Like I imagined,’” I say. He nods. I know most people would think it’s silly or stupid to explain things this way, in scenes and quotes, but we’re both fluent in the language of Monstrous Sea. This is the way I understand him best.
“I’m bad at this,” I say.
“No you’re not,” he says.
“I’ve never kissed anyone before,” I say, face still hot.
“Yes you have,” he says, with the little smile.
I shove him, which does nothing. “Shut up. You write smutty fanfiction all day.”
“Excuse you, I do not write smut. If I choose to include a sex scene, it is both tasteful and classy.” He leans in so there’s nowhere else to go and nowhere else to look. “Besides, it’s not like you have to have actual experience to write smut. Or even kissing.”
“Don’t pretend like you don’t have any kissing experience.”
“Okay, I won’t.”
I shove him again. He catches my wrists and holds my hands against his chest.
He’s already so close, all I have to do is stick out my chin. Again, he meets me halfway. This kiss is deeper, longer than the last one. My face burns, but I keep myself where I am. I’ve done enough hiding in my life. I hide from my classmates all day long. I hide from my parents, my brothers, even my friends.
I might be hiding LadyConstellation from Wallace under the guise of Eliza Mirk, but it’s not LadyConstellation he’s kissing right now.
It’s Eliza. It’s me.
I don’t want to hide this part of myself anymore.
The first day Amity met her, Kite stood in the middle of the sparring ring, arms crossed over her chest. Her skin was a darker brown than Amity’s.
“Where are you from?” Amity