The Beginning of After - By Jennifer Castle Page 0,51

me over in Adam LaGrange’s backyard. He had been there for me, once. He had made me feel propped up for a few lovely hours.

So I said, “Sure.”

After we said good-bye to Eve, I followed Joe to his table. It was in the back corner and the place was packed, so of course we had to scrunch in and bang our knees together to make it work. I placed my ice-blended chai next to Joe’s black coffee, the wimpy chick drink alongside the grown-up guy one like they were already in a relationship, and tried to look him in the eye.

“I didn’t know you worked at the movie theater,” I said.

“Yeah, I take the tickets, and then when the movie’s over, I get to clean up the garbage the audience leaves behind. In between, I like to pop over here.”

“You don’t stay and watch?”

“Well, yeah, when we first start showing something. But after twenty or thirty times, it gets old. Especially if it’s, like, French.”

“Too bad you take Spanish,” I said, then wished I hadn’t. I wasn’t supposed to know which classes he took, was I? Joe laughed nervously and shifted in his chair. He had a messenger bag hanging over the back, and now I noticed a big sketch pad sticking out of it. To change the subject, I asked, pointing at the pad, “Did you get that at Walden Art Supply?”

He turned to look at it, then nodded. “You know it?”

“My mom used to buy her paint there.” Joe looked instantly uncomfortable, so I added, “I’ve seen those pads at the store, that’s all.”

Now Joe reached for the pad and pulled it out. He opened to a page and turned it toward me to show what he’d drawn: a middle-aged man in a cape and a helmet with two bugles sticking out of it like antennae, a big B inside a hot air balloon on his chest.

“I call this one BlowHard. Yesterday I was sitting here next to some dude with his girlfriend, and he was just going on and on about stuff like he knew everything there was to know, and every time she tried to correct him, he’d shoot her down.”

“Do you turn everyone into some kind of superhero?”

“If they seem like they deserve it, yes.” He stared at the sketch protectively, like a new parent. “I mean, isn’t everyone a superhero, in their own mind?”

I smiled. “On certain days, yeah.”

We were quiet again, and I tried to fill the silence by sipping loudly on my drink. Why did things have to be so weird? We had kissed. We had kissed a lot, and from what I could tell it had been pretty good, until everything imploded. Before, I’d believed that once you’d done that with someone, you’d broken a barrier, like maybe you could always kiss them again whenever you wanted and it would be completely okay. But now there was some kind of force field between Joe Lasky and me, stronger than if we’d never kissed to begin with. He felt further away than a complete stranger.

A quick flash of David and me, sitting together on the bench outside Ashland. We’d had a history between us too, but a different kind. It was confusing to think about these differences or about David at all. I pulled my focus back to Joe and suddenly felt mad.

We would have been a couple by now. But no, I didn’t get to have that, just like I didn’t get to have a prom memory that didn’t make me want to puke from embarrassment. The wave of anger at myself came so fast and lethal, I could have slapped my own face.

Finally, Joe planted his elbows on the table and leaned in. “So. Been to any good proms lately?”

I just broke out laughing, and the rage flushed away.

“Nice,” was all I could say.

“I’m sorry, I had to do it.” He smiled now.

“I’m sorry.”

“Please,” he said, holding up his hand. “You have nothing to be sorry about. I should have tried harder to reach you.” He took a deep breath and wrapped both hands around his coffee cup, like the heat was giving him the guts to keep talking. “I could say that I wanted you to have some space, some time alone to work through your stuff, but that would be bull. I was scared. It’s not the kind of thing I know how to deal with.”

I nodded. “I know. I would have done the same thing.” As long