big means in our class of one hundred—and the crush of one Juniper Ramírez. Wholly and completely. One year of sitting next to him in sophomore English, trading eye rolls and glances behind Mr. Ward’s back, and I was done for.
He walked past, and I fought down the pink in my face, knowing my friends would call me on my rosy cheeks and discern exactly who’d caused them.
I had nearly succeeded when I heard my name called behind me.
“Hey, Juniper.”
I found Matt grinning unevenly and running a hand through that neat blond hair, his bicep the stuff of dreams. I focused on the Celtics logo on his shirt, and this time I failed to keep the blush from my face.
“Hey, Matt,” I said with a nonchalance I thanked god I’d practiced in the mirror. “How’s it going?”
He jogged up to me, energy in his every movement. Without warning, he ducked down to retie his undone shoelace. When he stood back up, his eyes fixed on mine. “So Tory told me you have a crush on me,” he said. His voice betrayed nothing, neither flirtatiousness nor disinterested cruelty.
It was brutal. He knew exactly what he was doing.
In the moment, I figured he’d reduced my crush to hallway chatter because it was trivial to him. Probably just an everyday occurrence. The blood drained from my face, and I vowed to reap revenge on my best friend—ex-best friend—for her tactlessness.
It felt like a bad dream, one I wanted to escape. “Don’t let it go to your head,” I said, hurried and defensive.
I turned to leave, but his hand found my shoulder. Grudgingly, I waited.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” Matt said fumblingly, and I was struck by the oddity of seeing him off guard. “I just—it’s true then? You do like me?”
The hesitant inquisitiveness in his voice eroded my defensiveness, and hope fluttered open in my chest. It was funny, I thought then, how a whole year of yearning and imagining could narrow down to a single moment that had come out of nowhere. I leaned on the locker behind me, looking up at him through my lashes. “I do,” I replied, feeling bold. “What do you think of me?”
His eyes widened. I could have sworn I saw my flush mirrored in his cheeks. I took his hand, pulling him closer. He swallowed.
“I think you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen,” he said. “And I have a feeling you’re smarter than everyone in this school. Teachers included.”
I smiled the kind of smile lit with a thousand smiles saved up for right then. When Matt returned it, I stepped in closer, my chest meeting his. “Let me get this straight,” I said softly. “I’m smart, I’m beautiful, you know I like you. Why haven’t you kissed me yet?”
He laughed, lowering his mouth near mine, closing the distance between our lips.
The crazy thing isn’t how wonderful the kiss felt, the blinding rush of heat racing the highways of my heart. The crazy thing is how that’s the way every kiss has felt from then until now. For fleeting instants, they erase complicated choices, and inescapable uncertainties.
The train hurtles into Haymarket Square. I follow the crowd onto the platform, then up the escalator into the fading daylight. Pulling on my scarf in the cold, I take in the street corner. The taxis in front of slush-piled gutters, the pubs with EST. 1826 and A.D. 1795 signs over the doors. I’m walking toward the North End when I feel my phone ringing through my coat.
I pull the phone from my pocket. It’s my dad. With gloved fingers, I clumsily pick up and press it to my ear. “Hi, Dad.”
“Found your dream college yet?”
It’s exactly what my dad would say. Instead of the introductory pleasantries of conversation, he loves just jumping to the point. It’s probably—no, definitely—where I got my own directness. I hear the clatter of kitchen prep over the phone. He’s getting ready to open the restaurant for dinner, chopping vegetables and frying tortilla chips.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I did BU and Harvard. They were both great, but