Rosebush (25 page)

“Ever since we started hanging out this summer, I haven’t felt that way. The exploding way.” She traced the tendons up the inside of my arm, caressing them so lightly it felt like gossamer wings. “I haven’t stolen anything at all since June.”

I looked at her. She was glowing. “Really?” I didn’t know what she was saying, why she was holding my arm like that. But I felt it was important.
I
was important. I was helping her somehow.

“Really.” Her fingers brushed my hair like I was a doll. “I knew, since the first time we met, that you were special. Special for me. You make me feel like I’m okay. Better than okay.”

Her words stirred something inside of me, something that had been knotted up since my mother and Joe announced their engagement. Made me feel like I
mattered
to someone.

She touched my cheek. “I want to kiss you.”

“You do?” The only person I’d ever kissed, besides my parents, was Liam Marsh. I’d never really thought about kissing a girl.

Kate nodded. “I do.” Her hair was starting to dry in loose wisps framing her face, making her look vulnerable. Making her look like Bonnie. Maybe this girl I
could
save. “A lot.”

“Um. Okay,” I said, my heart pounding.

I leaned toward her. She leaned toward me. We crashed together, our noses bumping, our teeth smacking, lips crushed. It was a horrible, awkward kiss. I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or disappointed.

I leaned back. “Maybe this isn’t such a good—”

She dragged my mouth back and held my head in place while her mouth brushed mine softly, like the lightest whisper. Her lips were chapped but smooth and tasted like seawater and cherry Blistex. We stayed that way, mouths barely touching, moving only a hair’s breadth, for a long time. She came a little closer, increasing the pressure, and her lips opened against mine.

Her tongue slid into my mouth, sending shock waves through me. This wasn’t like any kiss I’d ever had with Liam. I felt a surge of heat flutter from my lips to my toes, sending sparks down my spine. I wanted this, I wanted more. At least, my body felt like it did.

“Oh, Jane,” she sighed against my mouth, and I felt her fingers moving down my arms again and my body ignited.

What are you doing?
my mind demanded.
What would everyone at school say
?

I pulled away. I was breathing heavily. “We have to stop.”

Her eyes were misty and sweet when she opened them, but when the mist cleared, I saw her normal aloofness. “Why do we have to stop?” she asked. “You can’t tell me you didn’t like it.”

“I did,” I admitted. “Like it.”

“So what’s the problem? We’re just two friends experimenting. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

She made it sound so simple. Just two friends experimenting. And she wanted me.

So why was I so completely terrified?

“It’s—I don’t want to do anything to ruin our friendship.”

“How could this ruin our friendship, silly?” She took a piece of my hair and began to wrap it around her finger. “But if you don’t want to, we can stop?”

Did I? I wasn’t even sure.

“Do you want to stop?” I asked.

She shook her head slowly. “No.”

“Then neither do I.”

“Are you su—”

I put my hands on her shoulders and pulled her to me. Our kiss that time was fierce, hard, and breathless. I poured everything I’d been feeling, all my anger and rage and grief and fear, emotions whose origins I couldn’t even recognize, into the kiss. I wished my mother could see me.

“Did you like that?” I asked, pulling away. I felt reckless. Bold. “Tell me you liked it.”

Kate looked stunned. “It was—it was remarkable.”

“Let’s do it again. But all we can do is kiss. Okay?”
Who was this girl, speaking with my mouth, doing these things?

I’d never felt so free, so feral, in my life. Was this what kissing was supposed to be like? This feeling of giddy wildness? Of not caring what else happened? These kisses didn’t mean anything, they were just for now, barely even existed. We kissed like people kiss in movies, long and hot with tongues twisting together one second and then light little feathery touches at the corner of each other’s mouths the next. Neither of us noticed our wet clothes or the cool breeze. She kissed my eyelids and made me sigh. I kissed her on her neck and gave her goose bumps.

“I like that,” she said, giggling.

“Me too.”

We moved into the backseat. Our hands clasped together, we kissed and laughed and told jokes and kissed some more. The kisses got longer until they were almost trancelike and I didn’t know where her body began and mine ended. We made out for hours under the full moon with the sound of the waves and the sea grass shifting tenderly in the breeze. Kissing subsided into holding, and we lay twined together on the long leather seat of the Cadillac watching occasional puffs of cloud float slowly across the velvety night sky.

She said, “I love you, Jane.”

It was what I wanted to hear. What I needed to hear. I realized that later. But when I said, “I love you too,” I knew it meant different things to each of us. I loved her as a friend. I loved her needing me. Loving me, even.
That
was what I loved.

The next day we lay on a batik blanket on the beach in front of her house. Her head was on my shoulder and she was tracing droplets of water down the side of a Diet Coke can.

“What happens now?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean when school starts. Will we see each other?”

My heart started to pound. “Of course, we’ll see each other. We have most of our classes together. We see each other every day.”

“That’s not what I mean.” She raised herself on one elbow. She was by far the prettiest person on the beach—maybe the prettiest person that I’d ever met. “Like this. Will we see each other like this.”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure—”

“Yeah, me either,” she said, lying back down.

“Plus Langley would—”

“Oh, totally.”

It was just an experiment. No one would know. Just fun.

That night, our last night there, we decided to try out what she called the Seventeen Headed Hydra, her parents’ massive steam shower. It was amazing, the entire back wall lined with heated fog-proof mirrors. Kate was in the middle of styling a bubble mustache and beard for me, with strict orders that I keep my eyes closed, when all of a sudden she froze.

I opened my eyes to see why and was looking at her mother in the mirror. We weren’t even doing anything, but we were both naked and I could imagine how it looked. How
my
mother would have reacted. How anyone would. My heart started to pound. For a moment the pulsing sound of the sixteen showerheads echoed through the room like a torrential downpour. Then Mrs. Valenti said, “Don’t forget to mop up any water that gets on the marble; I don’t want someone to slip and crack their head open.”

We never discussed it. Summer ended and I started going out with David and Kate and I were never that close again. She tried to bring it up once, but I pretended like I didn’t know what she meant.

But sometimes when I was at David’s house, in his room, I looked over at Kate’s window and remembered what it had been like to kiss her.

I wondered if I should tell her now. I looked at her but found that she was staring at my hand.

“Your ring,” she said, pointing to the matching one on her left hand. “Where did you get it?”

“You gave it to me.” Her eyes seemed to have gotten even glassier. Was she on something?

“I know, but—” She frowned. “Anyway, I forgot, I got you a present.” She rifled through her Louis Vuitton tote and emerged with a long light-blue cotton scarf with golden threads woven into it. “I thought you could maybe wrap it around your head if you have to keep that bandage on. It would be sort of bohemian and chic.”

“Thank you.” I ran my fingers over the soft material, enjoying the fact that I could feel again, until I hit something hard and plastic. “Kate. It still has the security tag on it.”

“Oh. They must have forgotten to take it off at the store.” She looked scared. “I bought it. I did. I have the receipt in here somewhere.”

She started pawing through her purse at first calmly, then more frantically, until it slid from her lap to the ground. The contents spilled out: a prescription bottle, denture adhesive, a bottle of Obsession with a tester sticker on it, a pair of bright-green reading glasses with the price tag still attached.

“Kate, what have you been doing?”

Her face was stricken. “I’m sorry. Oh God. I know I shouldn’t have. It’s just—I’ve just—I feel so guilty. What happened to you. All of this?” She waved her arm around the room. “In all honesty, I did it. This is all my fault.”

“What? Why?”

“I should have stopped.”

I couldn’t believe she was actually saying what it sounded like. I felt goose bumps rise on my arms. “What?”

“Stopped you, I mean,” she said quickly. “At the party. From going away. I should have known something was wrong with you, that you weren’t yourself.”

“Why?”

“You—I mean you were staggering. You needed a friend. And I wasn’t there for you. I should have been. I should have known better. And I didn’t.”

“Kate. I don’t know what happened that night, but I do know you, and I’m sure you would have been there if I’d asked.”

She looked at me with an expression of complete horror, her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide.

A chill swept over me. “Kate, what’s wrong?”

There were pink blotches on her face. “I—I have to go,” she said, grabbed her bag, and ran out of the room.

Naturally, Pete chose that moment to come and bother me. “Wow, you weren’t kidding. People really adore you,” he said.

“I’m not in the mood.” I tried to forget the scared look on Kate’s face.

“What just happened?”

“I have no idea.” I looked at him. Today he was wearing a cowboy-cut shirt with pearl buttons and what looked like dancing chili peppers on it. “Where do you get your clothes?”

“Dazzling, right?”

“Does that mean makes one’s eyes sting like poison?”

His face assumed its Serious expression, lips pursed, brow furrowed, which made him look unbelievably cute. “I do believe that’s the etymology.”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “I am so tired of being cooped up in this place.”

“Want to get away from it all?”

“Are you serious?”

He pointed at the wheelchair. “We’ve got wheels, baby.”

Chapter 22

“
Did you have
any special destination in mind?” Pete bent near my ear to ask as he wheeled me over the threshold. The feel of his breath on the nape of my neck made my arms tingle.

Or maybe it was just because it was thrilling to be somewhere besides room 403. “I don’t know. The cafeteria maybe?”

“You want to get sicker?”

“I hear the hot chocolate is really good.”

“Someone who hates you deeply told you that,” he said in a voice like he was very sorry to tell me the bad news, but.

“It was my little sister.”

I could almost feel him shaking his head in mock resignation behind me. “Most murders
are
committed by family members.”

“That’s not true,” I protested. I tried to turn around, but his hand on top of my head kept me facing forward. His grip was strong but gentle. “Is it?”

“Maybe, but you can’t deny family members have the best cause.” His fingers stayed in my hair for a moment and they felt wonderful. He smoothed it, adding, “Although Annie seems pretty cool.”

His thumb brushed my neck as he pulled his hand back, re-igniting the tingling in my arms I’d felt before and spreading it into my belly.
Stop that,
I told my mind, and made myself focus on the parts of the hospital we were passing through instead. The ICU was a warren of glassed-in rooms and nursing stations with a few areas with overstuffed but uncomfortable-looking couches and chairs scattered around. The walls were painted bright yellow, presumably for cheeriness, but I didn’t think it was working. In the sitting area near my room a little girl with her hair in cornrows was sprawled on the floor coloring at the feet of an older woman who was thumbing through a Bible. Across from them a dark-haired husky-looking man in a leather jacket was drinking Gatorade and reading the
New York Post
.