“Hey, can I, uh…hire you?”
I splayed my fingers over the notebook page in front of me. It was blank, save for a few doodles populating the margins. They weren’t good, but at least they were recognizable. Wonder Woman. Daphne from Scooby-Doo. A poorly rendered Katara.
I twisted in my seat, back cracking like a glow stick. Tyler stood behind me, hands stuffed into the pockets of his shorts. His grin was a little crooked in the way that I knew most girls at school liked. I guess it was pleasant enough, if you took the time to consider it.
“My going rate is five dollars,” I said, shifting my elbow on my desk so it covered my notebook. The barest suggestion of heat filled my cheeks at the mere thought of getting caught drawing Daphne in my notebook. I’d drawn little hearts around her head and everything.
Tyler pulled a crumpled up five dollar bill from his pocket, smoothing it out as best he could before extending it to me. It still retained most of its original crinkles, looking more like crumpled tissue paper than money.
Snatching it from his hands, I tugged on the bill, holding it up to the disgusting fluorescents that schools were so fond of. I didn’t know what I was looking for, exactly, but I’d seen my dad hold up $100 bills to lamps. And besides—it made me look official.
I folded the five in half and tucked it into the breast pocket of my old flannel shirt. “Who’s it for?”
I didn’t have to specify exactly what Tyler was hiring me for. All of the boys in school knew about my “service,” as it were: I wrote love poems for them to give to their girlfriends. They were never more than a few lines long, and rarely specific, unless the boys gave me something they wanted to say.
I got the feeling Tyler wasn’t going to give me any specifics, the way he kept aiming that stupid grin at me. I kept my expression impassive as I blinked at him, waiting for an answer.
It was truly a struggle to keep my expression tame. I’d written poem upon poem before, for dozens of boys about dozens of girls. But I’d never written one for someone like Keira before. Unlike Tyler, she wasn’t super popular, but she was super pretty. She had these brown eyes that somehow looked good in the bright hospital lighting of our middle school classrooms, and her curly hair was the color of cinnamon. And her lips—
I had to stop. My heart felt caught in my throat as I pushed my feelings down, down, down. “I didn’t know you two were dating,” I managed, casting a glance across the classroom where Keira sat bent over her notebook, scribbling away. Throughout the school, she was known for her art skills—she’d even gotten an award from the art department last year.
“We’re not,” Tyler said. He bit down on his lower lip quickly, tossing a look at Keira. “Yet,” he added, the word spat out faster than the others. “I hope this poem will be a good way to ask her out.”
“So you want me to write a poem asking her out?”
Tyler nodded, his floppy blond hair dropping over his eyes. He tossed his head almost violently to the side, clearing the strands from his face. It was a classic popular-guy move. Was it meant to show how nice their hair was? I don’t know. It wasn’t the same as when Keira twirled a curl around her pencil.
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll give it to you at lunch, ‘kay?”
Tyler nodded and spun on his heels, bouncing to his group in the back of the class. He fist bumped with one of his cronies and tossed himself into his chair with reckless abandon. The teacher began her lesson on the Civil War, but I wasn’t planning on listening to any of it.
I’d never admitted this to anyone, but I’ve had a crush on Keira since fifth grade. I didn’t even know it was a crush, at first—I’d admired her art, the way she colored the lips, the way the freckles dotted her portraits, how she knew exactly where the light was supposed to be. And I liked watching her get better over the years. She put my superhero doodles to shame.
At some point—and I don’t know what point—I looked at Keira’s drawings less and looked at Keira more. I liked the way she had graphite smudged across her fingertips, or clay still stuck under her nails. I liked the brown of her skin, how it seemed warm no matter what season it was. I liked the sound of her laugh from across the library, and the giggles that followed after the librarian shushed her and her other art friends.
It was easy to write Tyler’s poem. I talked about her art, her callused hands, how she captured images of people so well and I wished she could capture me, too. Just…not on paper. I wanted her to capture me in her arms and hold me and kiss me and stroke my hair and dot paint on my nose.
When I finished, I smoothed my hands across my notebook sheet and carefully tore it on the perforated line, making sure the rip wasn’t perfect like a boy’s wouldn’t have been. It was a last ditch effort, because the poem was written in my handwriting. Usually I made some attempt to obscure my scrawl and make it more chaotic, harder to read, but I’d gotten…distracted. It was a common theme with me, I’d noticed. Always distracted, always thinking about life like it was dipped in rosewater and colored pink.
The tinny bell dismissing us to lunch rang throughout the classroom. The teacher clapped her hands together, thanking God that it was lunch because she was hungrier than “heck.” As if we’d never heard a swear before.
I stuffed my notebook into my backpack, slinging it over my shoulder as I watched Keira. She tossed her head back and gave one of her friends a glowing smile. The ticking of the clock even seemed slower, the world stopping to wait as she gathered her things. She tucked her sketchbook into her book bag and crossed it over her body, its canvas body slapping against her ink-stained jeans.
At lunch, Tyler was easy to find. He sat perched on top of the lunch table as one of the cafeteria monitors snapped at him to get down. One of his friends clapped his leg good-naturedly as he slipped down from his perch. I caught his eye and jerked my head at the water fountain.
I went myself to get a drink, leaving the folded-up piece of looseleaf on the back of it, safe from water splashes. After taking a quick drink, I walked away, my back turned as Tyler approached the fountain in my stead. Careful eyes might have caught him pocketing the note, but it went largely unnoticed. I kept my gaze on Keira, but she wasn’t even looking at Tyler. It’s like he wasn’t even on her radar.
I sat down at the corner of my little lunch table. I sat with my “friends,” but we were all bookworms. We just pulled out our latest novels to read while we ate. Some did homework. No one spoke. It was a bookclub of sorts, and none of us minded the lack of conversation.
I pulled my book from my bag as I settled into my seat, facing the rest of the student body so I could watch as it all went down. Tyler twiddled the note in his fingers, shaking it like it was burning. It was a sharp contrast to his confident stride as he walked right up to Keira and the rest of the art kids.
He handed her the note, his hand not even trembling, that irritating crooked smile on his face. Carefully, Keira took it from him. She pinched it between her paint-stained fingers as she unfolded it, brows furrowed.
I didn’t want to stay attached. It wasn’t very business-like; I was supposed to watch the girls, write the poetry, and clean my hands of it. And sometimes I did, even if I looked at the girl a little bit later. But I had already been looking at Keira, and the poem just gave me a chance to really say what I’d been dying to. Tyler hadn’t even read it—he’d just taken it with the confidence that I’d written something good. That feeling glowed in my chest.
Something wasn’t right, though. Usually, the girls would say something like, “Did you write this?” It looked like Keira was following the script—but Tyler wasn’t. Because he pointed at me.
I slammed my book shut in front of me. I hadn’t even been reading it, but it didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered now.
Stuffing it into my bag, I rose quickly from my table and ducked out into the hallway. I hadn’t heard any laughter, but it would only be a matter of time.
It was always just a matter of time.
I should have known better than to trust Tyler. The school’s so-called pretty boy, Mr. Popular, Mr. Perfect. Boys like him weren’t nice to girls like me; they were cruel. Every single movie I’d ever seen had told me that. Tyler lived up to expectations. Expectations I should have had.
I pressed my back against the cinderblock wall, the painted white bricks only sort of rough through the fabric of my hoodie. Slowly, dramatically, I sank down until I was crouched in a little ball. Burning tears stung my eyes. No matter how quickly I wiped them away, more came.
The cafeteria door swung open. A flash of sound rose through the open door and cut off just as quickly. I didn’t look to see who it was. Hopefully they’d just go to the bathroom and not say anything.
Crap. Crap. Crap. I wiped my eyes one final time, catching my nose on the sleeve of my sweatshirt as I turned to look up at her. The fluorescent was hidden behind her head, casting her unruly mane of hair in a halo of light. The note was held loosely between trembling fingers.
She squatted down, then thought better of her position and twisted until her back was pressed up against the wall, too. “You wrote this?”
It was the same old script I’d heard a hundred times. I sniffled, opening my mouth a bit to reply, but the words turned to dust on my tongue. I nodded instead.
“It’s, uh…it’s really good. Like, scary good.” Her words were tinted with a smile, and I blinked through the tears until I could see that she held no malice in her gaze. Just awe, and kindness. “I wish I could make something like this.”
I laughed. It was short, like a bark, and echoed down the cavernous school hallway. “What are you talking about? Did you even read the poem? Your art is insane! It’s the best I’ve ever seen. I mean it.” It was more words than I usually said to anyone. And they were quick, like a river, and just as energetic. Maybe not as smooth.
Keira grinned at me and set the note on the ground between us. “And you meant it all?”
I nodded again. I couldn’t have another river pouring out of my mouth. That was possibly even more embarrassing than being caught crying on the hallway floor.
There wasn’t even time to blink. Keira’s mouth pressed against mine. For the brief moment we touch, my lips burned. She’d caught them on fire—poured gasoline on me, lit a match, and I was ablaze.
It was over as quick as it had come, as though she was afraid someone would see. Shouldn’t I have been afraid, too? That’s why I’d come out here, after all. To hide from people who would hiss the words at me: Lesbian. Homo. Dyke.
But Keira didn’t say any of that stuff. She didn’t swear, or hiss, or spit. She’d kissed me. “You meant it all,” she repeated.
“I already said yes,” I replied.
There was a pause. It lingered on her lips. I thought lips were supposed to be ripe and red from kissing, but her’s weren’t. I guess a kiss has to last for more than a second to make them all pink and stuff. But I couldn’t stop looking at them.
“…Even the part about asking me out? You meant that?”
My gaze drifted from her lips up to her eyes, and it was clear that she was serious. I pinched the bottom of my hoodie. “I-I mean, I was asking for Tyler, but—”
“Tyler doesn’t want to ask me out, though,” she said. “Tyler wanted you to ask me out.”
Keira nodded. Her arm fell as she let her fingers drift across the folded up note, ripped poorly but penned in my hand. And I’m glad I hadn’t changed my handwriting. I’m glad it wasn’t perfect, but that it was mine.
“So what do you say?” Keira asked. “Will you go out with me?”
I could even answer. I just dipped my head in towards hers, quicker than anything, striking like an asp with my lips. This press lasted longer than the first, and my hand drifted up to brush one of her curls away like I’d seen in movies. I ended up losing my balance a bit and falling into her.
The kiss broke, and we both descended into laughter. It was bright, brighter than the school bells.
“Yes, Keira Haggerty. I’ll go out with you.”
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