Page 8 of Meet Me in the Blue

“I don’t think I could survive high school without you,” he said, and I saw my reflection in his eyes.

Survive.

“You’re freaking me out. Why are you thinking about dying?”

His nose wrinkled. “I’m not. Not really. Not like that. I just wonder sometimes. How it will all play out in the great beyond,” he said the last two words in a deeper, more dramatic tone. “If the shit we worry about will even matter in the afterlife.”

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on with you or not?”

He started to chew his lip again, and I fixated on the movement, wondering what words were choking him up so bad.

“I think…” He blinked and blinked and sighed. Fidgeting, his shoulders sagged. “I think I like guys.”

“Like… what? You want to… kiss them?”

“Yeah… I do.”

“But not girls?”

“Not girls.”

“How do you know?”

“Shit, I don’t know I just do. Don’t you think about kissing girls? Kissing Zoe?” The little crease between his brow pinched as he scowled.

“I don’t think about kissing Zoe.”

“No?” He smirked, and I knocked him in the shoulder. “Maybe you’d rather kiss her brother Ron?”

“No…” I said, and I thought maybe it was weird I hadn’t thought about kissing anyone before. “I don’t really think about kissing people.”

“Ever?” His eyes widened.

“Not really. Does that make me a weirdo?”

“I just told you I like guys and you think you’re the weird one.” He shook his head. “No, Rook, it’s not weird.”

“You’re not weird either,” I said, pressing my hip into his. “Did you tell Nora? That you like boys?”

“You’re the only one who knows. For now.”

“Thank you for telling me.”

We weren’t kids anymore, playing fantasy games and dreaming of rock giants. We were on the edge of something, and maybe I didn’t quite understand everything, but I understood the weight of it. Things were changing.

“You really haven’t thought about kissing Zoe?” he asked, and I shook my head.

“I haven’t. I know she has a crush on me but…”

“You don’t like her?”

Maybe I was wrong, but he almost sounded hopeful.

“She wears too much of that sticky lip stuff,” I said, and he laughed.

“Rook…”

“I think kissing is weird, like mouths are weird, right?”