Part 41 (1/2)

There we were on his bed, wearing jeans and nothing else. I sat on my knees facing him, while his legs dangled over the edge of the bed. I traced my fi ngers up the defi nition of his stomach, his chest.

He wrapped his hands around my waist and let them rise up over my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. This was as naked as we'd been in months. We both knew that if any clothing came off , we couldn't stop ourselves from everything coming off . We were right. The instant I felt his bare fl esh against mine, I couldn't get close enough to him.

We took our time, knowing we had time. Every hair on my body stood on end, every sense heightened. He tasted so good, felt even better. I didn't remember taking off my jeans, and maybe I didn't.

Maybe it was all him. We waited until we couldn't stand it anymore, until it felt like we'd explode from not letting ourselves go. And then we did. The feeling lasted forever, as though I couldn't let it stop.

When I fi nally relaxed, every limb entwined with Leo, I said some- thing so completely involuntary that I gasped after I said it.

”I love you.”

”You what?” Leo propped himself up on an elbow.

”Uhhh ...” I sounded like a dolt, and I knew I had to own it. ”I said I love you,” I repeated more clearly, more certain.

--1 ”One more time,” Leo prodded.

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”Those are about to be the last words you ever hear, Leo Dietz,”

I growled in his ear.

”That'd be fi ne with me.” He kissed my forehead. I waited for his return sentiment, but it didn't come.

”And?” I prodded.

”And what?” He played dumb. Or was dumb.

”Aren't you going to say it back?”

”You heard those words from me and had months to deal with them. I'm going to let your words age a little. Like a fi ne wine.”

”Or cheese,” I noted.

”I like cheese,” Leo added. ”A lot.”

”That makes two of us,” I concurred.

So, I had to wait. I had gotten pretty good at waiting. But this time, it wasn't test results. Love was so abstract: It wasn't war, it wasn't cancer, it wasn't death. But I'm pretty sure that's what I felt. And I was going to let myself, no matter how hard my evil side fought against it.

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CHAPTER.

42.

SPRING.

I waited for Leo in the book closet. There was less than one month left of school. Less than one month until the anniversary of my dad's death. Less than one month until Becca's next cancer check.

The door clicked open, and there stood Leo. His hair was grow- ing out, which I liked a little better than the buzz. I think we all wanted to have some hair on our heads for a while. He had on a black t-s.h.i.+rt, jeans, and black Chucks, which made us annoyingly cutesy and matching. I recognized the outline of his brother's dog tags under- neath his s.h.i.+rt. The second he walked in and the door closed, we clung to each other. We kissed for a couple minutes until I stopped him. ”Time to get down to business.”

Reluctantly, we sat down at the old desks and worked. He had a huge creative writing story to revise, and I was putting the fi nis.h.i.+ng touches on my new horror movie, Graphite. It was the story of a girl who gets. .h.i.t in the forehead with a pencil when some guys in her --1 school are throwing them at the ceiling. Then she goes on a killing -0 -+1 105-54406_ch01_1P.indd 245 105-54406_ch01_1P.indd 245 4/17/13 8:58 PM.

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spree, taking out all of the guys who crossed her with violent pencil deaths. Naturally, Becca would star, fulfi lling number nineteen on the f.u.c.k It List. Not that we had looked at the list since freezing our a.s.ses off on the beach. We may have accomplished most of the weird, ridiculous, perverted goals Becca set for herself, but the list felt too connected to cancer to continue. I held onto it, storing it underneath my bedside stack of library books. Just in case. Becca never asked where it was.

On a clear May afternoon, Becca, Caleb, Leo, and I hung out in Becca's backyard. It was the spring of the seventeen- year cicadas.

They had been around when I was a baby, so this was technically the fi rst time I had really seen them. I found them fascinating. In appear- ance, they would have made perfect horror- movie specimens: about three inches long, with translucent, green wings and glowing red eyes. Their feet were covered with sticky pads, and if one landed on you it might stay and just hang out, not fl it away like scaredy bugs. It was incredible to think they lay dormant underground for seventeen years. Then they climbed their way out, leaving behind a trail of coc.o.o.n- y things on the trees and a layer of bugs on the ground so thick you had to shuffl e your way through them so you wouldn't crush their newly freed bodies. And the noise they made was deafen- ing. Like a UFO landed somewhere nearby and hovered as it picked up people for experiments.

There defi nitely was a movie or two to be made out of this.

Caleb's bea gle waddled around, his belly distended after consum- ing more than his share of the tasty bugs, three of which rested on my arm. I examined them, and asked, ”Do you think they dreamed?”

-1- ”Hmmm?” Becca mused as she rested her head on Caleb's lap, 0- and he stroked her newly growing hair.

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