Cold Kiss

Mrs. Petrelli is that indeterminate kind of old—too ancient to work anymore, not that she ever did, as far as I know, but not frail enough to be carted off to a nursing home yet. When Mr. Petrelli died two years ago, she sort of deflated, curling in on herself like a yellowed piece of paper. She doesn’t drive anymore, so she never bothers with her garage.
    Danny’s lying on the mattresses when I climb the wobbly pull-down stairs, but he sits up right away. In the darkness, it’s startling to watch him, the slow, graceful rise of his upper body, his head turning so he can smile at me.
    “You came.” He sounds surprised, grateful, and the words twist in my chest, a tight little knot of guilt.
    “I always do.” I curl up beside him, laying my head on his shoulder. “I always will.”
    I shiver a little, pressing my cheek into his collarbone. It’s getting harder to remember the way Danny used to be. That Danny wouldn’t have waited so patiently for me. He would have called, snuck up behind me in the hall at school, and buried his face against my neck. That Danny had ideas, crazy, late-night fantasies strung together like a paper-clip chain. He was going to teach me to sing so I could join his band, and then we would go on the road. Ryan was going to be the one to finance our rock Odyssey, even though Becker was the one with money, because Danny said Ryan was the one with the brains. Danny’s charm got under your skin the way a good song got stuck in your head, and after a while you couldn’t help humming it.
    Then there was the comic strip idea. Danny had pages of drawings of me, and one day I found him redrawing them with broader strokes, bolder outlines, exaggerating my pointed chin and the way my hair spiked up in the front. I thought I looked like a sullen baby chick, but he just shook his head and pulled me onto his lap. “You’re going to be a superhero. It’ll be awesome. Trust me.”
    And I did, even though I growled at the picture of me climbing onto a table to shoot actual daggers out of my eyes at a vampire that looked a lot like one of the PE teachers at school. I was short, yeah, but it didn’t need to be emphasized. I elbowed him in the side for that. He just laughed.
    I trusted Danny with everything, even when he was pulling me up a fire escape in the middle of the night to get to the roof above the movie theater, where you could follow the dark, lazy curves of the train tracks as they headed toward the city. I let him feed me spicy curry for the first time and kiss the heat out of my mouth. I watched in the mirror when he cut my hair one long, sultry afternoon, holding up the fuzzy ends and shaking his head.
    And I’d given all of myself in return. Almost, anyway. The one thing I’d kept secret was the only reason he was here now.
    “I brought you some more paper.” I hand him the drawing tablets I’d bought at the dollar store after school. They’re cheap, flimsy, intended for little kids to use with fat crayons and finger paint, but I know he won’t care. I could bring him used candy wrappers and wrinkled pieces of the Sunday paper and he would beam at me.
    “I needed some.” He doesn’t look at them, though, just lays them behind him on the bed, and leans in, resting his forehead against mine, the way he has so many times, both then and now. “Thank you.”
    I know what he wants, and it wasn’t so long ago that he wouldn’t have had to ask, when I would have climbed into his lap instead of just sitting beside him. Back then, we were attached at the mouth whenever possible.
    It’s different now. I didn’t expect it to be. My mom says I was always that kid, the one who learns the hard way about the glowing red burner on the stove and just how high the monkey bars are when you’re falling from them into the damp wood chips on the playground.
    I tilt my head up, my mouth brushing his lightly, and he pulls me closer. “Missed you,” he murmurs, lips against my cheek after a second. “Always miss you.”
    When he finally kisses me, really kisses me, his lips are cool and dry and his arms are tight around me, fingers of one hand tangled in my hair. He tastes like smoke and ashes, the bitter weight of wet earth, but I kiss him back, my palm resting on his cheek.
    “Always want you.” The words are breathed against my mouth, and I relax into the circle of his arms as he pulls me closer. He’ll stop when I tell him to—he’ll do anything I tell him to now—but I never