Cold Kiss

“thank you” on my notebook, but he doesn’t smile, just nods.
    I can’t worry about him or his hurt feelings—I’m barely functional, even with two cups of coffee before school. It was close to two thirty before I snuck back into the house last night, and the four hours of sleep I got feels more like four minutes.
    Anyway, looking at him is no easier than being with Danny. Every time I spot him out of the corner of my eye, I can hear his voice in my ear, feel his hand on my back, smell the musky boy scent of his shirt against my cheek.
    But that was just a dream. What happened with Danny last night was real, and that’s what frightens me.
    I drag myself through my morning classes and stumble into the cafeteria at lunchtime, desperate for more caffeine and a chance to put my head down and pass out, but Jess is waiting when I walk through the doors.
    “Sit with me?” she says simply, and I can only nod. I can’t screw this up on top of everything else, and even if I can’t tell her anything about what’s going on, I find myself hoping that we can hang out like we used to. Laughing at things only we understand, finishing each other’s sentences, passing each other the parts of our lunch that we don’t want but the other might.
    She takes a table by the windows while I get a soda and a hot dog with Tater Tots. It looks disgusting, but it’s better than the nothing I packed, and at least it’ll give me something to do with my hands.
    Jess has a salad from the gourmet deli downtown, and she hands me a pile of mushrooms and green peppers as soon as I sit down. I grin and toss a Tater Tot into her greens, and she smirks. It feels good, almost like normal, until I realize, just like with Darcia, I have no idea what to say. I don’t know what Jess is up to lately outside of trig problems, and that’s a pretty lame subject to get into.
    But as soon as she swallows her Tater Tot, she launches into a story about how Ian Sparks left a note in Diane Cashdollar’s locker this morning, complete with earnest declarations of love and, apparently, hand-drawn hearts.
    The funniest thing about this is that Ian is gorgeous and six foot two, but because he’s a freshman, he’s completely off Diane’s radar. She’s a senior, and she takes gorgeous to a whole other level. If she had any sense, she’d ditch Mark Collins, who cheats on her during every away football game, especially since Ian is sweet, and will probably treat her like the princess she desperately wants to be.
    She doesn’t have any sense, though, so that’s that. And I hate to sympathize with Ian, since I think he’s more boob-struck than love-struck, anyway.
    Gossip takes us safely through the lunch period, and when we walk out, Jess seems as much like her old self as I could have hoped. She even elbows me, teasing and grinning, when we separate in the west hall to go our own ways. It makes World Lit easy, since I can tell Darcia that we ate lunch together, but none of it erases the low hum of worry just under the surface.
    It’s all stirred up inside me, this bubbling happiness that maybe I didn’t completely screw up my friendship with Jess and Darcia, and a hot, twisting sickness in my gut at the thought of what Danny might say or do when I climb up to the loft. The mess of it is making me dizzy, and when I walk home I drag the wind along with me, a chilly swirl that blows up my jacket and settles on the back of my neck.
    I’m taking the long way home, too, which is stupid. If anything, the longer I take to get there, the more frantic Danny will be.
    This end of Dudley is busy with North Avenue so close, a rush of cars zipping in either direction, and I have no warning when a hand closes over my shoulder. I’m so startled, I nearly trip over my own feet, but Gabriel grabs my arm and pulls me upright.
    “Sorry,” he says, and he looks so stricken I can’t be mad.
    “It’s okay. I was … somewhere else.” I huddle into my coat as we stand there on the corner of Dudley and Forest, even though I know I’m the reason for the cold fingers of air pushing through Gabriel’s hair.
    “Hey, I just wanted to tell you…” He tilts his head to one side, steps a little closer. “I asked around about you. I know you probably didn’t want me to, but I know about Danny.”
    I can’t help it—I hear the words and I blow wide open, a door banging in the wind.
    I see my mistake as soon as I make it—Gabriel meant he heard about Danny dying,