Cold Kiss

happens, so I have to sit through some horror movie and eat popcorn and watch Jess paint her nails, okay?”
    He doesn’t look convinced, but I’m not interested in making him understand. Not right now.
    “Wren, let me help, okay? I could do some research. I don’t want you to go through this alone. And I really don’t want you to get hurt.”
    He’s serious, and everything about the defined angles of his body is softer now. But I can’t help blurting out, “God, why do you care?”
    He flinches as if I slapped him. “Isn’t it obvious? I noticed you before I picked up on your power, Wren.”
    That shouldn’t feel as good as it does, a bright hot pulse in my chest. It doesn’t matter if Gabriel likes me, and it really doesn’t matter if I like Gabriel. There’s Danny to think about. Always Danny.
    I don’t know what to say, so I stand there blinking instead, and finally Gabriel gives up and takes a step toward me again. I don’t back up this time, even though I do have to tilt my head to look him in the eye. Why are the only boys who like me always so tall?
    “I saw you, Wren,” Gabriel says, and his voice is so soft, a feather drifting on the air, that I close my eyes to listen. “I saw this girl with these dark eyes and this crazy hair and this fuck you look on her face, and I wanted to talk to you.”
    I laugh and open my eyes. “Wow. Smooth.”
    He smirks, his mouth twisting to one side, and shrugs a little. “It’s true. You don’t look like everybody else, and that’s a good thing.”
    “At least the outside and the inside match,” I say, and let myself move just a little closer. I can’t help it—my life has become a series of balls I’m trying to keep in the air, and I can’t hold on to any of them long enough.
    I want to hold on to Gabriel.
    My hands find his forearms, and I tangle my fingers in the worn cotton of his sleeves. Another kick of energy washes through me, warm and bright, and the air shimmers around us. I want so much, so much I can’t have, so much I’m not supposed to even think about.
    But I stretch up anyway, trembling, hearing the echo of Gabriel’s voice: I saw you. I saw you.
    I never thought I wanted to be seen like that, so completely. I didn’t think it was possible, after keeping so many secrets for so long. It’s amazing how good it feels.
    When I press my mouth to Gabriel’s, I can feel the shimmer, taste it, sweet, mellow gold where our lips touch, a slow-blooming heat that twines around us like vines. And it’s so bittersweet, so much like that long-ago first kiss with Danny, I break away with a jerk.
    “I have to go,” I manage to get out, and then I’m scrambling, pushing away from Gabriel’s outstretched hands and the sound of his voice to grab my stuff and run.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

    DANNY WAS A SECRET FOR A LITTLE WHILE. Before he died, I mean. He didn’t have to be—it’s not like my mom was opposed to me having a boyfriend, even though I had to sit through the big sex talk after we got serious, which was epically awkward. I never thought I would hear my mom say “condom” so many times, although watching her unwrap one did make us both giggle, since she’d somehow managed to buy fluorescent ones.
    I stopped her before she made me put it on a banana, though.
    I wasn’t really worried about Jess and Darcia, either. We’d talked about boys since sixth grade, after all, starting with Bailey Sutter, who got tall before any of the other boys, and used to bump into Jess at every opportunity, which was as close to a declaration of love as you got at twelve.
    Danny wasn’t the first boy I’d crushed on, but he was the first boy I couldn’t stop thinking about, the first one who made me itchy and nervous waiting for the phone to ring, the first one I wanted to climb all over, climb inside, take apart so I could see and touch every part of him.
    I didn’t want to share him. It was a little bit like drawing a picture—I didn’t want anyone to see it until I was finally happy with it. And being with him those first few weeks was just as magical as learning what I could do had been, touching a flower and watching the color deepen, swooping the music on my iPod higher with a gesture. I was giddy with the way I could look at him across the cafeteria, find him smiling at me, and know that he was mine, that this huge thing that had happened to me was still just mine. No one could question it or taint it or ruin it—I could hold it, perfect