Parallel

three seats in from the aisle, next to a girl with long brown hair and tiny shoulders. As I’m staring at the backs of their heads, trying to get up the nerve to go down there, the guy in the aisle seat leans forward to say something to Josh. At first I only see his arm, resting on the back of the girl’s seat. Unabashedly spraytanned. Gotta love L.A.
    And then the girl shifts and the guy’s face comes into view.
    It’s Bret Woodward . Sitting next to Kirby. Kirby from Boston. The girl Josh knows from junior high.
    My eyes zip down the rest of the row. There’s Seth at the other end, and Bret’s stunt double and the makeup artist the stunt double was always flirting with, and then some college-age guy I don’t recognize, who I’m guessing from the black USC T-shirt is a friend of Josh’s. Just then, out of nowhere and for what seems like no reason at all, Josh turns his head and looks directly at me. He stands and stares at me uncomprehendingly for a split second, then shakes his head as if to clear it. “What are you doing here?” he calls, inching past the others toward the aisle.
    “I wanted to talk to you,” I yell.
    Josh meets me halfway down the stairs. “Calling would’ve been cheaper,” he says.
    “You wouldn’t take my call,” I point out.
    “Three thousand miles. You must have something pretty important to say.”
    I hesitate, knowing this is my moment but scared of screwing it up. Josh just stands there, waiting, as the crowd begins to chant around us. For a second I think they’re chanting for me. But no. They just want a touchdown.
    “I think we’re soulmates,” I blurt out, which isn’t at all what I was planning to say. I meant to start with an apology for what happened with Michael, gradually working up to the big, “I made a mistake, please take me back” moment. So much for easing into it.
    “Since when?”
    “Since the first time you took me to our swing,” I say, even though that means something different for him than it does for me. “I just forgot for a while.”
    “What about Michael?”
    “I told him this morning. He didn’t take it so well.” My eyes fill with tears, remembering. I didn’t mean to hurt either of them, and now I’ve hurt both of them. “Josh, I’m so sorry.”
    Josh is quiet for what feels like an eternity. Then, just loud enough to make out: “I guess he probably deserves to find his own soulmate.”
    My heart flutters in my chest.
    “Are we . . . okay?” I whisper.
    He doesn’t answer me. Instead, he sweeps me up into his arms and kisses me, and all my doubts fall away. His hands are in my hair and mine are on his face, and it fits, we fit, like we’ve been rehearsing this moment all our lives. When the marching band starts to play, I imagine the song is for us.
    “Just in time to see some Trojan domination,” Josh says when I finally pull back, his voice louder and lighter now. He reaches to lift my bag off my shoulder. Bag in one hand, he takes my hand with the other, and I follow him down the steps toward the field.
    “So you know Kirby from junior high?”
    His eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “How do you know Kirby?”
    Whoops. “I don’t,” I say quickly. “I just heard you say her name.”
    “I didn’t think I’d said it.”
    “So she’s from Worcester?” I ask, before he can replay our conversation and realize that he didn’t.
    He nods. “Two grades below me in school. I was friends with her older brother, Keith. She and her mom moved out here when Kirb turned sixteen.”
    “And now she’s hanging out with celebrities, huh? Isn’t that Bret Woodward?” There’s not an ounce of envy in my voice. I don’t feel any.
    “Crazy, right? That’s her there, next to Bret, and that’s Seth, Dante, and Brianna,” Josh tells me, pointing each of them out. They all smile and wave, not an iota of recognition in their eyes. My L.A. friends. I can picture all of them at the birthday dinner Bret planned for me the night before everything changed. “The guy on the other end is my buddy, Derrick.”
    “You guys should sit!” Kirby chirps. “Here, take my seat. Seth, scoot down.”
    Josh lifts my backpack up and over his head. As I watch his tanned biceps contract, my stomach flutters. Suddenly, all I can think about is kissing him. Running my hands through his hair, feeling his chest against mine. As I follow him to our seats, my eyes drop to the waistband of his jeans. Boxers with little red reindeer peek out