The Beginning of After

often.”
    “I just don’t know who to tell, and who not to tell. Mr. Churchwell says that wherever I end up going, he could make sure my roommates and RAs are aware of my ‘situation.’”
    He nodded. “More watching, more tiptoeing, more kid gloves.”
    “What would you do?”
    David stopped walking suddenly, so I stopped too. He stared off at something in the distance, squinting a bit, then shifted his gaze to me.
    “What are you more afraid of? That people won’t treat you normally once you get there, or that they will?”
    Another sudden truth, so clear. David was scary good at throwing these at me and having them stick.
    Maybe I’d been kidding myself. I’d been thinking it would be heaven, a world of people not seeing me as a walking tragedy. But now that I saw that, it scared the crap out of me. I wouldn’t be special anymore. I would have no excuses.
    David just smiled, knowing the answer. “You don’t need to be afraid of it. That’s why I left town, to be anonymous to everyone out there. And I wasn’t ready for it. I’m still not. But you, Laurel. You’re strong enough. You know who you are.”
    “I do?” I wanted to add, Then tell me! Who am I?
    “I think so,” said David. He bent down to pick up a stick. It was a perfect fetching stick for Masher, just the right length and thickness. I was always looking for sticks like that, and I guess David was too. He yelled, “Hey, Mash! Fetch!” and tossed it as far as he could. Masher shot off after it.
    When David turned back to me I put my hand on his elbow, and it didn’t take him or me by surprise. It just seemed the natural thing to do. “Thanks for the advice,” I said.
    “Thanks for asking for it.”
    We smiled at each other, and neither of us clicked our eyes away.
    “Laurel,” he said, his smile disappearing. But it wasn’t the beginning of a sentence. It had no upturn at the end of it. He was just saying my name, and it reminded me that I was here, alive, with two feet connected to the ground and breath filling my lungs. I was me, and apparently I knew who I was.
    Then David put one hand gently on the side of my head, his palm pressing lightly on my ear, his fingers pushing my hair back. The prickly feeling of his skin on mine shot through me and made me a little dizzy. I still wasn’t sure what he was doing.
    Until he kissed me.
    He just leaned in and did it before I knew it was happening—I was distracted by the hand-ear nuclear reaction—and before I could think anything, I was kissing him back.
    His lips felt softer than I thought they would. Softer than Joe’s. And much more practiced, confident, even while I thought I felt him shaking. He tasted sweet, too, and I remembered he’d had Nana’s cookies for breakfast.
    Then he pulled away and dropped his hand and stared at me, wide-eyed as if I’d been the one to kiss him . “Okay,” was all he said.
    I looked at his lips and remembered a moment from last year when I’d seen him hanging out in the senior parking lot, smoking cigarettes with his friends. I’d watched him drag on one and then open his mouth to blow perfect Os of smoke, and I’d been impressed. Now I’d just kissed that mouth.
    “Okay,” I echoed.
    “We should probably get back. I have to go over to the house.”
    “Right.”
    We started walking again, and when our hands accidentally brushed, David moved a few steps farther away. It made me ache, but I didn’t do anything about it. Would I ever in a jillion years have the courage to tell him I wanted him closer, more touching, more kissing?
    Thank God for Masher. It would have been the longest walk of our lives if he hadn’t made us laugh nervously as he nuzzled the leaves and barked at the branches and did a happy little dance every time he found a new tree or rock. His antics carried us back through the woods and away from the cave, and away from our kiss. Masher knew exactly where to go, and all we had to do was let him take us home.

Chapter Twenty-five

    D avid spent the rest of that Sunday at his house, and I stayed in Toby’s room, playing with Lucky and the kittens, who were just starting to crawl around while their mom watched them, tired but vigilant. I couldn’t deal with my Yale essay, so I broke out my sketch pad and started drawing some backgrounds for Joe’s art project, thinking that maybe if I focused on Joe for a little while, I wouldn’t feel like I’d cheated on him somehow.
    My cell phone had four unread text