Silent Moments

The End. The words sent a pang of regret through me—now that I’d finished my book, it was going to be harder to ignore Stephen. The story was so engrossing that I barely noticed he was in the room while I read.

Oh, all right, fine! So I was watching him out of the corner of my eye so often that I ended up reading the same page three times. There’s nothing wrong with observing that he is an outstanding example of homo sapiens—you do the same with dogs, right?

“Ready to talk?” Stephen asked, seeing me close the paperback.

“No.”

He looked bored out of his mind, but I went over and began to straighten up toy racks, solely for something to do.

Stephen was fooling around with something behind the desk when I looked back up. I didn’t bother to ask what he was doing, even though I kind of wanted to know, because I would probably get some smart-alecky response.

“The phone’s dead,” he remarked a few seconds later.

I looked out the window at the storm. “No kidding?”

The power was in danger of going out, too—I was actually rather shocked that it hadn’t yet.

A few more moments of uncomfortable silence passed, and I began to feel sorry for him, because he really did look like he was struggling with this whole situation. But not that sorry, because I thought it was hilarious.

“You’re not used to this, are you?” I laughed.

“To what?”

“Not getting your way with a girl.”

“Well as a matter of fact….”

I laughed a little louder—why hadn’t I seen the comedy in this situation before?

“What’s so funny?” he mumbled, looking put out. And, really, why not? I was basically dissing his whole way of life.

“You are! It’s actually kind of pathetic, Stevie. You have to learn to get rejected.”

He scowled, but it just made me laugh harder. I think I was going a little stir-crazy, locked up in Tiny Tots, because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop. Even when he came around the counter toward me, I just stood there and laughed my head off.

I laughed right up until he wrapped his hands around my neck, dragged my face down about five inches, and crashed his mouth against mine.

Yeah, that shut me up pretty quick.

And all right, I admit it: I kissed back.

What? It wasn’t every day cute boys go around grabbing me, and whatnot. I mean, jeez, Carl had a rather… physical… relationship style, but still. He didn’t tend to just attack me in a moment of unbridled passion. And that’s pretty much what Stephen was doing—well, except maybe the unbridled passion part. I had a feeling he just wanted to do what he had succeeded in doing, which was get me to stop laughing.

But it worked.

And for whatever reason—my own hidden emotions, or the fact that I just hadn’t been kissed the way he was kissing me in about, oh, seven and a half months (Carl’s not exactly Casanova, if you know what I mean)—I let him do it, and I maybe, kind of, sort of enjoyed it.

He seemed to realise what was going on suddenly and let go of me. I was blushing pretty fiercely by this point, and looking him in the eye wasn’t exactly an option for me, so I couldn’t really tell how he was feeling about the whole thing.

I’d like to say that he kissed me again and that we had this whole torrid make-out session up against a bookshelf, and that I suddenly realised the error of my ways and decided to ditch Carl in favour of Stephen. I’d love to be able to tell you that. It actually might be better than what really happened.

But that’s not the way it went.

‘Cause suddenly the fact that I—once again—had made out with a boy who was without a doubt not my boyfriend (though, as far as I knew at this point, the two probably could have been personality twins) caught up to me and I went running for cover.

Literally.

I did the only thing I could think of doing, the one thing that every girl does when she’s been embarrassed or burned in a public place and doesn’t want people to know:

I locked myself in the bathroom.