Hurricane Kiss by Deborah Blumenthal

Author:Deborah Blumenthal [Blumenthal, Deborah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-03-29T18:47:24+00:00

Chapter 19

JILLIAN

I stare up at the basketball hoops. What if Aidan were here instead of River? A troubling feeling spreads over me. I push it out of my mind.

Aidan sat behind me in math. It wasn’t destiny that put us together, it was the alphabet. Our last names both start with M.

The real reason he started liking me, I think, was because once or twice he needed the answer on a test and after he slid his foot forward and nudged mine, I moved my paper to the side of my desk. It wasn’t like he was studying to be a brain surgeon. He had to keep his grades up to stay on the basketball team, so why not?

“Thanks,” he whispered to me one day after class. “You saved my ass.” We started eating lunch together after that.

“I cannot believe you’re going out with Aidan Michael,” Sari said, like he was a rock star. “He barely looks at anybody.”

“We’re not going out. We’re just friends.”

“I wish he was my friend.”

“I’ll introduce you.”

But Aidan wasn’t interested in Sari. One Friday as we were leaving school, he did ask me out.

“Let me take you out for dinner,” he said. “It’s the least I can do after you saved me from failing.”

“Everyone thinks we’re already going out,” I said, “so why disappoint them?” Even though Aidan was cute, really cute, I was one of the few girls who went to the games to watch basketball, not Aidan. That was probably why he started liking me.

“I could tell you were head over heels in love with me,” he said, pushing against me playfully. I rolled my eyes.

Instead of jeans and my generic white T-shirt, I actually dressed for the date: black leggings, high-heeled sandals, and a black off-the-shoulder top. I can’t take credit for the outfit. Sari came over and picked it out.

It didn’t feel like me. But going out on a date didn’t feel like me either.

We went to a movie and then stopped for ice-cream cones. We ate them in the car with the air on, but it wasn’t cold enough to keep them from melting.

“Shit,” Aidan said, as a blob of chocolate ice cream landed on his shirt. I tried to wipe it away with my napkin, basically rubbing the stain in. “You’re always taking care of me,” he said. “That’s what I first noticed about you.”

“You mean the test stuff?”

“Not everyone would do that,” he said. “If we got caught, both of us would have gotten detention or worse.”

“It wasn’t a big deal. Anyway, I have more time to study than you do.”

“I don’t care about studying,” he said.

“What do you care about?”

“Basketball.”

“And?”

He looked at me blankly. “And nothing. I want to play professionally. That’s the only thing I ever wanted to do with my life. What about you?”

What did I care about? Nothing in my mind was as clear-cut. I liked working on the school paper. I liked writing articles. But a career? A direction? I had no burning ambitions.

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