Twice Shy by Sarah Hogle (i am malala young readers edition .TXT) 📗

coming, so it was even harder. Didn’t get a chance to prepare myself.”

“I think I’m growing on you, though.” I know I sound smug. It’s because I am. I poke his ribs and he convulses. My laugh kicks up an evil notch.

He pokes me back. “It’s like if you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, it’ll jump out. But if you heat the water slowly, it gets used to it and stays put. You were already boiling when I was thrown into you.”

“My apologies. I can’t help being this hot.”

He doesn’t laugh at my joke. “It’s getting easier to handle. I’m not minding being boiled, nowadays.”

Our next period of silence descends naturally, but if I shone a flashlight over all the dark space that surrounds us, it would illuminate a hundred lingering words. My lips part, trying to summon the right ones. Most of the time, I feel like I live all the way down inside of myself, deep, deep down, so far away from my voice that I hardly hear it and certainly nobody else ever does. I’ve been told before that I blend in, difficult to notice, easy to talk over. But ever since I realized Wesley notices me, it’s like I’ve gone to the surface of myself and stayed there. I’m not used to feeling the world at such close range, having an effect on my environment, present in my own life. I’m run ragged by it. I don’t have the wherewithal to project a more flattering version of myself, stumbling when I aim to be charming and likable. I’m bare-bones Maybell.

“You over there counting sheep?” he asks.

“It’s a parade of Wesleys now, one after the other, skipping through a field. In tuxedos.”

“I don’t mind that at all.” The smile in his voice makes me smile, too.

“You still counting Maybells?”

“Oh, definitely not. I’d never be able to fall asleep that way.”

If I go digging into that I will end up taking a shovel to the face. “Look, that’s Orion’s Belt.” I raise my arm.

“Ursa Minor.” He raises his arm, too, letting it lean ever so slightly against mine. I press a little; he presses back.

“They didn’t have this many stars in Pigeon Forge.”

“Restricted viewing up there,” he agrees. I think Wesley’s prejudiced against large towns.

“This is the HBO of skies.” At once, we both say, “Starz,” and laugh at our corny joke.

My hand tilts, fingers curling back. His fingers claim the spaces between mine, just resting like that. I wonder if he’s looking at our hands, too. Listening to the telltale thud of my pulse.

“I see the letter W,” he tells me.

I bend my neck, and if the movement brings me closer to him, that’s entirely accidental. “Pretty sure what you’re looking at is an M from the wrong angle.” Our arms fall, side by side between our sleeping bags. Neither of us moves to withdraw.

His face shifts toward mine, breath stirring my hair. “I’ll let you have it.”

My jaw hurts, refusing to unclench. My face, exposed to chilly air, is hot, while my covered body is ice cold, muscles coiled tight. Walking home tomorrow is going to be a punishment.

Bats flap overhead, and even in my sleeping bag I can feel the cold seeping up out of the soil, through the tent’s fabric. My stiff back is beginning to think that getting closer to nature is overrated. I remind myself it would be inappropriate to ask Wesley to be my blanket.

The silence deepens. Our long day is catching up to me, my eyelids shuttering, when he whispers, “Are you awake?”

Here’s my chance to leave tonight at a wise stopping point. I will simply say nothing, feigning sleep. He’ll fall asleep, too. Danger averted.

I waste no time answering, “Yes.”

“I found out something that embarrassed you today,” he replies after a moment’s hesitation. “I’ll tell you an embarrassing thing, too. The most embarrassing thing. To make us even.”

“You don’t have—”

“Neither did you, when you saw my drawings in the loft. But you did. And it’s easier right now, in the dark, to be braver. So I’m going to tell you.” He exhales a soft breath, turning on his side toward me once more, closer than ever. All I’d have to do is give an inch and I’d have his lips to my forehead. I shiver, fingers curling around my shirt to restrain myself.

“I’ve never been with anyone.”

Time goes liquid, pooling between us. The temperature goes up like a Roman candle. “You mean . . .”

“Yes.”

My heartbeat thumps in my ears. My arm is positioned crookedly under my head, tingling with pins and needles as it falls asleep, but I can’t move.

He’s so soft, unbearably, when he prompts, “Say something?”

My throat is packed with sand. “I’m trying to come up with a response that doesn’t sound like a proposition,” I confess hoarsely. “Wesley, that isn’t embarrassing at all.”

He shifts onto his back again, arm across his stomach. “It bothers me. There’s a stigma, especially for guys. Especially for guys who are about to hit thirty. It’s not that I want to be a . . . you know . . .” He can’t bring himself to verbalize it. “But it’s hard to meet people when you have social anxiety as bad as I do. I panic. Or I want to say one thing, be a certain way, but it gets all tangled up on its way out of my mouth. A pumpkin trying to be flowers and coming off like a cactus. It’s frustrating.”

“You’re much more flowers than you are cactus,” I tell him, meaning every word. I hope he believes it. “But for what it’s worth, pumpkins are the best.”

“Anyway.” I think he’s rubbing his eyes. “Maybe I’ve overshared. I’m sorry. It’s late, and I’m tired.”

Of course. He’s tired—he’s not hinting anything. Not suggesting. He definitely does not want me to roll on top of him and have my wicked way. The only Wesley who will let me thread my fingers through his hair and crush my mouth to his is the imaginary one.