Alice Bliss - Laura Harrington [90]
The song ends and they separate. Alice does not want to come back to the world; Alice would like to stay lost in the music and the night sky and Henry’s arms for a little while longer, maybe forever.
She looks up to see John Kimball at the gym doors again. He takes a step toward her; she waves to him, and then Melissa Johnson is there to reach out and take him by the hand and pull him back inside. Stephie disentangles herself from Jeremy Baskin and comes to the door. Before she can wave, Alice and Henry retreat farther into the dark beyond the maple tree and decide to cut through the Baldwins’ driveway to Martin Street so they don’t have to see everyone coming out of the school and laughing and talking and waiting for their rides.
In the dark of Martin Street, holding Alice’s hand, Henry wants to kiss her. That rogue thought has been zinging around inside of him for weeks now, waking him at odd or inconvenient moments, startling him at breakfast or in the middle of a math test or at the piano. But this feeling in the dark of Martin Street is like a runaway car careening out of control; his blood is doing a jig in his veins, his heart is pounding, his knees feel all watery and weird, and his feet feel like they’ve grown six sizes. How in the world will he keep from tripping and falling? He is on the edge of falling every single second.
“Henry, are you okay?”
“What? Yeah. Fine. Why?”
“Well, you’re kind of breathing funny.”
Breathing, is he actually still breathing?
“Sorry. Sorry.”
And he trips. His legs are like Jell-O. This is ridiculous. He goes down on one knee and recovers, kind of bounces back up like his knee is rubber capped or something.
“Henry Grover, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were drunk.”
I am drunk, he thinks, or this must be what being drunk is like; woozy and hyperaware and clumsy.
“Are you okay? Are you sick?”
Yes, sick, that’s it. Sick and in pain and really, do people want to feel like this? It’s kind of like torture.
“Maybe this was a mistake? And we should have stayed home?”
No, no, not a mistake, he’s thinking as he trips again and recovers, but just barely. Not a mistake to walk with you and dance with you and hold you and . . . Oh, boy, this is not getting better, he thinks, this is getting worse and worse.
“Henry, I think you might be hyperventilating.”
He trips again but Alice catches him, sort of, or at least manages to ease him down to the curb.
“Henry, it’s okay. Just try to take one deep breath.”
“Alice,” he manages to choke out—
“What ?”
“When you kissed me . . .”
She looks down at her feet. Not a good sign. He braces himself.
“When you kissed me . . . Was it . . .?”
“Was it what?”
“A mistake?” he asks.
“No, I mean—”
“—Are you sorry?”
“No. I didn’t think—”
“Because I didn’t mean—”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t know,” he says. “You startled me and—”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Please don’t be sorry. What I mean is—”
“What?”
“I didn’t have a chance—”
“A chance to what?”
“A chance to kiss you back . . . And last night, when I was holding you, just holding you—”
“Henry, don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t ask me.”
“I don’t want to ask you, I want to kiss you.”
“Don’t ask me.”
“Don’t . . . ?”
And she is looking at him with her deep, newly fathomless eyes that are shining with something that is not tears and not joy, but is still urgent and unreadable, and he wants to think about what Alice is feeling but all he can think about is what he is feeling. Is this what her mother was talking about this morning, that lifetime ago? It is not careful or considerate or cautious; it is a rush that’s propelling him, terrified that he could lose her forever, terrified that this could be his only chance, terrified that whatever happens in this moment cannot be taken back or erased or made right once it happens, that if he stumbles here, somehow that is who he is and who he will be forever and ever.