Shine - Lauren Myracle [101]
I looked at him like oh please, and he added, “We can’t all be like you, Cat, needing no one but yourself. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there aren’t all that many people to choose from when it comes to having friends in this town.”
I thought about that now as Jason sat beside me in one of the plastic hospital chairs Kelly had let me haul into Patrick’s room. Jason was reading, and just his presence made me feel warm inside, and I thought how untrue it was, the idea that I needed no one but myself. When I looked back at who I was two and a half weeks ago, I hardly recognized myself. I’d been a ghost girl who cared about nothing. I existed, but just barely.
When I almost died trying to save Robert, I realized I did care, about everything. And I didn’t die. I was still here. I still existed.
Now I saw the world through new eyes. I saw people through new eyes, especially. People like me, and people who were completely different from me. Maybe they lived in Black Creek, or maybe they lived in Atlanta, or maybe as far away as New Mexico. As far away as India, even.
I once read that in India, cows roamed freely in the streets and did whatever they wanted. I thought that was downright strange. But then, an Indian girl would probably find catching crawdads in empty Pringles cans strange.
I guess what I’d decided was that looking only at people’s outsides—what they wore, what they did, how they regarded cows—wasn’t good enough. I needed to think about their insides, too. I needed to remember there was a difference. For a while there, I think I forgot there was one, and so I spent a lot of time comparing my insides to other people’s outsides, which made me feel broken and didn’t get me anywhere.
Had Beef done that, too? In his mind, had he come up lacking?
My sadness about him sat dark and heavy in my heart, but I think it would have been worse if it didn’t. It was right to be sad when sad things happened.
I swiveled my head and looked at Jason. He must have felt my gaze, because he looked up from his book, which was To Kill a Mockingbird. He’d never read it, and which blew my mind, so I’d given him my copy. Judging by how quickly he was moving through it, I figured he liked it.
I smiled at him. He smiled back. He must have seen that I was feeling melancholy, because he put down his book, leaned toward me, and cupped my face with his hands. He kissed me, and his lips were soft against mine. Our souls mixed. Something passed between us, an invisible but glowing light.
He drew back, his expression a question. Had his kiss helped? Had he made me feel better?
I pushed my fingers through his soft hair. “Go back to your book. I’m fine.”
“We can talk if you want,” he said.
“It’s okay. Really.”
I was lost in my thoughts, anyway. Thinking about Beef. Thinking about my brother and my aunt and Robert. Thinking about just all of it.
“Cat,” Jason said in a hushed voice. I blinked and was back in my plastic hospital chair.
“What?” I said.
He nodded at Patrick’s bed.
I followed his gaze, my skin tingling. Patrick’s eyes were open. When he saw me, he smiled.
“Hi, Cat,” he said, his voice hoarse from lack of use.
I was too stunned to talk. I was too stunned to breathe, so I just soaked him in. His lips were so chapped they’d split open in places. He’d grown a scraggly beard, with unruly hairs sprouting above his jaw line. He’d shave it off, I was sure, because Patrick was so not a beard guy. I liked it, though. He looked handsome. He looked like a man instead of a boy.
He quirked up one eyebrow in that way of his that drove me bonkers. “What’s the matter?” he said. “Cat got your tongue?”
My mouth fell open. Patrick loved throwing those dumb sayings at me: Cat got your tongue? Or When the Cat is away, the mice will play. Or his favorite—and the one I detested the most—Curiosity