Page 126 of I Kissed Shara Wheeler
Difficult, frustrating, razor-sharp, feather-soft Shara, leaving lilacs on her pillow in the morning.
She doesn’t really know if she’ll get to have any of that. Shara hasn’t decided what’s next yet. There’s still time for her to enroll for the spring semester at Bama, the only school her parents will agree to pay for, but it would come with a lot of strings. Shara hates strings.
When they’re alone, she talks about applying for student loans and running away to study in France or Italy or China, or riding the Trans-Siberian Railroad, or going on The Bachelor so she can live on Instagram sponcon. Once, she half joked she might find whatever crappy waitressing job she can in New York and sleep on Chloe’s couch. She’ll figure it out. She’s the smartest person Chloe knows. She has time.
And, at least until the end of the summer, she has Chloe. That much Chloe knows for sure.
She sits down at Shara’s side and drops her bag onto the ground between them. Shara’s preoccupied with a smoldering marshmallow.
“I have a question for you,” she says.
“No, I didn’t mean to burn it,” Shara says. “I’m not perfect.”
She laughs, reaching into her purse. “Actually, I was going to ask if you think I should burn these.”
Shara glances over, and there in Chloe’s hand are her cards. Some are worn down at the edges from being carried around. One has a matcha stain on it. All of them are monogrammed pink artifacts of a Shara who would rather tear her own life apart than tell the truth, even to herself.
Chloe’s grown attached to them, to be honest, but this isn’t a game anymore. Feels weird to keep the pieces.
Shara says, “Burn ’em.”
So Chloe does.
Under the curl of smoke, Shara reaches over and smears melted marshmallow down the length of Chloe’s nose.
“Ah!” Chloe gasps while Shara laughs. “Why!”
Shara grins an extremely self-satisfied grin, which is something Chloe is still getting used to. Shara has so many more expressions than she did before. It’s like she’s unlocked Shara Premium.
“Because it’s funny.”
“I hate you!”
“Can’t believe it took you four whole years to finally say that to my face,” Shara says, settling back on her elbows.
“I can only say it because I don’t mean it anymore,” Chloe counters. She turns onto her side so she can lean over Shara and smear the marshmallow into the sleeve of her shirt.
“I think—ugh, gross—I think you still mean it a little bit,” Shara says, squirming away as Chloe tries to pin her down. “That’s what makes this work.”
Shara gives up the fight and lays her head down against the grass. Chloe could swear the sunset shifts on the horizon from powder blue to coral pink, the exact color of Shara’s cheeks and lips and hair, and of her sugar-sticky palm, which lies open on the ground above her head.
They’ve never hated each other, not really. It’s more like recognition. Shara tilts her chin up to the sky, narrowing her eyes even as she starts to smile, and Chloe sees someone just as stubborn and intense and strange as she is, snapping exactly into place. The thing Chloe likes more than anything else: a correct answer.
One delirious summer doesn’t feel like nearly enough time for this.
Technically, though, eighteen years isn’t a lot of time either.
Chloe covers Shara’s hand with her own. She laces their fingers together and squeezes, and then she kisses Shara into the grass.
