Page 67 of I Kissed Shara Wheeler
“You look like Kristen Stewart at the Oscars.”
“Kristen Stewart?” she repeats, blushing harder.
She steps up to the mirror and turns left and right, checking her jawline in the reflection, then smooths out her lapels with visible coolness.
“Can you—um—” She turns to Chloe, who’s still holding her phone. “Can you take a picture and send it to me?”
She eyes Georgia. She’s not really a selfie person, or a posting photos of things that aren’t dogs or books on her Instagram person. “Who are you sending it to?”
“Nobody,” she insists. “I just want to have it.”
Chloe shrugs and lines up the shot: Georgia with her hands in her pockets, one hip cocked, looking effortless and confident and honestly pretty hot.
Right before she hits the button, an email notification pops up at the top of the screen: SW edited your document.
Shara, back within reach.
“Chloe?” Georgia says.
“Sorry, sorry!” Chloe snaps the shot quickly. “Here, I’ll send it to you.”
She fires off the photo to Georgia, and then ducks into a stall and opens up the doc. It takes ages, since the locker rooms are basically a dead zone for cell service, so she climbs up on the toilet seat to boost her signal.
Under the last thing she wrote, new words finally appear.
Well, what did you think of the letter?
She slaps her phone against her chest and stares up at the water-stained ceiling, screams and laughter and music and gossip fading out under the deafening volume of Shara’s nerve.
I think you made your point pretty clearly, she types, thumbs jabbing at the keyboard. Shara’s cursor is waiting for her response. Though I’m surprised you actually showed your hand.
Shara types back immediately.
You figured it out, then. I knew I wasn’t overestimating you.
Chloe rolls her eyes. Of course Shara wants to play it cool, like she didn’t write a whole letter about how she’s in love with Chloe and then disappear when Chloe read it. Shara Wheeler, always running away and pretending it was all part of her plan.
What I can’t figure out is why you had to do it like this, Chloe types. Seems like a lot of work for something you could have done from your desk in Mrs. Farley’s class. I’ve been right here the whole time.
This time, Shara takes longer to start typing. Chloe stares at her cursor and imagines her on the other side of it, tucking her long hair behind her ear and frowning down at the keyboard.
That’s the problem, Shara types. I was too close to realize that you’re special. Took a while to figure out how to get you where I want you.
“Chloe!”
Chloe startles so hard, her foot almost goes straight into the toilet.
“Yeah!” she shouts back, jumping down. Her voice comes out strangled, so she clears her throat before she opens the door. “What’s up?”
Georgia’s waiting for her on the other side of the door with a fistful of lipsticks and a quizzical brow. “Do you have a minute?”
“Yeah, of course,” she says.
“I need to—”
“Bring those to Ash?” Chloe says, pulling the lipsticks out of her hand. “Got it.”
“Wait—”
