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in 3 days, and 2 days, and 1 day I would beeating air popped popcorn next to Kyle, tellingmyself that I didnʼt care if laughed or wasscared the right parts, but secretly hoping I dideverything right.Kyle came at 10:05, his live Phish CD slippingout of the crack of his windows as the carpulled up outside my house. The inside of hiscar smelled like dove soap and bonfires and Itried breathe very softly as we drove to the coffeeshop, so that my quiet appreciation for thescents go unnoticed.Once there, he ordered a tall black coffee andI ordered a French Vanilla cappuccino. I burnedmy tongue on the first sip, just as I did everytime my dad and I ordered Chinese takeoutand every time my mom made chicken noodlesoup. “I always burn my tongue. Iʼm really sickof it.”“Iʼm sorry, Claire.” He made a ʻIʼm pretendingto feel sorry for you, but I donʼt really, andIʼm also flirting with youʼ face as he broughtme back a glass of ice.1 alternated tucking it under my tongue andrubbing it across the top. When I was finishedwith the glass of ice, and the cappuccino hadfound its home in the trash can, we walkedback to the car to leave for the movie. ʻIʼmmissing all my skin cells. See.” I stuck out mytongue as far as I could, swallowing first sothat I didnʼt spit everywhere when I opened mymouth.He pretended to be very interested. “Youhave a little streak down the center. Ha, youhave the shape of an L on your tongue. Howcould you burn it in the shape of an L?” Iclosed my mouth. His face was very closeto mine. I was frustrated with my stomachfor feeling so queasy, only people in stupidromance novels have butterflies, and they onlyhave them before first kisses, and I wasnʼtgoing to kiss him. There is no way he wouldkiss me.But he grabbed my chin and kissed me.He rubbed my nose like an Eskimo betweenkissing me, and held the hand that I was claspingmy jeans with. I didnʼt look at him whenwe were done. I clasped my jeans again andturned to look outside the window. “We reallyshouldnʼt do that.” I longed to ask him to kissme again, and again, and again, until I could nolonger tell which mouth or tongue was mine,or which hand was mine, or if I were sitting ina car or were somewhere far much greater—some incandescent space, hidden away in thestomach of some tiny silver fish in the streamwe sat by last week.“Why?” The gold coins in his eyes reflectedthe lamp light from outside the car.“Because you have a girlfriend. Leah is yourgirlfriend and Iʼm not.”He shrugged and turned away from me, “Ilike you; youʼre a lot different than she is. I cantalk to you about things. Please give me a hug.Iʼm sorry. I like you. A lot. Please come here.”I did, and in the following weeks wedeveloped a sort of pathetic game with oneanother. We would be sitting cross legged onthe floor, playing scrabble, and she would call.Kyle always answered a certain way—”hey. ..nothing.. .Iʼll call you later”—and I was left tocreate her half of the conversation. As weekspiled up her conversations became more desperate:“1 love you, are you cheating on me?Please donʼt cheat on me. Where are you?”After her calls, I would always crawl awayfrom our game of Scrabble or Life or Chutesnʼ Ladders, and sit on the opposite side of theroom, pretending to watch TV. Then he wouldfollow me and make me give him a hug. Thenwe would talk about how sad/frustrated/hurtI felt and the ways in which he would make itbetter. These were his options: stop talking toLeah, stop talking to me. He did neither, but accordingto our immoral code of conduct as longas he apologized a lot, kissed my forehead, andpromised that he was ending things with hervery soon, then we were all right.After seeing Leah at practice every day Idecided to call my coach and let him know Iwas no longer interested in soccer, that I wastaking up photography and that I didnʼt believein the theory of competitive sports. 1 wasnʼtsure where 1 learned to lie like that.I told Kyle of my decision as we drove fromhis house on the one lane highway toward myapartment. 1 felt myself flattening out the longgray stretch road. I turned down the volume onthe stereo and began to tap the steering wheelwith his fingers.“Looks like weʼll have more time to hangout now.” He gave his “Iʼm being cheesy andI know it but I love you and I look adorablewhen I smile” face. I was exhausted from categorizingall of his faces—placing the ones thatseemed honest and made me happy in one pileand the dishonest ones in another. The pilescontinued to collapse and I would forget whichfaces belonged where. I watched the landscapemove by, concentrating on the details outsidemy window so that I might have somethingelse to talk to him about. Nothing came tomind so I asked him the question that I had notmade him answer for the last few weeks. “Areyou and Leah still together? Please tell me youarenʼt. Please tell me that you havenʼt been lyingabout ending things this whole time.”He didnʼt look at me. I looked at the trees. Iwonder if they are sad when it is winter?“Itʼs hard, ya know? When you love someonefor so long. Iʼm not sure things will ever becompletely over. I like you a lot though.”“Trees must be sad when itʼs winter. Theyʼrenaked and thatʼs scary. All that cheesy vulnerabilitycrap that people talk about is true. Maybeitʼs not so lonely being dressed after all.”“Claire, what in the hell are you talkingabout? Did you listen to what I said?” Helooked at me now. He grabbed my hand andkissed my fingers.“So youʼre with Leah. You still kiss her andcall her and stuff. And you still kiss and call meand stuff.”“Yes.” Then I told him that was not fair andthat people werenʼt supposed to be in relationshipsthat way. While I explained to him whyhe shouldnʼt do that, I picked out what I woulddress the trees in, had I the choice. I woulddress every tree in cerulean blue leaves, sothat no tree really knows anything about theother one. No one would know if the other treehad apple or cherry blossoms, or walnuts, oranything at all. Kyle wanted to tell me that hedidnʼt understand what I was talking about.Instead he rubbed my ear and smiled as wepulled into the parking lot in front of the icecream shop. I should have been thinking of theway in which what he said would affect ourrelationship. Instead I thought, maybe he likesme because Iʼm crazy.We walked inside “Lucy and Lukeʼs” andfound my dad mopping the floor. “Good eveningmy young adult friends.” He stood straightand saluted us.We both said hi. Kyle remembered he left thehomework we were supposed to do together inhis car and he left to go get it.“You look sad tonight. Whatʼs up?” When heasked me questions he thought were importanthe never took his eyes off me. I didnʼt like itwhen people stared at me too much.“Stop looking at me like that. Itʼs not a bigdeal. Iʼm just not sure things are going to workout like I thought.“Heʼs such a great guy though. I always seeyou guys laughing together.” I didnʼt want tohear my dadʼs list of Kyleʼs positive qualities.So I told him. “Heʼs dating Leah. Thatʼs right.Iʼm helping him cheat on his girlfriend. Iʼmawful, Iʼm awful and disgusting.”“And youʼre letting him come back over?Claire, heʼs been cheating on you for twomonths. Every beautiful and nice thing he saysto you he says to another girl. He touches anothergirl. He makes promises to another girl.How can you be okay with this?”“Youʼre upset because you think this is aboutyou somehow. Itʼs not. Forget about Lucy. Shedoesnʼt love you anymore and sheʼs gone.”“Her name is mom. You need to call hermom. She left you too...Iʼm sorry. Claire, Iʼmworried about you.”“Kyle and I have homework to do.” When Ileft, I knew my dad was crying. The night hefound out Lucy was having an affair I foundhim sitting in the shop with his cell phonein hand. He told me he called her fifty fourtimes and she had not answered. I sat downwith him and offered to call her as well. Hemade me call her twenty seven times, and shenever answered once. For two hours we bothsat looking out the window waiting for her tocome home. We never looked at one another.But I could hear him crying very quietly. Hedidnʼt make any noise but I could feel the tablemoving a little and saw him rub his eyes out ofthe corner of my own.“What happened with your dad?” Kyleafterglow 33wa“veun““bewiI wdethehesechane“wion