26 Kisses - Anna Michels Page 0,1

about? We’ve got great seats.”

I turn my head and put my hand in front of my face, shielding it. Seth frowns, his green eyes now locked on mine. I feel trapped inside the group of giddy, churro-eating tourists surrounding us. “Please, guys. Let’s get out of here.”

“It’s Mark,” Seth explains to Mel. “He’s sitting right over there.”

She cringes and leans forward, searching the crowd.

“Don’t look!” I duck my head down farther, but I also risk a glance to the other side of the street. My eyes are drawn right to the faded blue baseball cap I know so well. Mark is camped out with his parents and two younger brothers, all of them leaning back in lawn chairs. A large, wheeled cooler sits at their feet, probably packed with the amazing sandwiches his mom is famous for. My stomach flips. A year ago I tagged along with them to watch this same parade, and Mark fed me potato chips as the mayor of Butterfield cruised by in an open-top convertible. The memory is close enough to touch, and I shudder as I remember the way Mark’s eyes widened when I gently licked salt off his fingertips.

“Hey.” Mel grabs my hand and laces her fingers through mine, her silver rings warm against my skin. “Screw Mark. It’s totally his loss, right?”

“Right,” I agree automatically. But that doesn’t mean I can handle sitting within sight of him for the next hour without having some kind of public meltdown.

I close my eyes. It has been ten days since Mark told me he didn’t want to “be attached” when he went off to college. That no one stays with their high school girlfriend forever.

No one stays with their high school girlfriend. It sounds like something that would be true. After all, what is high school but cross-country meets and three-minute passing periods and drinking Mountain Dew at midnight so you can stay awake to finish your pre-calc homework? High school doesn’t matter. And high school girlfriends probably don’t either.

Too bad my high school boyfriend meant everything to me.

I open my eyes. I cannot, under any circumstances, face Mark today. I’ll just have to lie low, pretend to watch the parade, and then escape as soon as it’s over.

“Uh-oh,” Seth says.

Mark’s mom is pointing at us and whispering in his ear. He tilts the brim of his baseball cap with one hand and raises the other in a tentative wave.

“God damn it.” I drop my head and stare into the gutter, which is already filled with candy wrappers and ticket stubs, the universal debris of summer festivals.

“He’s coming over,” Mel warns, squeezing my hand tighter. “You’re going to have to interact in three . . . two . . .”

“Hey, Vee.”

I take a deep breath and look up into my favorite face on the planet. “Hi, Mark.”

He looms over the three of us, blocking out the sun. The leather bracelet I got him in February for his eighteenth birthday circles his wrist. Why is he still wearing it?

“How’s it going?” Mark’s totally at ease, thumbs hooked around his belt loops, posture relaxed. As if we’re friends—when in reality we’re something so much more and also, now, so much less than friends.

“Okay.”

Mel lets go of my hand and leans over to Seth, whispering something in his ear. They both ignore the fact that Mark is standing two feet in front of them.

“My mom wanted me to say hi for her. And Kyle and Oliver were wondering why Jeffrey couldn’t come today.”

I wave at Mark’s mom, who gives me an enthusiastic two-handed wave back, and feel another pang of regret that I won’t be going over to Mark’s house for weekend bonfires or Ping-Pong tournaments anymore. “It’s my dad’s weekend, so my mom took him over there last night.”

Mark nods. “That sucks. Your dad didn’t want to come to Dune Days?”

I shrug. “You know my stepmom’s not really into crowds.”

Mark looks down and fiddles with his bracelet. Faint drumbeats float through the crowd, signaling the start of the parade.

“So . . . are you okay, Vee?” he asks, glancing uncomfortably at Mel. “About everything?”

I nearly laugh. It’s so like Mark to check up on me, even now that we’re not together. He hated it when we occasionally fought, could never drop me off at my house and go home until he felt like everything was okay between us. Even as I turned away from him in tears ten days ago, he reached out to comfort me, his