26 Kisses - Anna Michels Page 0,2
fingers burning like a hot iron on my arm. “Sure,” I say, my voice cracking. “I’m fine.”
“Great. That’s good.” He looks like he wants to say more, but the sound of the marching band is getting closer. “Well, I better go sit down,” he says. “See you later. Maybe at work?”
“I quit,” I call to his back as he jogs across the street and collapses into his lawn chair, the only sign that seeing me here has rattled him at all. I’m surprised no one has mentioned it to him yet. The only reason I even got a job at the Butterfield Big 6 Cinema was so Mark and I could feed each other popcorn and make out in empty movie theaters while getting paid $8.25 an hour. Now I’m pretty sure I’m never going to be able to even watch a movie there ever again, much less work right alongside Mark in the same building where he first told me he loved me.
“Asshole.” Seth says it loudly enough to get a few looks from the people standing around us. It’s not the first time Seth has used that particular word to describe Mark, but it is the first time I’ve kind of agreed with him.
“Good job, Vee.” Melinda high-fives me and leans forward, shoving her thick black glasses up on her nose. “You were totally cool. That wasn’t so bad for a first post-breakup encounter, right?”
“No,” I say as the Cheeky Cherry Basket float glides by, blocking my view of Mark. Mel puts her arm around my shoulders, leaning her head briefly against mine, and I almost believe my own lie. “Not bad at all.”
Seth is teaching a piano lesson this afternoon, so he disappears into Ellman’s Music while Mel and I walk to the car in silence.
“I hate parades,” she says once we’re in her old Buick, inching down Main Street. With the constant beach traffic from Chicagoans fleeing to Michigan for the weekend and five different festivals between Memorial Day and Labor Day, it’s pretty much impossible to drive anywhere in Butterfield during the summer.
“I know.” I close my eyes and crank the seat back so I’m practically horizontal. “Why did you come?”
She shrugs. “Seth wanted to.”
I remember the way he looked at her earlier, and I have to stop myself from reminding Mel that the only reason she and Seth even got to know each other is because I introduced them. I may be heartbroken, but I’m not a jerk.
It didn’t take long for Mel and me to become friends after she moved to our tiny Michigan town from New York City. When she showed up in my math class on the first day of seventh grade, with her chunky bracelets and awkward smile, everyone else thought she was a little weird. I thought she was the coolest person I’d ever seen. It wasn’t long before she started coming over to hang out at my house, and then I introduced her to Seth, who lives across the street and was basically my lifeline when my parents were getting divorced.
Together the three of us survived middle school and nervously edged our way into Butterfield High, but then I spent the better part of the past two years ditching Seth and Mel to spend time with Mark and his cross-country team friends. I can’t count the number of inside jokes, Instagram photos, homecoming dinners, and movie nights I missed with my friends because I was too busy with Mark. I guess I didn’t even realize how close the two of them had become, but it wouldn’t be fair to resent their bond now.
Mel turns on the radio and hums along to the guitar riffs as I reach into my pocket and feel for my leather bracelet, the twin of the one Mark is inexplicably still wearing. It’s worn smooth from nearly a year of use. I never took it off, not even to shower or swim—until the day he broke up with me. Now it stays hidden away, tucked into my pocket or bag but still always nearby. Mel would kill me if she knew.
I raise my arm to block my eyes as the tears start to flow, and it takes Mel a few moments to notice I’ve lost it again.
“Hey, whoa,” she says, turning off the music and resting her hand on my knee. “You okay?”
I shake my head. I’m not okay—not okay with the fact that Mark dumped me approximately eight minutes after receiving his high