Free Second Kiss by Natalie Palmer

told us we should write something down. I went through the lunch line alone and sat at the end of one of the long lunch tables until I was instructed by a group of boys that I was sitting in their seats. I took the rest of my lunch to the library and ate at one of the tables in the back until the librarian told me I couldn’t have food in the library. And worst of all, because my family was, yet again, in Cape Cod during regular registration, my locker was in the “late registration zone”-in the eighth grade hall! What was happening? I thought I was supposed to automatically be cool in ninth grade. I was part of the oldest grade in the school! I was a freshman! So why did I feel like a dorky seventh grader all over again? It occurred to me in my seventh-period geography class that I hadn’t spoken to anyone all day-besides the principal and my teachers, to explain my absence the day before. I sat in my chair in the back, only partly listening to Mr. Haggard reciting a poem about the continents, when I had another realization. Clarissa, Nina, and Jess were the only friends I had. If they weren’t around, I had no one else to talk to! Sure, I would have an occasional conversation here or there with a girl I had known since elementary. But the only real friends-the people who noticed when I was absent-were Clarissa, Nina, and Jess. And I doubt that the first two even noticed that I was gone yesterday. The strange thing was that I wasn’t even distraught in the least about Clarissa and Nina. Their friendship had only made my life harder. But what shocked me was that I was this old and I had so few friends. I wasn’t so unattractive that people couldn’t bear to look at me. I was fun to be around and had a good sense of humor, at least Jess thought so. So, why was it so impossible for me to make another friend?

    That night before bed I pulled out an old notebook and began listing the people in school that I could potentially be friends with. By the time I came up with four names, I had already crossed each of them out for various reasons. Too weird. Bad breath. Squeaky voice. One too many body piercings. Maybe I was meant to go through my ninth grade year alone. I had just come to this conclusion when I heard the familiar sound of tiny rocks hitting my window.

    I walked over to my window and lifted up the old wooden frame. I looked down, and fifteen feet below was Jess’s moppy brown hair bouncing around while he looked for more small pebbles to throw at my window.
    I spoke in a normal voice, “Hey!”
    Jess’s face suddenly appeared beneath his tousled hair as he stared up the side of the house toward my window. His pensive expression broke into a smile of relief.
    “Hey,” he spoke in a lower voice, even though I had told him a million times that no one could hear us. “You’re awake.”
    I cocked my head to the side. “As if a little thing like me sleeping would really stop you.”
    Jess motioned for me to come down. I shook my head at him. “It’s too early. My dad hasn’t gone to bed yet. He’s downstairs watching TV.” I lowered my voice to the same volume as Jess’s. “Things are going sour a bit early tonight, aren’t they?”
    The top of Jess’s head appeared again as he lowered his face and looked at the ground.
    I sat watching him, not understanding the depth of what he lived with day in and day out, but knowing that he was in pain. And for some reason, he always picked my window to come to as an escape. “Stay there,” I said. “I’ll be right down.”
    Jess’s head shot up again, and I saw the pleading in his eyes that what I said was true. It always threw me off a little to see such vulnerability from him when he stood underneath my window-a side of him that he hid from everyone, even me-during the daylight hours.

    “But what about your dad?”
    “I’ll just tell him that you need me.”
    “There’s no way he’ll let you out.” Jess would never say it, but I knew we were both