Free Stone Cove Island by Suzanne Myers Page A

that poem. I’m sure it was way beyond me, because I was a dopey little tenth grader. But it actually did seem pretty good.”
    Charlie hesitated, his lips parted, like he was working up a snappy comeback. Then instead of speaking, he reached across the table and kissed me. I was so startled, I froze. You know how they say when you’re about to die your life flashes in front of you? A similar jumble of confused images played a montage in front of my eyes. The experience was much more pleasant than dying, obviously. It felt like it went on a long time, but it was probably a second. I didn’t breathe. I saw moments of the past week, moments of Charlie as a child, all the time we’d spent together then with no significance, so much a premonition of now. Ifelt my own confusion. Was I here right now by accident or my own unconscious plan? All this wondering about Bess, the research in the library, coffee in the diner—was it all just an excuse to kiss Charlie? And if I did kiss Charlie, if that’s what I’d wanted but had not known that I wanted, what would that mean now? Would we stay friends if things didn’t work out? Would it make the short time he had left on the island fraught with pressure and dread? Would I spend the rest of my senior year pining in my room and wishing I’d never run into him? I did not know the answer to any of these questions.
    “Eliza. You all right?” He was looking at me with concern, I saw, waiting for me to say something. Before I could think of how to respond, I leaned across the table and kissed him back. And then his mother walked in.
    I don’t know if Cat Pender was standing in the door watching us for a long time or if she came in that second. All I knew was, one minute I was lost in warm, soft, wool-and-sandalwood soap-scented Charlieland, the next my eyes were wide open and we were both sitting as far away from each other as possible, staring at his mother in horror.
    “Oh, Eliza,” Cat fumbled. “I didn’t see you there. Anyway, Charlie, I do need your help this afternoon, as we planned.” She looked at me as she said this, not Charlie. I believe “pointedly” is the expression? It was clear I was expected to go. Charlie and I exchanged twin, embarrassed grins and I backed my way out of the kitchen, making excuses about homework and complimenting the banana bread. That earned me a tight smile, as Cat waited for me to leave.
    I didn’t walk home so much as bounce. I felt jitters, both inside and outside of my body. Why had I kissed him? Is that what I’d had in mind when I’d gone to the inn? What was Charlie thinking now? What was I thinking now? I needed Charlie, I thought, as an ally. He was the only person I could talk to about this crazy Bess business. He was the only person who understood my growing obsession with it and the questions it raised about my mother, his mother, both of our parents in fact. But I was also attracted to him. Clearly.
    If we became involved, and things went badly, I would have no one to confide in. I would have Meredith, but she wasn’t involved in the same way. If we got together, it would have to end badly, I realized. He would go back to Boston soon. He would leave for Northwestern soon after that and probably never come back.
Slow down
, I told myself. It was just a kiss. An impulse. Two people acting crazy during a crazy time. This sort of thing happened. I remember my dad telling stories about seeing strangers hooking up in the aftermath of September 11th, about how the air was charged with what he called “apocalyptic energy.” Besides, a kiss was not a marriage proposal.
    My skin felt hot, but my fingers and toes felt cold. Was I going to faint? No. Absolutely not.
    I stopped and sat down on a rock. I needed some perspective. I was getting way ahead of myself. I needed to just calm down and wait and see how things played out—exactly the thing I was worst at.

SEVEN
    I sat in my room alone and forced myself to focus on homework