Free The Other Half of Me by Emily Franklin Page A

might have pulled a muscle in my cheek.
    “How do you feel about surprises now?” he asks coyly.
    I feel chills spreading from my neck, where Tate’s fingers are tucked into my hair, down to my thighs. “Maybe I should reconsider them.” Then I kiss him again. It’s even better than the last one because
I
went in for the kiss and he’s kissing me back, reciprocating. I want to tell him how long I’ve waited for this, but I don’t.
    Instead, Tate takes my hand and leads me down the stairs and back to the kitchen. “Can I tell you that I’ve wanted to do that for a long time, without sounding like a stalker?”
    “Define ‘long time.’” I hoist myself up on the counter next to a bowl of fruit. I could paint a still life of the piled pears, the bright oranges, and it would never compare to the reality of right now.
    Tate sighs and gets us both a glass of fancy Italian soda from a bottle with a built-in cork. “Let’s just say long enough.” He smiles and then thinks of something. “Last night at the mall only confirmed my suspicions.”
    I sip the drink, and Tate steps in between my knees so his face is level with mine. It’s a kissing position big with the cheerleaders and their jock boyfriends at school. I guess it’s because the girls can sit on the bleachers and their sporty guys can hustle over in between sprints. But I’m not in that crowd and never will be. Nerves kick in momentarily. Two weeks left of summer and then what? Will we fall back into our separate worlds? But I’m getting way ahead of myself. “What suspicions were those?”
    Tate shrugs. “That you were funny. Different, in a good way. Unique.”
    I smile. “Oh.” It’s hard to know what else to say when someone rattles off a list of qualities you can only hope to have. Now’s the time I could express exactly what I feel. Only, what is it? Finding the right words to express how you feel about someone is so easy at night, alone in your bed with only the slim blue light from the summer sky as witness. How many times have I thought about what I’d say to Tate Brodeur if given the chance? And here, now, when the moment’s in front of me, I come up with “Oh.” Luckily, Tate’s not at a loss for words.
    “Smart, which I knew from being in class with you. And…” He looks me up and down. “Absolutely stunning.”
    No one has ever called me this before. Not even close. It makes my head spin, but then Tate goes on. “Which is why when I saw that article last night…” He walks away for a second, making me miss him already, and then comes back with the magazine. “Here’s the thing. You’re everything I said before, right?”
    “That’s a trick question. If I say yes, then I’m conceited, and if I say no, then I lack self-confidence.”
    Tate’s grin goes wide. “Classic. Anyway, I just keep thinking, if you’re so cool, what if there’s someone else out there like you? That’s got to be a good thing.”
    As soon as he says it, as soon as the words are out of his mouth, hovering in the air like monarch butterflies with their vibrant orange-and-black wings, I know he’s right. I have to know. Just like I knew I had to kiss Tate. To confirm the feeling, I say it aloud. “I have to know.”
    Tate claps his hands like we’re about to
hut, hut, hike
or something. “Good. I’m so glad you’re doing this. The suspense was really getting to me.”
    I raise my eyebrows as he wanders over to the small office next to the kitchen, sits down at a desk, and fires up a laptop. “Oh,
you
were anxious?” I say. “Please.” I hop off the counter, follow him into the room, and take a seat next to him so we’re side by side.
    “Sorry, you’re right. If I feel stressed about this, you must feel…”
    “Bombarded with crazy,” I say. Slowly, deliberately, I type in the Web address for the Donor Sibling Registry. “It’s like it shouldn’t be so colossal, but it is. I mean, maybe there’s no one. But maybe