Free Zero by Tom Leveen

but doesn’t let go. He just holds me for an extra few seconds.
    A girl could get used to this. One hopes.
    When he lets me go, I hesitate long enough to be inviting, not so long as to look like an idiot. When he doesn’t tilt his head toward me, I pretend to have found my keys, even though I’m dizzy with lust or desire or some other such foreign thing.
    “Tuesday night, you busy?” Mike asks, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Seven-ish?”
    “Nope. You?”
    “I am now. If that works for you.”
    “It does!”
    “All right,” Mike says. “I’ll give you a call, then. See ya.”
    “Later, skater,” I say. I don’t know if I’m thrilled we made such close contact or sad a kiss didn’t happen. Unless I’ve already been relegated to Such A Good Friend status?
    Mike waves and jogs back over to the van, where the band is waiting. They climb in and tear out of the parking lot.
    I get into my car and sit for a second, trying to sort my collage of anxieties. Would he really have asked me out again if this wasn’t going to turn out romantic? On the other hand, if it is, why a
hug
? Everyone hugs everyone. There are a million different hugs for a million different people, but only a couple kinds of kiss. It would be nice to know for sure where I stood with him, and kissing would be a super-deluxe way to clarify that.
    But maybe I shouldn’t complain. God knows I could, if I stopped to take stock of the rest of my silly-ass life, which I should
not
do right now—except that’s all it takes to envision a cubist rendering of Jenn’s house, jagged and sharp, and dammit, why not just call her and tell her everything that happened tonight so she can tell me what to do?
    Answer: Because there are only a couple kinds of kiss. That’s why not.

seven
    I am painting pictures which make me die for joy, I am creating with an absolute naturalness, without the slightest aesthetic concern.
—Salvador Dalí
    On Monday, what is now my first real day of higher education, I’m ten seconds from grabbing my keys and heading out when my phone rings. Like any self-respecting, fallen-for-a-musician, in-control-of-her-world female, I pick up and answer with an excited “Hello!” assuming Mike will be on the other end, because who else would—
    “Hey.”
    —call me. Crap. Ambushed.
    “… Hey, Jenn.”
    “You said it was okay if I called.”
    “Yeah, I know, but I’m on my way out the door. I start school today.”
    “You’re taking summer school?”
    “Yeah, so?”
    “Nothing, nothing, I just—I thought we were going to blow off summer together.”
    “We
were
.”
    Silence. I almost hang up right then. I can’t. We’ve known each other since freshman year. At seventeen,
almost eighteen
, four years is a long time.
    Early freshman year, our entire class went to the Phoenix Art Museum to see a Monet exhibit on loan from collections around the world, and I happened to be standing next to Jenn when she pointed to
The Path Through the Irises
and snottily said, “What is that supposed to even be?” I spent the next five minutes explaining:
    (a) Monet had been losing his eyesight when he painted it, altering his perception of color and light.
    (b) He chose to work with a palette of pure light colors.
    (c)
She was a stupid witch who wouldn’t know great art if it bit her sassy little ass
. Or words to that effect.
    Jenn was this cheerleader-looking fourteen-year-old who never was a cheerleader. Honestly, for as popular as I always thought she was, she never really hung out with anyone. Besides guys, I mean. She’d stared at me for a sec, then started laughing. Just when I thought I was going to have to start throwing punches, she slid her arm under my elbow, pointed to a later version of
The Japanese Footbridge
, and asked, “Okay, what about that one?”
    I spent the rest of the trip telling her the kind of details only someone like me would care to know. She listened to every word. Almost like she was just happy