Free The Difference Between You and Me by Madeleine George Page B

Everything’s going to be different by the time this year’s over.”
    Dumb with hope, Jesse smiles, and Emily leans in and kisses her smile. As their lips touch, Jesse feels her whole midsection melt into stars.
    In a second it will be over. In two seconds Emily will be saying,
Wait at least a minute before you come out after me.
In a minute Emily will be gone, and in two minutes Jesse will be trudging downstairs alone, sitting back down next to Wyatt, trying to come up with a plausible explanation for why she was gone for so long. In an hour she’ll be yearning so hard for Emily and feeling so rotten about herself that she’ll be swearing to never see Emily again, swearing that she’s just going to stop showing up for their meetings and not even bother to explain why, just cut off all communication with Emily once and for all, to save the last tiny shreds of her pride.
    But for now, in this moment, Emily is still kissing her. Her tongue is alive in Jesse’s mouth, her hands are clasped behind Jesse’s neck, and while it’s happening, it’s eternal. While it’s happening, it will never end.

8

Emily
    It’s hard for me to tear myself away from Jesse once we start kissing. I’m not going to lie about it, I get really clingy with her sometimes. We don’t get that many minutes together in a normal week, and sometimes I just wish I could call in sick to work one Tuesday and we could spend the whole afternoon in the bathroom there together. Or somewhere else, somewhere nicer. Sometimes I daydream about taking her someplace, like on a camping trip somewhere, or up to the lake house someday in the off-season when no one else is there—someplace where I can have as many hours with her as I want. To do whatever I want with her, for as long as I want to do it.
    But then I also think that I’m lucky we can only see each other for short amounts of time. I feel like there are certain things that I can’t do with Jesse without betraying Michael, and we don’t do them ever, but I get so carried away when we’re together… if I didn’t have to tear myselfaway from her and go back to work after fifteen minutes or half an hour, I don’t know if I could trust myself to stop. Who knows what might happen if we had, like, a whole hour or more alone. I can hardly bear to think about it.
    This last time we were together I felt like she was getting sort of sad about the reality of our situation, and I really wanted to reassure her as much as I could, so much so that I almost came out and told her everything about what’s been going on with me and the corporate sponsorship thing. Honestly, I don’t know, but I feel like this is one of the most exciting new things ever to happen to our school, it’s such an incredible opportunity for us, and it feels to me like a sign that everything’s going to be okay this year. Better than okay—everything’s going to be fantastic.
    I was this close to telling Jesse all about the totally incredible meeting I had with Howard Willette, director of corporate communications for NorthStar Enterprises, and Martha Rinaldi, assistant director of corporate communications, on Monday afternoon. They were so amazing to me, so nice and welcoming, and so professional at the same time. They referred to me as “Ms. Miller” throughout the entire meeting. On the phone when we talked last week, Mr. Willette had suggested that I write up a brief proposal of possible ways NorthStar Enterprises could get involved with Vander, so I did, like, a whole presentation about what kinds of projects student council could usehelp with. I started out trying to be realistic and modest in my first draft, like I said they could maybe provide hot chocolate for the volunteers who staff the outdoor drop-off sites for our winter clothing drive in the fall, or I suggested they could pay for student-designed, screen-printed T-shirts for the senior class to strengthen class unity and spirit. But when I showed my first draft to