I kiss her smooth shoulder very deliberately this time. Again, a trace of my tongue. Again, a nip of my teeth. She inhales sharply, stops reaching for popcorn, stops saying a word about jeweled rings and couture dresses. I push her hair to the side and kiss my way to the top of her spine, bracing myself on her bare thigh. And then her hand covers mine, helps it slide over her skin, no doubt leaving peach-scented traces on my palm. It’s so much. Everything smells and tastes and feels so good and it’s making me dizzy.

I move in closer, my breasts brushing her back, and we fall on our sides on the couch, me still kissing her shoulder, her throat while she slides my hand higher, over her cotton shorts, up to her smooth, flat belly. My fingers have the easiest access to her waistband, but her grip isn’t as strong, her desires less pointed and clear, and I’m not sure how far to go or how far I want to go. I settle for grazing my fingertips over the front of her shorts. She must be as wired as I am because it seems like enough.

It’s growing unbearably hot under the blanket, but one rule neither of us says aloud is that it can’t come off. As long as there’s a blanket, as long as there isn’t anything out in the open, it’s easy to imagine there’s nothing at all. And we need to imagine there’s nothing at all, because if this is something—if the fact that I desperately want to slide my hand down her shorts is real—then what are we?

What am I?

It’s one summer.

You can’t change into a different person over a summer.

Chapter Thirteen

THEN

Maybe you can’t become a different person in one summer, but you can definitely look like one. I can’t stop checking myself out in the mirror with this wig on. “Holy cow.”

“I knew that was the one.” Jasmine comes up behind me, momentarily pulling my gaze away from myself with her flame-blue blunt-cut bangs. “That color is perfect.”

It is. It’s strange because it isn’t mine, but it feels like me. Even in this short, curly wig, this is a look I could get used to, a look I’d love to keep seeing in the mirror. But it’s a big change, and my palms keep itching to send a selfie to my friends for their approval.

Instead, I change the subject. “Have you ever colored your hair?”