Someone cheered, but it was more like a question than a celebration, like a wooo? that hovered in the air like, We all think that was meant to happen, right? But by and large, the reaction was confused and chaotic. There was some awkward laughter, and then a lot of quiet, followed by gentle murmuring. One goat bleated very loudly. The girl had disappeared in the crowd. Someone helped the ogre to his feet, and he was checking his nose for blood. There was none.

“You’re still an ugly bitch, Jess Orlando,” he yelled at the girl, the hate in his voice almost more upsetting to me than the fact that he’d just gotten decked.

“I think it’s time for us to get out of here,” I said to Touch.

I looked in the crowd for Ros, but they were already gone.

I didn’t know it yet, but their story was starting. For them, it was love at first fight.

Footnote

4 We ate lunch together for two days before I decided I didn’t like the smell of his tuna sandwiches, told him so, and went off to play with Emily Hibbert. He and I found our way back to each other, but to this day, I cannot eat or even mention tuna in front of Touchstone without enduring some remark about how I broke his young heart.

The Story of Ros, Part I

I’ve never seen a proper fight before.

It’s awesome, in the most religious sense of the word.

Sure, someone gets punched on nearly every episode of Power Jam, and okay, I’ve gotten into a few minor skirmishes when I pretended to be a wolf—a nip here, a scratch there. But a legit punch, thrown by a tiny girl with strawberry-blond hair?

I feel like I’ve been punched: a blow to the ribs that sends my heart hurtling up and out of my throat. The organ drops at her feet. Beats be mine. Can hardly wait for a response.

Where has this Jess Orlando been all my life?

After losing my heart, I move faster than I have in months. Sprint to the kitchen of a house I don’t know. Yank open the freezer door. Search through Tupperwares and cartons of ice cream and objects wrapped in tinfoil. There’s cold, but I barely feel it, just the heat spreading through my chest.

I grab the next best thing to an ice pack and vamoose.

Outside, this fighter, this Jess Orlando, stands by the rope swing. She’s less girl and more magnet, pulling me toward her with remarkable force.

“Hi,” I say, then: “That was amazing.”

“It was stupid,” Jess Orlando says, her voice both lower and gentler than I’d have guessed. She continues: “I shouldn’t have let him get to me.”