Elijah threw his head back and laughed, clapping his hand on my knee.

I stopped laughing right away and turned toward him. Elijah had been out since seventh grade without apology and without any fucks to give. And maybe he realized in that moment what I had known for at least a few months about myself but hadn’t been able to admit out loud yet. Or maybe he knew before that moment. Maybe it didn’t even matter. What did matter is that right in that second, as two scared and tired fourteen-year-olds laughing about football in the school locker room, we both felt seen. Understood.

I don’t remember if he leaned forward first or if I did. I don’t remember if he kept his hand on my knee or if his fingers drifted somewhere else. I don’t remember what I did with my hands. I don’t remember what I was thinking in that exact minute, or if I was thinking at all.

I do remember his slow, warm exhale as our lips touched. I do remember the feeling of letting go. The way my shoulders relaxed, and I wasn’t scared, and everything made sense, even though nothing made sense all at the same time.

He pulled back first. “Maybe I shouldn’t have done that?”

“No, I… it was okay,” I said.

It never happened again.

Not because I didn’t want it to happen again, but because things changed after that. He ignored me completely the next morning. Didn’t even walk to school with me like we had been doing for weeks. I thought he hated me. I thought he regretted that kiss so badly that he couldn’t even stand to look at me anymore.

It was that same afternoon that I found him with broken glass on his shoes, getting ready to climb into the coach’s office and steal the car wash money.

I think about it a lot, why I called the tip line that afternoon. I spent three years convincing myself that it was because Elijah was breaking a rule and it was my duty to make sure there were consequences for that. But really it was because Elijah’s complete rejection had cut me to the quick.

“It’s not a trick question,” I say, taking a long sip and avoiding Elijah’s eyes.

“Uh… I think maybe I do know, probably,” he says, his voice shaky.

I take a chance and glance toward him. His eyebrows are pinched in the middle of his forehead, and his lips are set in an uneven line. He stares out at the cars whizzing down Main Street, and never glances in my direction.

“We probably ought to head home,” I say, folding up the Cheetos bag. “Birdie’s probably waiting on us.”