Kane nodded. “Yeah. He does. Give him time, okay? It sucks now, you’re right. But he loves you. So give him his space. All right?”

I watched as Luisa slammed her locker door and they started to walk away, pinkies intertwined. Giving him space? Easier said than done.

Thursday, July 4

Someone’s setting off fireworks outside.

I don’t have to look to know who it is. People always seem to fall in one camp or the other when it comes to DIY fireworks, and while I was always in the Hate camp, Kane had always been in the Worth-It-Even-If-I-Blow-Myself-Up camp.

I look at the latest text from Silas and smile. Can’t believe you didn’t like it. Do you have no heart?

He’s talking about Harry Potter. None of the novels are part of our English Lit class, and yet he’s Hufflepuff forever and insists that the books should be a part of the curriculum. I’d read the first one, but ugh, it wasn’t the easiest to slog through. I’ve definitely liked other books better. When I told him that, he said, Well, it was nice talking to you, but we can’t be friends anymore.

But I think we’ve become more than that. It’s been three weeks, and we’ve been texting a lot. He’s into literature, writing, and reading the way that Declan was into all things science and engineering. Silas’d wanted to go to a four-year college, even got accepted to Penn State, but he thought he could save money by doing his first two years at community college and then transferring. We haven’t kissed, haven’t really touched, funny enough.

But I’m starting to wonder what it would be like to.

The fireworks are going off like crazy around here, I type after tenting our latest assigned reading on my stomach. Sense and Sensibility. We’d started by comparing observations about the books, but now we text about everything.

Same here. Giving up for tonight and joining the festivities. Talk later?

I text back: Yep. Have fun.

As I hit Send, I hear Kane’s whooping, followed by a loud whizz-pop. I tilt the blinds. He’s crouched alone in the center of the court, a bunch of spent firework debris all around him. From what I can see, he has a full crate of them. I push open the window and shout, “Keep it down out here!”

He gives me both fingers and says, “It’s the Fourth of July! Have some patriotism!”

I decide to go down and watch the show, which may or may not include him blowing a limb off. It’s only when I get outside that I see Luisa is sitting on the steps to his house, watching, her fingers in her ears. “Hey,” she calls to me.