Just Shelby Excerpt
“All better,” I say, before pressing
my lips to the injured flesh. My father having done that to me on a few
memorable occasions throughout my clumsy childhood, I guess, maybe, I think it
is the thing to do. Until I realize what I have done. I have come on to Ace Cooper?
He comes back—leaning into me until
his forehead is level with mine. Like the fit of a perfect running shoe from
toe to tip, there is but a thumb’s width of room between our noses.
“Why’d you do that?” he asks what I
am thinking.
Stock-still and flush all over—mouth
full of cotton in suspense—my tongue has not the articulation to form the words
I don’t know.
Forget butterflies and mush. This
feels like a chemical reaction. Exothermic. Combustible. Humans can’t actually
explode. Can they?
“Why?” He presses with his words and
with the parted mouth they came out of, ever closer to mine.
“Energy,” I puff, unable to
elaborate that it is carried in the form
of movement, for the elaborate task that breathing proves to be.
“Energy?” he says, as perplexed by
my nerdy answer as I am this sensation.
“Energy doesn’t lie. It just…felt
right.” I come clean.
“But it’s not right. It’s all wrong.
You can’t just do stuff like that.” Bereft of its usual self-possession, his
voice is full of anguish. “Do you know what that does to me?”
Maybe, hopefully, the same thing it
is doing to me.
Yes. It is. My hand clutched in his
and guided to his chest—the heart beneath it hammers. Just like mine.
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