Asta shifted her weight from one leg to another, searching for the right words. ‘You’re my best friend.’
‘I know,’ Felix said, tugging on her arm to bring her close to him again. ‘And you’re mine. My best friend who I really want to kiss again.’
She backed away from him, and it felt like swimming against a current. ‘Just give me a second to think.’ Carmine had wandered around behind her and now intruded his head between her and Felix, nudging her for a pet. She obliged him as she spoke, grateful for the physical separation that he afforded.
‘It’s just that my parents, they think that not getting into Pillar means I’m going to forget all about racing dragons. But they don’t understand. Pillar or not, Ihave toride.’
‘Okay, so ride. Kiss me first, obviously. But then ride.’ He tried to get around Carmine, but the dragon raised his neck frills, and Felix halted.
How could she say this without hurting him? ‘If I don’t get into Pillar– and don’t say I’m going to– then I’ll have to– I don’t know– get a job at a stable and work my way up. Whatever. You’ll be at Pillar, and I’ll be god knows where.’ She looked at him, waiting for him to understand. This was why she didn’t want to be in love. She couldn’t always be thinking about him and calculating around him. She wished that he hadn’t kissed her. It was making this a million times harder.
Felix looked thoughtful. ‘Work your way up to what, exactly?’
‘Silverscale. I’m going to race in the Grand Prix, and I’m going to win.’
Felix snorted a laugh. ‘Okay, bigshot. Easier said than done.’
Asta’s temper flared. ‘I know that, Felix! I’m going tomakeit happen.’ If there was one thing about Felix that bothered her, it was this. He always treated her like she was still that little neighbor kid who didn’t know the first thing about riding. Even when she outperformed him during practice, it was always that he was having a bad day– never that she might be better than him.
Asta took hold of Carmine’s iridescent horns and held them as he gently rocked his head back and forth in a slow-motion play fight.
Felix ducked under Carmine’s neck and planted himself directly in front of her. Carmine, unhappy about the competition for Asta’s attention, moaned softly.
‘I still don’t understand, though. Why does any of this mean I shouldn’t kiss you again right now?’
Asta struggled to keep her voice steady. ‘We’ll barely see each other.’
‘Then there’s no time to waste,’ Felix answered, drawing her to him.
Would it be too awful to tell him that she didn’t want to end up like Sofia Seraphin, prim and proper, watching the races from the stands? His family would never let Asta race for them– even if she married Felix. She wasn’t born a Seraphin, and only Seraphins raced under the family crest.
‘It’s too hard,’ Asta said.
Felix tried for a playful tack. ‘No, it’s not. It’s easy. Wherever you go, I’ll come with you. We can be stable hands together. I don’t care.’
Asta’s heart leapt and trembled. Why did he have to be so perfect? ‘Don’t say that! You have to go to Pillar.’
‘I know you’ve given up hope,’ he said, raising a hand in defense against the argument she hadn’t made yet, ‘but youcouldstill get in.’
‘Felix! Please stop torturing me.’
‘I’m serious. And if we’re there together, couldn’t we. . .’
For a moment, Asta was tempted by the hope in his voice. She let herself slip back into the dream that she had been entertaining since they dropped their applications into the mailbox together.
But for the first time, she actually considered what it would be like to be at the Pillar School with Felix. ‘So what if we do? It won’t work. If the instructors give me a good grade or recruiters are interested in me, I’ll never know if it’s because of me or because I’m your girlfriend. I don’t think I could stand not knowing.’ He didn’t realize, sometimes, how people acted around him.
Felix grinned. ‘That does sound really nice, though, right? My girlfriend.’
Asta wasn’t so sure. In all her fantasizing about her and Felix, she hadn’t stopped to think that being with him would make her someone’s girlfriend. The word made Asta feel antsy. She wanted to be with him, but she didn’t want to be ‘his’ anything. There were things she had to do first.
Asta stooped down and picked up a small, flat piece of rock from the ground. It had a dry leaf of lichen on it. ‘Take this.’ She thrust the rock into his hand.
He looked at it, puzzled. ‘Why?’
‘It’s a placeholder.’ She searched for the words. ‘I want to kiss you again, Felix. So much. So many times. As many times as I can. But I have to do this first. You go to Pillar. It’s only two years. By the time you’re done, I’ll be a rider. Maybe I’ll even have qualified for Silverscale. And then, on graduation day, I’ll come find you, and you can give this back to me. And then it’ll be you and me. Side by side.’ Felix wrapped his fingers around the rock. Asta lifted her hand to his cheek and looked into his hazel eyes. She leaned toward him for one last kiss.
But Felix lifted his hand, still closed around the rock, and placed the heel of his fist on Asta’s shoulder, holding her back.
