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The diving board was more like a launch pad over the foam pit. She climbed the steps, and at the top, cast a smile toward me over her shoulder before jumping in. She landed amongst the foam squares, bouncing in the pit before stilling.
“Join me!” she said, laughing.
“I can join you from here,” I said at the edge of the pit.
“Chicken.”
“As if peer pressure could work on me,” I retorted.
“And puppy dog eyes?” She widened her eyes and stuck out her bottom lip in the most adorable way.
“Okay, maybe that’s working,” I said with a laugh. “You promise I won’t get hurt?”
“The foam’s four feet deep, and you’d have to be trying to miss the pit.”
“It’s as if you don’t know me at all,” I replied, moving toward the platform. I could do this, right? After all, I’d done tons of new things today. I’d ridden on the back of a float for the entire town to see. I was spending time with a cheerleader. And now she was asking me to jump.
Why the heck not?
Oh yeah, because it was high up here. I stood at the edge of the wobbly inflatable, staring down at Kiyana lounging amongst the foam squares, looking completely at peace. The exact opposite of the terror I felt in every inch of my body.
“Come on!” she called. “The water’s warm!” She tossed a foam square at me, and in my attempt to dodge it, I lost my balance, toppling off the ledge and screaming all the way down to the pit. I landed face first with my mouth open on a foam square.
Kiyana’s tinkling laugh was the first thing I heard after the blood stopped rushing through my ears and I realized I had not, in fact, succumbed to death by foam pit.
“That was awful!” I said, extracting at least my face from the squares. “Why did you make it look so fun?”
“Probably because it is.” She was laughing, crawling toward me across the foam blocks, looking undoubtedly more graceful than me.
I pretended to pout, looking away from her. “My pride is wounded.”
“You were adorable,” she replied, close enough now for me to feel her movement shift the foam underneath me.
So maybe I didn’t mind being called adorable.
I glanced her way just in time to see she was inches from me. So close. Despite the quiet in the gym, my mind was loud. Screaming that Kiyana was so near.
Close enough to kiss.
I looked into her eyes, wondering what was happening. Why she was interested. What had changed. But most of all, wondering what it would feel like to have her lips on mine.
I’d only dreamed of my first kiss, thought it was something months or even years away. But here she was. I could smell her minty gum on her breath. Could see the hole from an abandoned piercing on the right side of her nose.
I reached out and tapped the spot. “What happened?”
She took my hand in hers, holding it, looking at my fingers. Mine were large, bigger than most of the girls in my class, but Kiyana was a big girl too. Our hands matched, all except color. “I got my nose pierced on spring break with a friend one year. When my mom found out, she lost her mind. Made me take it out, threw away the piercing, called my friend’s mom and chewed her out for letting me get a piercing in the first place.”
I covered my mouth with my hand. “That must have been so embarrassing.”
Kiyana rolled her eyes. “You have no idea. I was sitting at the end of the lunch table for a month after that.”
“But you made your way back to the middle.”
“Mostly because of Stefon.”
I took her in, picturing a little stud shining in her nose. “You’d look cute with a nose ring.”
Instead of replying, she studied me. “You look cute regardless.”
