Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
He smiles. “Are you serious?”
I nod again.
Then he pushes me off him and rolls all the way over to the other side of the bed.
Which confuses me further. “What was that for?”
“I just want to go to sleep.”
I huff. “My God, how many times do I have to tell you? I’m not trying to have sex with you.”
“Yet you keep climbing into bed with me. How’s that work?”
I have no answer for this. He’s taking all my actions out of context.
Eason turns in bed to look at me and instantly lets out a true laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
He shakes his head. “Teenagers.” Then he turns back over.
“I’m not a teenager.”
“Ya sure do act like one.”
Do I act like one? I’m not sure. I don’t really understand what a teenager is. I get the formal definition, and I’ve seen movies. Pretty in Pink, and The Breakfast Club, and Sixteen Candles. High school. So interesting. I think being a normal sixteen-year-old girl in America would be the coolest thing ever.
I considered modeling myself after all of these Molly Ringwald characters when I first got to America. But Miami didn’t look anything like the neighborhoods where these films took place, so I had a hard time pulling it all together.
In the end, I just decided to be me. A very lazy version who didn’t do much but walk the beach and feed the birds and soak America up like I was sponge. I concentrated on my accent—losing it, actually—for a long time. I was obsessed with English while Nandy was teaching me to make my mouth form the letters properly. I would read the dictionary, and say the words out loud, and I practiced them relentlessly. Learned a lot of new ones too. I guess I sorta fell in love with words for that year Nandy was coaxing the Russian out of my speech patterns.
But I never had the life of a teenager. I went from baby, to killer, to… whatever I was after we got our freedom, and then I landed in America and I was an adult.
“Did I finally stump you?”
“Oh, you’re still awake, are you? I thought you were busy dying of thirst.”
“You got very quiet after I called you a teenager. What is going through that head of yours?”
Is this a serious question? I can’t tell. I decide to answer anyway, because maybe he has some insight. “I’m trying to figure out what a teenager is.”
He laughs again, then turns all the way back towards me, so we’re facing each other. “You’re so weird.”
I make a face. I don’t like being weird. I know I am weird, but I don’t like it.
“Have you ever been kissed?”
“What? Of course.”
“Who?” He says this with disbelief.
I tip my chin up, even though I’m lying down with my cheek on the mattress. He has all the pillows. “Paulo.”
“Paulo, the MMA fighter who has his own pay-per-view?”
“We were like… best friends growing up. In the same fighting group.”
“Did you date him, then?”
“Date him?” I scoff, it’s so absurd. “No.”
“Then when did he kiss you?”
“When he left. For Maart’s gym in Copacabana. He got to move in there.” I try to say this without resentment, but it still comes out resentful. I’m really not over the fact that I didn’t get to go.
“He kissed you goodbye.”
“Why do you say it like that?”
“Did he slip you some tongue, Irina?”
“What?”
Eason is laughing at me now. “That’s not what I meant by ‘kiss.’ Not a kiss goodbye. A kiss, Irina. From a boy you like.”
The answer is obviously no. But I can’t seem to get any words out.
He blinks at me. “Never been kissed. I’m… kinda floored.”
“Then turn back around and die of thirst.”
Which just makes him laugh at me more. This is when I notice how much different he looks when he’s laughing. His eyes go bright and there’s a dimple in his cheek. I stare at it for a moment, then slide my eyes up to meet his gaze.
“Do you want one?”
“Do I want what?”
“A kiss, Irina.”
“From you?” I have to admit, my heart thumps so hard when I ask him this, I think he hears it.
“Take your time. You don’t need to answer now.” Then he turns over, putting his back to me again.
What do I say? I mean, I kinda would like a kiss from him. I’m not sure I’d want anything other than that, but kissing Eason feels safe. And… like maybe he wouldn’t mind if I went all introverted so I could decipher everything he was doing. Kinda pick it apart and put it back together so I understood it.
That way, the next time I got a kiss, I’d be better prepared.
Paulo kissed me on the cheek. So Eason is right. That one doesn’t count. Plus, he kissed Zoya, Cintia, Ling, and Sissy on the cheek that day too. I do remember that he kissed Anya on the lips. But no one made a big deal about it. I mean, she is Anya. She’s supermodel pretty. Every boy in camp wanted to kiss Anya.