The Shippers(73)

“Look,” I said. “You can’t tell me I’ve been wrong about that kiss my whole life.”

“Yes, I can,” Cooper said. “Because it’s true.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Cooper, this isn’t funny.”

“JoJo, I’m not kidding.”

Cooper was leaning in, studying my eyes, waiting for me to believe him.

But I couldn’t just rewrite my life story in twenty seconds like that.

“You don’t believe me?” he said then.

I frowned. I didn’t know what to believe.

The wind was relentless. Without breaking eye contact, Cooper brought his hand to one end of the open tie draped against his shirt and yanked until it slithered free from his collar.

Then he gathered the tie up in his hands and said, “Do I have to prove it to you?”

“What are you doing?”

“You said you’d know that kiss anywhere. You said you could pick that kiss out of a lineup.”

“Cooper—”

“Let’s see you do it.”

He took a step closer, so I took a step back—and we kept going like that until I’d backed up against the separation wall between us and the next balcony.

Who was cornered now?

Then Cooper said, “You’re not the only person who could pick that kiss out of a lineup.”

“Cooper,” I asked. “What are you doing?”

He lifted the tie up, like he wanted to see if I’d object. “I’m changing the story of your life.”

“Are you blindfolding me right now?”

“I’m letting you see for yourself.”

“This isn’t going to work.”

“This is going to work.”

“You’re not the right person.”

“I’m exactly the right person.”

“You can’t do this!” I said.

“If you really want me to stop,” he said, meeting my eyes, “say so right now.”

He waited for my answer. He gave me a good several seconds.

But I guess I didn’t really want him to stop.

I could tell Cooper to stop in my sleep if I wanted to.

But I didn’t.

Finally, he said, “That’s a yes—yes?”

But saying yes felt like too much. So instead, I just said, “This is so dumb.”

“Hold still,” Cooper said next, placing the tie across my eyes. I felt the weight of his arms over my shoulders as he reached behind my head, and then his hands pushing my hair out of the way, and then the tug of the silk as he pulled everything taut.

“This isn’t going to work,” I said.

“Only one way to find out.”

Next, he started talking—his voice softer now, like he was telling me a secret. “Pretend it’s that day. It’s after school, and our whole street gang is goofing around on the playground. It’s spring, but it’s still cool out, and you’ve got a pink-and-purple argyle sweater on. You’ve been playing so hard on the monkey bars that your flower barrette has slipped all the way down beneath your ear, and it’s just dangling there. You’re waiting for the boy who was dared to kiss you to show up. But he’s not showing up. Because he’s not going to show up. He rode off on his bike with some other kids and ditched you.

“Luckily, you’ve got a friend—a really good friend, a devoted friend—who saw it all happen. And he runs to find you and explain, so you won’t just sit there waiting until sundown. But when he arrives, he sees how nervous you are in that blindfold, and how you’re fidgeting and biting your lips. He sees how hopeful you are—like this moment might turn out to be something good in your life. Then he sees you tuck your hair behind your ear and knock that barrette to the ground without even noticing.

“And he just can’t tell you. He can’t disappoint you. So he kisses you instead. Problem solved. Just a peck—it’s over as soon as it starts. And then, before he runs away, he picks up that barrette of yours off the ground and sticks it in his pocket.”

At that, I felt Cooper put one hand and then the other on my shoulders, just the way Finn had that day. And then I felt him step close. And then I could just sense his warmth, or his breathing, or his presence, push through that force field we all wear around our bodies all the time that keeps us, so often, from ever getting close.

Was he really going to do this? Did he think he could re-create that kiss with any kind of historical accuracy? Did he think he could prove anything?

The real kiss on the real day all those years ago had been an age-appropriate ten-year-old peck.

But I guess Cooper had no interest in historical accuracy.

That’s not what he did.

Not at all. Not even remotely.

And we certainly weren’t ten anymore.

Cooper hovered close to my mouth for a good, long buildup of anticipation until I felt like a hot-air balloon—floating and drifting at the mercy of the wind.

Then he lifted one of his hands from my shoulder and cupped it behind my neck.

“That never happened,” I said.

“I know,” Cooper said.

Then he slid his other hand behind my waist.

“That never happened, either,” I protested. But weakly.