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There are worse ways to die. At least this is picturesque.
Some of the wood in the bonfire pops and Jamie jumps, the only sign in the last two minutes that she hasn’t completely frozen over. That her heart hadn’t stopped the moment Dani suggested it. The marshmallow she has thrust into the flames with her skewer caught on fire some time ago. Dani hadn’t had the heart or the courage to let her know. It melts in thick, gooey oozes. Drips from the metal spears and onto a half-burned log.
Another sign Jamie isn’t dead: she stirs, lifts her head, and blinks at Dani like she’s only just woken up. She leans forward a bit and says, “Wait.”
Dani waits. Nothing comes. It feels like there’s a blood pressure cuff around her chest, squeezing the air and blood from her lungs. She feels dizzy, faint. Swallows thickly, trying to steady herself.
After a moment, she loses her patience.
“Say something,” she breathes, practically begging.
“I don’t—” Jamie begins, then halts for a second. “I’m trying to...figure out what to say.”
“I guess that’s better than...storming off o-or...slapping me.”
It is frighteningly quiet, save for the buzz of the bugs in the trees and bushes. Distantly, Dani can hear the rest of the senior class yelling and laughing as they splash in the lake. This was supposed to be a fun trip. A little camaraderie before they all graduate next week. But Jamie’s exchange program is over now and her flight back to London is early Friday morning, hours before graduation. If Dani lets herself chicken out now, the way she’s been letting herself chicken out for the entirety of this school year—that charged moment when they exchanged Christmas gifts or that night their hands caught in the dark of the movie theater or at prom when they slow danced as a joke and then things got weirdly charged—then she knows she’ll regret it forever.
Kinda regrets it now.
“I wouldn’t do that,” says Jamie and they’ve gotten close in the months Dani and her mom have been hosting her. Dani knows that she means it, that it’s the truth. Jamie would never. “I’m just...having trouble wrapping my head around some of...that.”
Dani’s ears feel hot. “Which part?”
“Oh.” Jamie clears her throat. “Um...all of it?”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“I shouldn’t have—”
“No, Dani, wait—” Jamie’s hand darts out to bridge the distance between their folding camping chairs, but she never finishes. “Just...I sort of thought that you’d want to with...Eddie.”
Dani shakes her head so hard it makes her dizzy. “No!” she says, too loud and they both wince. She lowers her voice and says, “No, Eddie and I are...I mean, he might want to, like...but...no.”
Eddie is her best friend. Has been for years and Dani isn’t stupid—she knows that he wants it to be more than that—but she also isn’t interested. Hasn’t been interested in anyone else since she first saw Jamie at the airport last August.
Even Jamie’s frown is adorable. She nods, thinking it over.
“I know that...that that usually means something,” says Dani, “but it wouldn’t have to. It could just...I just...I know it would be nice.” She bites her lip a bit too hard, then adds, “With you, I mean.”
“You wouldn’t want it to...mean anything?”
Dani’s breath catches sharply in her chest. “Jamie,” she says, and then stops because she’s scared she’s going to say the wrong thing, ruin everything. That Jamie will go back to London in six days and they’ll never speak again. But, if there’s ever been a time for honesty, it’s right now. “I would...Obviously I would want it to mean something. Because it’s...because it’s you.”
Jamie’s nostrils flare as she inhales. “I would want it to mean something, too,” she whispers.
Dani reaches out and finishes the touch from before. Her hand is clammy and trembling, but she’s trying not to care. She squeezes Jamie’s fingers, heart fluttering in her chest like a caught bird because this is the first intentionally non-platonic moment they’ve ever shared.
“You would?” she asks and Jamie nods, eyes shimmering a little in the flickering firelight.
“Yeah,” Jamie says.
Every atom, every cell inside Dani’s body freezes over. She knows, very suddenly, exactly how Jamie must have felt at the start of this conversation.
Would you...maybe want to take my virginity?
Jamie gets to her feet. “Guess it’s a good thing it’s just us in our tent, yeah?” she asks, smiling. Somehow cheeky and nervous at once.
Dani blinks. “Like, right now?”
Jamie shrugs. “Why not?” she asks. “The others won’t be back for a while, and it’s a pretty night. Moon’s out and everything.” She jerks her head up and Dani looks, fixes her eyes on the waxing gibbous, large and beautiful, in the sky. She thinks of Jamie sitting next to her in their science class, learning about moon phases and making silly faces when their eyes catch during lectures. Affection surges like fuzzy stars across her vision, choking her next breath a little.
She gets to her feet. “Okay.”
Standing close to Jamie is even harder now that she’s allowed to. Jamie’s hands drift down to her hips. “You’re sure, right?”
“I’m sure,” Dani says. “Positive. Really sure.”
“Okay.”
“Are you?”
“Of course. I’ve just never—” A confession Dani isn’t expecting, but thrills to hear. Of course it will mean something. It’ll mean everything. “I’m not sure how to start, that’s all.”
“Well,” Dani says, trying to sound much braver than she feels, “first, you should kiss me.”
Jamie’s smile. Those pink lips. “And then?”
“And then we should go to our tent.”
Smirking now. “And then?”
“You know what then.”
That smile shifts closer. “Yeah. I do.”
Jamie kisses her, laughing into it, and Dani kisses her back.
There are worse ways for it to happen. This isn’t one of them.
