Geography Club by Brent Hartinger

said yet another lie in a whole evening of lies. If I’d really needed a “friend,” I would have IMed Min. But it had been Kevin I’d wanted to see, and not to tell him what had happened with Trish.
    I turned to face him, to tell him I was tired not just of lies, but of loneliness. Meeting the other members of the Geography Club, being open with them, had been important, but it had only been the preparation before the start of my journey. I’d learned about the places I wanted to go, I’d talked about them with my friends, but I hadn’t actually set foot outside my door. The terrain of my own heart, the landscape of love, was still entirely unexplored. But people are right when they say the hardest step of every journey is the first, and I was scared. (Okay, I was terrified.)
    “It’s all right,” Kevin said, softly, sensitively. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. And if we do anything at all, we’ll be safe.” So Kevin knew the truth. Why I’d contacted him tonight. What I really wanted from him. And it sounded like he wanted the same thing, like he was ready to leave on the very same voyage with me.
    The funny thing was, suddenly I wasn’t nervous anymore. I don’t know if it was what Kevin had said, or if I was finally just sick and tired of feeling so alone—just like the night I’d agreed to meet Kevin, someone I didn’t even know, at this stinky picnic gazebo in the first place.
    In any event, I stepped up to Kevin and kissed him. In the close confines of his arms, it felt like I had stepped right up into the stars themselves—like I had become one with the sky, and that together we were as clean and pure and wide as the universe itself.

CHAPTER NINE
     
     
    I got to third base. At baseball practice the following Monday, that is. As for what happened that night with Kevin at the stinky picnic gazebo, that’s none of your damn business.
    But I suppose I should tell you anyway. If I was reading this and I didn’t tell me what happened, I’d be pissed.
    So here’s what happened.
    We were standing there kissing with that whole stars-and-universe thing going on. And it was nothing whatsoever like kissing Trish Baskin. For one thing, his breath was better. And unlike when Trish kissed me and I didn’t really kiss her back, Kevin was definitely kissing me back. (Boy, was he kissing me back!)
    But it was just kissing, no groping or fumbling or even very much hugging. And since you can just kiss for only so long, eventually, we sort of pulled back and stood there facing each other.
    “Man,” Kevin said. “I’ve wanted to do that for so long.”
    It took me a second to catch my breath. Then I said, “What?”
    “I wanted to kiss you. Ever since that first night when we met here? I wanted to kiss you then. Before that even. Why do you think I joined the Geography Club? I like everyone okay, but you’re the reason I joined. To be with you.”
    I could hardly believe my ears. Kevin Land had joined the Geography Club to be with me? He wanted me? But I could see it on his face. Min had been right. Kevin Land wanted me.
    I’m going to repeat this for emphasis, and because I really like the way it looks written down.
    Kevin Land wanted me!
    Kevin Land wanted me!
    Kevin Land wanted me!
    Sorry to go off like that, but learning that Kevin Land had a crush on me took me completely by surprise.
    Of course, I knew how pathetic all this would sound if I said it out loud. So all I said was, “I wanted to kiss you too.”
    He stepped closer to me, and I felt his arms circle around me again and his hands rest on the small of my back. “I love your eyes,” he said. “You have great eyes.”
    “How do you know?” I said. “It’s too dark to see them.” (Yes, I know this was totally the wrong thing to say. Give me a break—I was new at this.)
    But Kevin just smiled. “I remember what they look like. It’s like they’re green and gray and brown and yellow, all at the same time.”