Punk Like Me Read Free

playing on the corner of her mouth.
    Finally she pulled a hand out of her pocket and very gently brushed the hair the wind had blown onto my face behind my ear and lightly cupped my cheek. “You shouldn’t have. You know,” she spoke softly,
    “it’s not necessary.”
    Her Þ ngertips were cool and soft against my heated cheek, and I felt a weird new little pressure build in my throat. I must have had more purple Hi-C than I’d realized, I thought to myself when I felt that same pressure build in my face, even though Samantha removed her hand.
    • 20 •
     
    PUNK LIKE ME
    “Sure I should, sure it was,” I struggled to answer, only the words came out in a whisper, and I jammed my hand into the pocket of my shorts, scrabbling with my Þ ngertips to Þ nd the little wrapped bit that I’d gotten. Finding it, I jerked it out, practically shoving my hand in her face. “Here, for you,” I stated Þ rmly. “Happy birthday,” and I opened my Þ ngers to let her see the little blue package.
    The sun had sunk even lower, and now the water was grayish blue, the way it looks before a storm.
    Samantha simply stared at me, and I was struck by her eyes. They were the same color as the ocean. Very slowly, very carefully, she reached for my hand, and with a touch so gentle that I could barely feel it, she withdrew the tiny little package.
    I held my breath as she opened it and simply stared at her gift, and I shifted my weight slightly from one foot to another. I found a balance that suited and dug my toes into the wet sand while I waited and watched for, well, I don’t know, something.
    “Oh wow…” she breathed out quietly.
    “Do you, um, do you like it?”
    Samantha Þ nally lifted her eyes to mine, her eyes wide and a soft smile across her lips. “Like it? I love it, Nina.” She grinned at me, slid the little bit of wrapping paper into her front pocket, then held the gift out before her. “Help me put it on?”
    It was a very simple gift, a perfectly reproduced miniature sword—
    a claymore—two inches long on a silver rope chain. I had picked that for her because of her nickname, but more on that later, ’kay?
    “Yeah, sure, no problem.” I smiled back and stepped closer, taking the chain from Samantha’s hand. I reached up around her neck, closing the ends of the chain under her hair, brushing it out to make sure it wasn’t caught. “There,” I said Þ nally as I released the chain, “you’re done.” I stepped back to critique my handiwork. “It looks great on you,” I told her in honest admiration, and watched her Þ ddle with it.
    “It’s very cool, Nina,” she told me, that same little smile playing about the corner of her lips. “Thank you.” Her eyes caught mine and she stepped closer to me.
    “This is it,” a part of my brain thought. “This is what?” asked another. Suddenly I could feel that pressure again in my face and throat—I could feel my pulse jump in my neck—and it seemed to me that we almost swayed into one another. Her face came closer to mine,
    • 21 •

JD GLASS
    and all I could see were her eyes, and then her lips. The pressure was so great my cheeks tingled with it, and I closed my eyes against it as all the sound disappeared except for the waves, which seemed to dominate everything.
    “Thank you,” whispered Samantha warmly against my face, and the lightest feather of cool heat touched the corner of my lips. It might have only been a moment, but it seemed to last forever. The touch disappeared. “I have to go,” she whispered, and I felt her warmth leave.
    I’ve no idea how long I stood there like that, with my eyes closed and the wind off the water making colder the space Samantha had left, but when I Þ nally opened my eyes, she was long gone.
    I shook my head to clear it from the strange pressure it had felt without and the fuzziness within. Enough of that. I wasn’t drinking anymore Son of Thing , and I had to make my way back to the bonÞ re—
    there was