On Saturday afternoons, I worked at The Plaza, an art déco movie theater in Creston. Its gilded opulence made it cool again with the over-thirties. Because of the uniform, I avoided the school crowd. The intricate silk waistcoat was snug around the waist, and the tailored pants bagged at the thighs.

I held an afternoon job to avoid Chuck's Saturday football practices that crossed over the first matinée performance. Being forced to observe Chuck organize his teammates was diabolical—I'd not witnessed ushering like that since I got fired from Harkins Cineplex last summer.

I stepped out of the lit foyer onto the street after my shift. Heather sat on the low brick wall next to the parking lot. I stole the cigarette dangling from her mouth, took a long drag, and handed it back.

After that night on Chuck's hood, she'd met me every time after work without fail. That was three weeks ago. In between that time, I'd allowed myself to text her random observations, funny memes, and other anecdotal stuff. I refused to believe there was anything other than friendship in the lightning speed of her reply or why she always used that cat emoji with the heart eyes.

"There's a party. Can I tag along with you later?" Heather asked.

I wasn't going to one of Chuck's friends' parties. "No."

"Please, Adrian." She gave me those eyes, the pleading doe ones. "We don't see much of each other anymore."

"I'd prefer to take a day trip to Chernobyl—go roll in some dirt." If it wasn't enough that the battle lines had been drawn on the home front, I wouldn't allow them to extend to social gatherings that included Heather.

Heather's chest caved. "We can stay for an hour, tops? Consider it, at least? I've not seen you in so long."

"We'll see," I said, which still meant no, just with different words.

After a while, she dropped it.

We walked down the high street past striped awnings shading the storefronts. Our strolls were easy and never hurried. Heather linked her arm through mine and fell into step beside me. I was no longer self-conscious because my uniform only ever made her laugh the first time.

"Are there any nice-looking girls at the movie theater?"

Heather knew about Bob. He repaired projectors; we'd joked often enough that he only employed guys. "There's one girl, maybe." I'd never thought about them long enough to know if I'd consider them attractive.

"Oh," was all she said.

As the evening wore on, heat rose from the sun-baked tarmac, but thunder was predicted. Heather chewed on her bottom lip. Until a month ago, Heather was dating Beau and then Ryan, so I didn't hang with her for a bit. When she ended her relationship with Ryan, Heather remarked that people and things change. There was a pang of guilt for Ryan, but she was damn right about the change.

Last year, Dad had twenty-four biopsies, and only three had cancer cells. Two months ago, nine biopsies and all came back positive.

After the first droplets fell, we ran the last fifty yards up the porch steps and into my house. Clothing clung to my skin as I bounded up the stairs, claiming two at a time to fetch towels. She was waiting in my bedroom when I came out of the bathroom. We kicked off our sneakers and pulled off sodden socks. She snatched the towel but kept my hand. There was a funny look in her eyes.

"Is everything okay with you?" I asked.

Her plum-streaked hair slicked close to her face as she nodded without smiling.

"You vandalized Beau's car for me, didn't you?"

I sighed through my nose. My dilemma is this—I don't want to seem like a protective big brother, and I don't want to lie to her. But Heather let things go as easily as a Rottweiler with a locked jaw. I would be interrogated and shaken aggressively, and no amount of eye-poking would have her detach.

Stepping forward, she tilted her head and kissed me on the cheek.

"Thank you," I said, and I wanted to punch my own face for making it sound like a question.

She forcibly swallowed with an unusual stillness on her face. "Will you take me to prom?" Heather attempted a too-quick smile before it fell.

My heart pounded, echoing my pulse in my ears. I am in love with Heather Matthews, but prom is a clichéd concept I detested. Prom had morphed into a rowdy passage for all the popular jocks who had established the event into the anticlimactic fuck-fest it had become. No wonder last year Chuck had been inaugurated as chief idiot. I wasn't like him and wouldn't be prepared to let her go after.

"No, anything else, but not that. I can't go to prom."

"Remember when I mentioned things change?"

"Right after you dumped Ryan?"

She nodded. "What do you assume I meant?"

Uncertain whether this was a trick question, I shrugged and brushed a soggy strand of hair that dangled in her eye. She stood under a foot away, near enough to catch the tiny artery pumping frantically in her neck.

"Feelings fluctuate, diminish, and sometimes shift, Adrian."

We were both restrained for a painstaking minute, and I refused to tear my gaze from the darkening clouds in her eyes.

"It's never taken much for me to like you, but do you like me back?"

Her maroon-painted fingertips slipped under my soaked shirt, tracing little circles and contours, and when it skimmed over a raised scar, I murmured its origin. She was present when I earned most of them: skateboard, diving board—that time you thought it would be funny to ram your bike into my rib cage.

"Do you?" she asked again.

The simple act of humming an agreeable response was all I could muster because words alone did not express how my heart swelled when she was near. She kissed me again, lips wet and slightly parted. Very few things feel precisely as you expected them to. Heather was an exception to that rule.

Taking a step back, she peeled her wet T-shirt up and over her head. There is a type of blushing that glimpses the soul. The way Heather's cheeks pinked rendered me immobile. The sanctuary offered in her eyes ripped the air from my lungs, and it hurt to look.

She was the most beautiful sight I'd seen.

The logical part of my brain said this was too soon. But the blood-fueling logic was going elsewhere, and sex doesn't always happen in a well-timed chapter of a story.

The kiss that followed was intense with renewed purpose and with the tell-tale clashing of the mouths and frantic exploration that I always hoped—until we both lost it. Just like they do in the movies.

Day Trips to Chernobyl

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