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But I ended up just lying in bed and replaying the whole picnic with Augustus I couldn’t stop thinking about the little entle faht ustus was aht down to the sandwiches that were metaphorically resonant but tasted terrible and the memorized soliloquy that prevented conversation It all felt Romantic, but not romantic

But the truth is that I had never wanted him to kiss s I ht about him in that way, to borrow a phrase from the middle school vernacular But the actual touch, the realized touchit was all wrong

Then I found et to A you want to be thinking, because (a) It shouldn’t’ve even been a question whether I wanted to kiss hiet a free trip is perilously close to full-on hooking, and I have to confess that while I did not fancy ht my first real sexual action would be prostitutional

But then again, he hadn’t tried to kiss me; he’d only touched ned to elicit arousal, but it was certainly a designed ustus Waters was no i to convey? And why hadn’t I wanted to accept it?

At so the encounter, so I decided to text Kaitlyn and ask for some advice She called immediately

"I have a boy problem," I said

"DELICIOUS," Kaitlyn responded I told her all about it, co out only Austus’s name "You’re sure he’s hot?" she asked when I was finished

"Pretty sure," I said

"Athletic?"

"Yeah, he used to play basketball for North Central"

"Wo’d you meet him?"

"This hideous Support Group"

"Huh," Kaitlyn said "Out of curiosity, howBasketball players were fao to North Central, her social connectivity was endless

"Augustus Waters," she said

"Us I would do to that boy I mean, not now that I know you’re interested in hied pony all the way around the corral"

"Kaitlyn," I said

"Sorry Do you think you’d have to be on top?"

"Kaitlyn," I said

"What e talking about Right, you and Augustus Waters Maybeare you gay?"

"I don’t think so? I ly hands? Soly hands"

"No, he has kind of a hands"

"Hmm," she said

"Hmm," I said

After a second, Kaitlyn said, "Remember Derek? He broke up withfundaet hurtSofunda the pree out loud here"

"Sorry about Derek"

"Oh, I got over it, darling It took et over that boy"

I laughed "Well, thanks, Kaitlyn"

"In the event you do hook up with him, I expect lascivious details"

"But of course," I said, and then Kaitlyn made a kissy sound into the phone and I said, "Bye," and she hung up

I realized while listening to Kaitlyn that I didn’t have a pre him I had a postmonition

I pulled out my laptop and looked up Caroline Mathers The physical si: same steroidally round face, same nose, same approximate overall body shape But her eyes were dark brown (reen) and her co

Thousands of people--literally thousands--had left condolence es for her It was an endless scroll of people who et past the I’ for you wall posts She’d died a year ago of brain cancer I was able to click through to soustus was in a bunch of the earlier ones: pointing with a thued scar across her bald skull; arround, with their backs facing the ca while Caroline held the camera out, so you could only see their noses and closed eyes

The most recent pictures were all of her before, when she was healthy, uploaded postirl, wide-hipped and curvy, with long, straight deadblack hair falling over her face My healthy self looked very little like her healthy self But our cancer selves ht’ve been sisters No wonder he’d stared atback to this one wall post, written two o, nine months after she died, by one of her friends We all miss you so much It just never ends It feels like ere all wounded in your battle, Caroline I miss you I love you

After a while, Mom and Dad announced it was tiot up, but I couldn’t get the wall post out of ry

I kept thinking about my shoulder, which hurt, and also I still had the headache, but irl who’d died of brain cancer I kept telling myself to couably too large in diae for tith this soggy broccoli and a black-bean burger that all the ketchup in the world could not adequatelya met in my brain oron inside of hts asted moments in a life composed of a definitionally finite set of such moments I even tried to tell est tier had written on the Internet to a different (and deceased) stranger was botheringinside h I knew from years of experience that pain is a blunt and nonspecific diagnostic instrument

Because there had not been an earthquake in Papua New Guinea that day, my parents were all hyperfocused on me, and so I could not hide this flash flood of anxiety

"Is everything all right?" asked Moer Sed Tried to say so in panic would say "Is there broccoli in the burgers?"

"A little," Dad said "Pretty exciting that you o to Amsterdam"