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He covers his eyes with one hand and groans

Which totally cranks up my anxiety several notches If Lennon thinks it’s bad, it ined

"Just tell me," I plead

He slaps both hands on his knees, elbows bent, as if he’s about to stand, but instead inhales sharply and blows out a hard breath "Last fall, things had been, well, changing between us The Great Experiment was undertaken"

"I was there," I reh that we agreed to tell our parents and go public," he says, leaning back against the bench and slouching lower, aruess Iwas overenthusiastic about the iht, well, you know That we had the friend thing down We were expert friends And eI s we did on that park bench"

"Not everything," I say, feeling ood IAard at times, especially at first It’s odd to kiss your best friend But also not odd Also very nice So nice that I can’t think about it right now, because itain

He relaxes when I hesitantly nod to confiro public It felt right But then ho a little stressed out about telling your dad--"

My fingers are starting to go a little numb

"--and I don’t blame you He’s not friendly or approachable And, you know, he’s never liked me"

I don’t correct him, because it’s true When ere kids, Dad didn’t seem to have an opinion about Lennon--until he found out that Lennon had two an to say snarky things about the Mackenzies

Lennon continues "I’ to tell him, but I especially understood after what happened the day of hohs heavily "I knew soht"

That happens every year, both at horoups of kids ant to party, and soet a hotel rooled noise This isnot what I expected to hear At all

"In retrospect," he says, "I’ presuuess I was But to be fair, I thought ere on the sae Or at least, that’s what I told ht now My skin feels like it’s on fire and numb at the same time "You couldn’t have asked me about this?" Honestly, at the time, I probably would have been thrilled out of my mind, but it’s weird to hear about it now "Like, consultedro a room where we could have sex?"

He squints one eye shut "Well, when you say it like that, yeah, it sounds pretty skanky But I never would have pressured you You know that Right?"

"But that wasn’t your intention?"

"Like I said, I thought ere simpatico on this subject At the time"

Okay, maybe ere, that’s true There are only so o? make-out sessions you can have before you start to lose your o on and tell me what happened next in your roain That’s not good When he sighs a lot, it’s because he’s about to say so he doesn’t want to say "So anyway, you , I wasn’t at lunch"

I nod

"I had sneaked off school grounds to reserve the hotel room Only, I orried the hotel wouldn’t letroo their parents’ credit cards, soI sort of borrowed Mac’s credit card"

"You"