Natural Selection

6

Earth

I was almost asleep when someone unzipped the front flap to my tent and crawled in, whispering, “Shh, shh, it’s me.”

Morgan. As she slid inside, forcing me to make room for her—it was supposed to be a single tent—her body quivered with barely suppressed energy. I woke up completely.

“He kissed me, he kissed me,” she said in my ear. Her breath was hot, tickling my skin. I tried to pull away from her, but there wasn’t any room. I shut my mind to her so that I didn’t relive, through her memory, the whole experience. I didn’t want to know what it was like to kiss Zach Montgomery. I really did not.

“Is he a good kisser?” I whispered, because I knew that’s what she wanted me to ask.

“Oh my God, he’s amazing,” she whispered.

I wondered how she knew, since she hadn’t done a lot of kissing yet. Neither of us had. I went out with one of Zach’s friends, Joshua Taylor, last fall—if going out could mean being dropped off at the mall a couple of times. He had kissed me awkwardly in a dark movie theater, and I remembered feeling kind of sick about the whole thing. His breath reeked of mint gum and his hands had pawed nervously at my knee as he leaned toward me. I pulled away before he got too far. I had only gone to the movie with him because Morgan thought it would make Zach hang out with us more. Unfortunately I couldn’t stomach going out with Josh again, and that had resulted in Zach avoiding us completely.

I turned onto my side in the tent so that I could face Morgan, but it was so dark I could barely see anything, only the shadow of her head against the barely lighter tent wall. “So are you going out now?” I asked, because Morgan wanted desperately to talk about it, and even though it felt like stabbing myself in the gut, I wanted to make her happy.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “He wouldn’t say.”

“Do you want to go out with him?” I heard the impatience in my voice and wished I had hidden it.

“Maybe,” she said, sounding shy.

“Why maybe?” I softened my tone. “I thought you were totally into him.”

“I am, but…” Anxiety twisted through her voice. I scooted a little closer. Her hair still smelled like strawberries. “I don’t want to get my hopes up,” she whispered.

I suddenly felt sorry for her. “Oh, Morgan. Why don’t you just ask him out?”

She tensed up. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” I asked, and felt her recoil from me slightly.

“Girls don’t do that. And besides, what if he doesn’t really like me that way? What if he just wanted to make out with me and—and…” She trailed off, but I knew what she was afraid of. What if he just wanted to make out with her for the hell of it?

“Then he’s a jerk,” I said.

She sighed. I wanted to comfort her, but I was afraid to touch her. “He’s not a jerk,” she objected.

“Then ask him out,” I said, meaning it for the first time. Maybe if she did it, and he said no, she’d finally get over him. “And girls can do whatever they want.”

She didn’t say anything for a second, just lay there a couple of inches away from me, breathing. “I’ll think about it,” she said finally. “Not everybody’s as confident as you, you know.”

It was a weird, backhanded compliment—a cross between flattery and accusation—and I didn’t know what to say. Thanks? Or maybe: I’m sorry. I’m sorry you don’t see yourself as the girl I see, a girl who deserves someone way better than Zach Montgomery.

“I’m gonna go,” Morgan whispered. “Before they catch me.”

She slithered out of my tent, leaving me lying there on my side, facing the empty space where she had been a moment before.