The Stillburrow Crush

"Then why'd you do it?"

I shrugged. "I don't know." Maybe because I don't want anyone to know I like you.

He gave a small laugh and looked off across the street toward the park. It was empty except for a few squirrels chasing each other. No one bothered with the metal playground equipment when the weather turned cold.

"You know," he said, and rubbed the back of his neck again. I bit down on my fingernail. "You're not like any girl I've ever met before."

I wasn't sure if that was a compliment or a complaint so I decided not to answer.

"Do you..." He stopped rubbing his neck. I guess he realized he'd been revealing a nervous habit because he stuffed his hands in his pockets. My mind whirled. Luke Carter 31

The Stillburrow Crush

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was acting nervous? Around me?! I was begi

Luke had been looking off across the street at the park, but suddenly he turned back. "Do you want to walk in the park?"

A walk? Beside Luke Carter? I darted a look around me. He couldn't be talking to me. But Dad was busy, whistling in the shop. And Mom wasn't due home for a while, not with the town's gossip, Georgia Anderson, styling her hair. The rest of the houses around looked bored and lifeless. I glanced back up at him and almost jumped. He was staring directly at me. He definitely wasn't talking to anyone else. I was about to decline, say I should be helping Dad, when Luke took my hand and grabbed the opportunity away from me. I could've pulled away. But with my palm sheathed in his warm, protective fingers, I would've followed him anywhere just then.

"So you like to write, huh?" he asked as we crossed the street. Stillburrow Park wasn't large, and since the swing set and the jungle gym were the only pieces of equipment in the 32

The Stillburrow Crush

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recreation area, we were pretty much forced to head toward them. They stood under a couple of large sycamore trees.

"I guess," I said. And then, being a little nervous—OK, being very nervous—I started rambling. Out came details of my dream to be an investigative reporter. Out came my plans to apply for a scholarship the next year and then eventually work my way through college. Yes, I blabbed it all to him. And he listened. I could tell he really listened too, because he kept interrupting and asking questions. He asked what kind of things I wrote and how often. It was so disconcerting to think he would even care. But he talked to me in a way that eased my whacked out nerves, and I began to grow comfortable being there with him. I mean, well, I got as comfortable as I could with my heart rate going overtime and my hands turning into quivering balls of nerves. It was like the happy medium between utter euphoria and a complete panic attack.

At the swings, he sat me down. It was the oddest thing. But it felt so natural. My fingers wrapped around the cold metal chains and he pushed me slowly back and forth. I lifted my face into the biting wind and smiled. This couldn't be real. Luke Carter was pushing me on the swings.

I stared up at the tree limbs above me.

"There's still one green leaf left on the tree," I said, thinking that it was somehow significant, like some kind of sign for hope.

"Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave / Thysong, nor ever can those trees be bare," Luke said. 33

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His voice didn't echo but the words seemed to dangle in the air over us, leaving a presence that filled my chest with a heavy yearning. The single leaf above me rippled in the breeze and I shivered. I thought I could gladly be frozen there for eternity, stuck like that, listening to the twitter of birds and the squeak of the swing's rusty hinges. I could inhale the brisk fragrance of autumn and absorb the sweet embrace of romance forever.

"John Keats wrote that."

I glanced up at Luke and caught the distinct outline of his face in profile. Maybe I'd never seen his side view before, or only looked at him from the front, but he didn't look at all like the suave Luke Carter he usually was. His eyelashes were lowered as he squinted up at the sun. And his overbite was so pronounced it was the only thing I could focus on. He'd probably been a thumb sucker when he was a baby and it'd made his teeth jut out like that.

It caught me completely off guard. I'd never seen him from this angle and it made him appear somewhat insecure and lost. He stared up at the sky like it was a map that might tell him where he was and where he should go next. But then he glanced down at me, and he was once again Luke Carter, football star and Stillburrow's poster child. I had this urge to tell him to turn back like he'd been a moment before because, for some reason, I liked him better with the malformed teeth and helpless expression.

"What?" he said, frowning at the odd look I was giving him.

34

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I cleared my throat and glanced away. "The poem," I said.

"It's pretty,"

"It's sad. Keats was only twenty-four years old and he knew he was dying when he wrote it."

I thought about that. Twenty-four felt so far away. But for dying, it was way too close.

"A finished body full of unfinished thoughts," Luke murmured. He pushed the swing again. I rocked forward. "I came up with that on my own."

I smiled and closed my eyes when his hands touched my back again to push. "A finished body full of unfinished thoughts," I repeated on a murmur. "I like that. You should write it down."

"Yeah. Maybe." The sound of his voice caused me to open my eyes. He sounded...I don't know. Wistful, I guess. I was going to ask him about it but the moment was taken away from us. A car passed by on the street. I glanced over and saw the cheerleaders.

Liz Curry and Jill Anderson were creeping by, staring at us through the windshield of Liz's car. I stood up. And that's when Luke moved in front of me, completely blocking me from their view. He did it so subtly that if I hadn't been tuned into every movement he made, I wouldn't have noticed. The girls hollered a hello out their windows to him and he waved back, calling his own greeting.

I could already see the chain of gossip burning like a fuse to dynamite right through the town. Jill Anderson would tell her mother, who was fixing my mom's hair even as we stood there. I would hear about it at supper. Mom would play 35

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twenty questions with me. What were you doing with that nice Carter boy? Does he have a date for the prom yet? Did he ask you out?

Except there would be no gossip because the girls hadn't seen me. Luke had made sure of it.

"What's wrong?" Luke said.

I looked up and swallowed. "Nothing." His return look implied he didn't believe me, but he let it go. "OK," he answered. "Well anyway. I was wondering..." We were a few feet apart now and the intimacy from a moment ago had totally vanished. He went back to rubbing his neck.