Intentions by Deborah Heiligman Read Free Book Online Page B

instead.
    “I had to get permission from all my teachers to be out Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for the state swim meet. They all gave me permission— and homework.”
    “So you really are good at swimming!”
    He smiles. “You remember.”
    “What?”
    “You remember what I told you, even though you were so stoned.”
    I stop, look at him seriously. “Of course I remember. I remember everything you said.” And I wonder about what you didn’t say, I want to add. But I don’t.
    Jake smiles. “I am good—at swimming, I mean. I should be—I’ve been swimming since I was about six. But I don’t think I’m Olympics good. It’s just that I’ve spent so much time in the water, I’m practically a fish.”
    “What kind?” I say.
    “What kind of fish?”
    I nod. “Yeah, if you were a fish, what kind of fish would you be?”
    “Can I be a mammal who swims?” As if I had asked him the most normal question in the world.
    “Sure,” I say.
    “A dolphin.”
    “Is that because you like dolphins or because you feel you are a dolphin? It has to be because you feel you are a dolphin.”
    He looks at me with those eyes of his. Sometimes they look hazel, sometimes brown. Right now hazel.
    “I feel like a dolphin,” he says. “I am a dolphin.”
    We are stopped, I realize, in the middle of the street in front of school. I realize this only because a horn honks. At us.
    “Let’s not have you be a dead dolphin,” I say, and I grab his hand and lead him to the other side of the street. I start to pull my hand away, but he won’t let me.
    So we walk for a while holding hands. It’s awkward because my messenger bag has slid off and down to that elbow and keeps bumping into my leg with a thwack . I try not to care. Step, thwack , step, thwack , step …
    “What about you? If you were an animal, what would you be?” he asks me.
    I should know the answer to this question right away. Alexis’solder brothers used to ask us this stuff all the time—“If you were a store, what kind of store would you be?” and “If you could fly or make yourself invisible, which would you choose?” and, even weirder, “Gerbils for hands or pretzels for hands?”
    But I can’t answer Jake’s question right away. I used to always say golden retriever. A happy, tail-wagging, life-is-great creature. Not so much anymore.…
    Maybe a cat? Like Panda? She can be cuddly and friendly, or she can be aloof and strange … but it’s always on her terms. She has a real mind of her own and—
    No, that’s not me, either. Panda has kavanah . Cat kavanah . She’s all about intention . I can’t find my kavanah anywhere lately. (Even though I cleaned up my room. Ha.)
    I’m more like a bird or an insect that’s caught on a breeze.
    I say this aloud to Jake, and he looks confused.
    “Or like a firefly that has been put in a jar without enough airholes.”
    Out of nowhere a biblical image comes to me: Abraham and Isaac on the mountain; I am Isaac, tied up like a ram. “Or a ram, a sacrificial ram!” I shout gleefully.
    OK, now Jake’s looking at me with fear and pity. And worry. This is not how I want this to be going.
Pity ≠ attraction.
    “I’m just kidding ,” I say. I think for a minute and say the first thing that comes into my mind next. “Elephant.” I’m immediately sorry. Elephants are big, and fat. With wrinkly skin. Definitely not sexy.
    But Jake nods. “An elephant is smart, strong, empathic, nurturing.…” He takes his hand away from mine, fixes my messenger bag so it is on my shoulder. As he’s doing it, he pushes my hair away from my face and gives me one of his long, intense looks. I think he is going to kiss me, but then he turns away and takes my hand again. We start walking together, hand in hand, not talking.
    I love his hand. Strong. Dry. Not sweaty.
    “Um. Rachel?”
    “Yeah?”
    “The thing is, you don’t look like an elephant. You look more like a tiger, sleek and stunning—”
    Me? Sleek and