The Truth of the Matter by Andrew Klavan Read Free Book Online

Amazingly, even as I watched from the edge of the scene, I felt the warmth of her palm against mine, the grip of her fingers. And suddenly . . . suddenly, I felt more than that. Suddenly, I felt the love for her flooding into my heart. I was remembering. Finally, finally. I was remembering how much I loved her. It overrode the nervousness I felt. It overrode everything. It welled up in me like a rising tide and all I wanted to do was tell her about it.
    Beth and I walked together along the sidewalk, through shadows and pools of light thrown down by the street-lamps. I stood and watched from the sidelines, feeling her hand in mine, feeling the incredible nervousness and fear of telling her what I was about to tell her. Would I be able to find the right words? How would she respond? I knew she was too kind to laugh at me or say anything cruel. But would she shake her head? Would she turn away?
    We reached her car. She stood with her back to it, facing me. I looked down at her. We were in deep shadow, but I was close enough to see her eyes. Her blue eyes. Her gentle eyes.
    “What were you going to say?” I heard her ask me— and as I stood on the edge of the scene watching, I felt the warmth and sweetness of her breath as she spoke—it was like I was in two places at the same time, inside the scene and observing it from the outside. “Before the movie started,” Beth went on, “I said it felt a little wrong for us to be there and you said, ‘I feel . . . ,’ and then you didn’t finish. What were you going to say? Do you remember?”
    I could feel my past self working up his courage, trying to keep his voice steady so he didn’t sound squeaky like some dumb little kid. It felt like the scariest moment of my life up to that time.
    “Yeah, I remember,” I told Beth. “I was going to say: I feel like nothing about you and me being together is wrong. I feel like when we’re together, it’s just right, like it’s supposed to happen. It’s weird too because it’s not like in the movies with music playing or fireworks or—or anything that I expected. It’s just like . . . I don’t know, like a little click, like—You ever do jigsaw puzzles? And you find the right piece and it clicks in? It feels like that.”
    Beth said, “It feels like that to me too.”
    Then I kissed her. I felt her lips against my lips, the softness of her as I put my arms around her and pulled her to me.
    Standing on the edge of the scene, I closed my eyes and it felt as if I and my past self were melding into one, that I was there again, with Beth in my arms again. It felt so good to remember, finally to remember the sweet ache of loving her . . .
    Then I opened my eyes and . . .
    Beth was gone. The street was gone. For a moment, I felt heartbroken, missing the touch of her lips on mine. But then I saw . . .
    I was at home. In my room. My old room! I couldn’t believe it. I was so glad to see it, so glad to be back. There were my karate trophies on the shelf! My Lord of the Rings poster on the wall! My bed, my desk . . .
    And me! Sitting there, at my desk. Doing my calculus homework, poking numbers into the calculator set beside the computer keyboard, working out a differential equation. Or trying to. Because I couldn’t. I couldn’t concentrate on the equation at all. All I could think about was Beth.
    I had Schoolyard up on my computer screen. It was a program my high school had that let students IM and e-mail and update one another and hand in homework and get teachers’ comments and stuff like that. Normally I didn’t go on it much. Everyone could see you were there and IM you and it was pretty distracting, so I stayed off so only my close friends could IM me, which was distracting enough. But Beth liked to go on and talk to her friends, so I went on to talk to her.
    That was pretty much all I wanted to do now. Talk to her. I mean, I knew I needed to get that calc homework in by tomorrow, but . . . it was such a good, giddy, happy