“How is that possible?”

“I’ve been busy, okay? I’ve been working.”

“Yeah, but—no one’s that busy.”

Silence.

“What?” I said.

“Nothing.”

“What?” I demanded, stepping closer. My eyes had adjusted now. I could see him.

“It’s just,” he said, shaking his head like he was trying to shake the idea out, “hearing that makes me want to kiss you.”

“Don’t kiss me,” I said, pushing him by the chest back up against the closet wall. Our faces were just inches apart. I stood my ground.

Was I trying to put out a fire? Or trying to make it worse?

I should step back, I thought. But I didn’t.

“I will get you out of here,” the rookie said then. “I promise.”

And that’s when I kissed him.

He was startled but not too startled. In a flash, his arms were around me and he was kissing me right back—and not just with his mouth, with his whole body: arms, legs, shoulders, hands. He leaned into that kiss so hard that we stumbled backwards and bumped against the back wall of the closet. Then he was pressing against me, running his hands all over that silk hankie dress, and up my shoulders, and behind my neck, and into my hair—and I was doing all the equivalent things right back.

It was like a wave crashing.

And I got swept right in.

Is it too dramatic to say time stopped?

Because time stopped.

Maybe kisses are special for everybody, I don’t know.

But this was my first one.

My first good one, anyway.

When the rookie’s mouth touched mine, somehow everything in me that had been aching—for years, it seemed, now that I noticed—got soothed.

I felt some new kind of joy that I’d never felt before.

Was this what love was?

I had no idea.

I did know that this kiss, this moment right here, was something special. I’d seen and done and felt a lot of amazing things in my twenty-six years. But nothing like this.

The rookie slowed down but pressed closer. I tightened my arms around his neck. I touched my fingers to the velvety hair at the back of his head. I slowed down, too. Savoring. Relaxing into the moment.

He was kissing me. And I was kissing him back.

Impossible. But true.

Somehow we slid against the closet door, and he pressed up against me and brought his leg between mine, wedging us together in a way that made every cell in my body hum. I started melting like a stick of butter in a hot pan. I just dissolved into him and gave in to all of it—all this amazing, heart-thumping, breathless goodness.

This was what I’d been missing. All this time. Huh.

The thing that would astonish me later, looking back, was that nothing was bad. Not one part of this unbelievable moment in the story of my life felt scary or creepy or painful. And for a minute there, as I gave in to every good thing about it, it felt like nothing could ever possibly be bad again.

Until there was a loud knock on the closet door.

The same door we were pressed up against.

The knock reverberated through my rib cage.

We startled out of the moment and looked around.

“Are you guys in the coat closet?” came an annoyed voice.

The rookie gave a sharp sigh. “Go away, Shannon,” he called.

“Everybody thinks you’re having sex in there.”

“Nobody is having any sex. Scram.”

“There’s a betting pool, actually,” she went on. “I put fifty bucks on you.”

“I mean it, Shannon,” Owen said again, louder this time.

“Fine,” she said, “but don’t let us all down.” Then she leaned very close and fake-whispered, “Alex has a big box of condoms, if you need them.”

The rookie and I were both out of breath. When she was gone, he said, “She’s a world-class pain in the ass.”

I felt like a person waking from a deep sleep. I blinked and looked around. Reality came back into focus. The moment was definitely lost. I was in a coat closet. With the rookie. Not good.

I pushed against Owen’s chest ever so slightly, and he got the hint and stepped back.

He straightened his clothes, and I straightened mine.

“That was surprising,” I said.

“I agree,” the rookie said.

“Probably a very bad idea.”

“Not on my end. Just saying.”

“I’ll likely get fired now.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“Yeah, well,” I said. I knew how life worked. I knew how things were. This wouldn’t end well for me.

Then the rookie did something that surprised me. He grabbed my hand and squeezed it, leaning in to meet my eyes in the shadows. “I will never tell anybody about this. Please know that you can trust me, okay?”

I nodded.

“Okay,” he said then. “Let’s get you out of here.”

“How?” I said.

He shrugged, like it was easy. “I’ll carry you out of here over my shoulder, and that mane of hair will hang down over your face, and even if the captain sees us, he’ll never know it’s you.”

Eighteen

THAT NIGHT, WINDOWS open, I lay in bed watching the pom-pom curtains flutter in the breeze, with my heart gusting around inside my body like a kite.

The rookie. I’d kissed the rookie. Very well. In a coat closet.

I might have expected some mixed feelings on kissing, given how long and how hard I’d avoided it.

But I had none.

I felt thrilled. I felt enchanted.

Nobody could have been more surprised than me.

So this was what it was like. This was how I could feel.

I’d thought for so long that I’d lost all capacity to feel all these good things.

Do I have to describe what Heath Thompson did to me on the night I turned sixteen? Do I have to lay out all those details?

Let’s just agree that it was bad—very bad. So bad that “bad” isn’t even a bad enough word. So bad that it left a black vortex at the center of my heart that I’d spent every day since trying not to look at, or think about, or get too close to for fear I’d fall in and disappear. So bad that I closed off my heart entirely—I never went on another date, or kissed anyone, or even had a romantic thought for ten solid years.

Until now.

Until the rookie.

Who had given me something undeniably good.

I would have told you I was fine before. I was fine. I was functioning, I was strong. I paid taxes and changed the oil in my car and bought organic eggs at the farmers’ market. I was a self-defense instructor, for Pete’s sake. Some people get derailed by trauma. Some people are crushed by it and never recover. I get it. I understand. But I was lucky. It took so many years I could barely tell it was happening, but I was able to put my life back together. I was able to finish high school, go to college, and make a living helping people.

I’d wanted to die for so many years.

But I didn’t die. I survived.

More than that, I thrived.

Before the awards ceremony, I would have told you I was completely recovered.

Until Heath Thompson showed up on that stage and dared to touch me—and then we both found out exactly how strong I’d become.