Seconds before, we were a boy and a girl standing next to each other. The distance between our bodies was out of habit and not out of lack of curiosity. His movement was swift and unexpected. I remembered the smell of his clothes--his mom, like mine, must have used Tide--as the first of the atmospheric changes. The second was the instant warming of the air temperature as his breath came near. The third was that it became suddenly dark. As Wade pulled away, he said my name aloud for no one but himself.

Author: Monique Truong