Jimmy Foster finally spoke, and his words shifted the tectonic plates under my feet. “I haven’t been able to get you out of my system in ten years.”
Despite my heart slamming against my chest like a paddle ball, I teased him. “AP English but remedial math, huh? It may seem like ten years but—”
“It was a Wednesday.” He raised his head and pinned me with a dark gaze.
“What was a Wednesday?”
“It smelled like someone in the neighborhood was burning leaves. The air was crisp, but the sun felt really warm. You had messy braids and you were wearing a leopard-print jacket with black fur trim on the cuffs and collar.” I didn’t trust my voice, but I remembered my favorite coat quite clearly. I was seven.
He rubbed his face absently while looking into a faraway place that only he could see. “There were four or five of us sitting under the dome monkey bars, and we were talking about what we were going to be when we grew up. Michelle…something—I can’t remember her last name— said she wanted to be the president, and Cody Calloway told her he didn’t think that girls were allowed to be presidents. Out of nowhere, you exploded on him with this perfect left hook.” Foster laughed at the memory. “You just clocked him in the cheek. You stood up with your hands on your hips, and you told him, ‘You take that back, Cody Calloway. Girls can be anything they want to be.’ Your cheeks were flushed, and you were filled with all this righteous anger.” Foster looked at me. “Do you remember that?”
“Yeah,” I whispered. My voice… Where was my voice? I cleared my throat. “Of course I remember that. I couldn’t go to recess for two weeks because he told on me.” I still didn’t know what this was about, but Foster was sort of lost in his hazy memory. He smiled and began again. “I went home that day, and I wrote your name over and over on a piece of paper. I must have written it a hundred times. My mom found the paper a few days later in my sock drawer. She asked me why I’d done that…”
I wanted to know why more than anything I’d ever remembered wanting, but a part of me hoped he’d chicken out.
“I told her I liked the way your name made my heart jump.”
Tears welled in my eyes, and I gasped his name. Here I thought his kisses turned my world upside down. I didn’t realize his raw heart could unarm me so easily after all the years of building my arsenal of defensive weapons. Could it be that easy? In all the things I imagined, I never gave myself the room to fantasize about something healthy, a real relationship with him. Why was it that the scariest emotions I’d ever had were the honest ones?
“Foster, I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what we’re supposed to do.”
“If we were seven, you would throw me a left hook.” I laughed through tears.
He reached across us to gently wipe the ones that had fallen. “If we were in a movie, the music would swell and we’d rush into a perfect kiss while the credits roll and the camera pans away.” His hand fell to his side and his face cemented into the mask of the hardened boy I’d known for four years. “Since it’s us, we’ll circle like boxers in a ring until one of us remembers the distrust. You’ll look at me with eyes full of doubt and wariness, and I’ll say something insulting to you so you feel justified.”
“Foster…” It was too late. I knew it as soon as he’d dropped his hand.
“You have a piece of lettuce in your teeth. See you tomorrow.”
- - -
If this was a show I swear I’d give it a full-blown standing ovation... plus a bouquet of freshly picked flowers. But it’s a book and I’m not much of a reviewer really.
But anyway…
If it’s not obvious that I like this book very much I’m going to say it again. I like it so much it makes my heart ride on an amazing rollercoaster and sum up all the giddiness in the world.
It made me laugh then cry and then practically do both at the same time. It made me love James Theodore Foster. It made me realize that “I had no business inviting other people’s emotions into my life when I had no idea what to do with my own.”
So I suggest you read SO OVER YOU BY GWEN HAYES. Not only will you love the twist of the story and Layney’s stubbornness, you’re going to love Jimmy Foster, as well.
