Kate in Waiting by Becky Albertalli (ereader with android txt) 📕

BOOM.

Thunderclap. I’m close enough to feel Matt’s startled exhale. Then, a split second later, the lights cut out completely.

“Oh, that’s not good,” says Mr. D.

For a minute, we all freeze in place, like we can somehow coax the lights back if we stand still enough. But nope. Total pitch-darkness. There are no windows in the auditorium. And I’ve been backstage before in varying levels of darkness, but never like this. I reach out for Matt’s hand, and when I find it, I squeeze it. He squeezes it back, and he doesn’t let go.

“Okay,” Zhao concedes. “This doesn’t look good. Why don’t we stop here for the day? Take it nice and slow coming off the stage, please. Do you guys have flashlight apps on your phones?” I nod, even though I know she can’t see me.

Wow, though.

It’s so easy to imagine how we’ll retell this moment. Our first kiss. The lights went out. We held hands. Used our phones. Even as it’s happening, it’s like it already happened. That same preemptive nostalgia feeling. Like it’s a story we’ll tell in some not-so-distant future.

Scene 43

Matt drives me home in the rain, and he doesn’t seem to mind the extra few minutes it takes to get to Dad’s house. In a moment of unprecedented courage, I ask if he wants to come inside. But he tells me his mom’s been calling him all afternoon, and he holds up his phone with the missed calls to prove it.

“Oh wow. Everything okay?”

“Yeah, I think she forgot I had rehearsal.”

“Parents,” I say, even though that is not a parental mistake I can relate to. I mean, my dad would definitely forget my rehearsal schedule—he wouldn’t have known it to begin with—but he wouldn’t be frantically calling all afternoon. Whereas my mom’s all about the frantic phone calls, but she’d never misremember my rehearsal schedule. She actually photographs the call lists Ms. Zhao sends home and stores them in her phone to refer back to. She does the same thing for Ryan during baseball season. Total supermom move.

The storm’s mostly ended by the time I settle in at Dad’s, though settle maybe isn’t the word, seeing as I’m now a human jumble of wires. I change into sweatpants and flop back on my bed, staring at my canopy for a full ten minutes. I feel simultaneously normal and radically strange, like my brain’s switching between two tracks. There’s Normal Brain, which remembers I have algebra homework and wants to eat yogurt and watch Tangled. But then every few seconds, I-Kissed-Matt Brain takes over, and wow, I-Kissed-Matt Brain is not a chill brain. I-Kissed-Matt Brain wants to swoon and explode and replay every second of today’s rehearsal, ad nauseum, ideally over the phone with Anderson, because apparently I-Kissed-Matt Brain is a total asshole.

I can’t do that. I can’t tell Anderson about today. Ground rules or no ground rules, that’s just cruel. I don’t even want to tell Raina and Brandie. God. It’s going to be so messy if Matt and I start dating. Like, as a squad, how do you even navigate that? What do you prioritize? Celebrating with me over my first real boyfriend? Or consoling Anderson over his first real heartbreak? I mean, I’m sure Andy will joke around and yammer on about the ground rules and act like he’s totally fine.

But he won’t be. No one understands Anderson like I do. He’s a lot more fragile than people realize. I’m not saying he’s any less brave, or any less of a badass. It’s just that he’s got a soft center, and he’s a little too good at hiding that.

So I can’t tell Andy, and I can’t tell the girls, but I also can’t bear to be alone. This is crazy, but for a split second, I picture myself running through the rain to Noah’s house.

Which is a very bad plan.

But somehow the thought gets me moving, and a minute later, I’m on the other end of the hall, knocking on my brother’s door. No answer, of course. I let myself in anyway.

Ryan’s on his bed, watching a movie with headphones, Camilla’s head in his lap. Ryan’s never really minded having the dogs in his bed, even on days like today, when they’re matted and damp and smell extra doggy. It’s his one exception to being a neat freak.

“What are you watching?” I ask.

“Um. Black Mirror.”

I gasp. “You like Black Mirror?” I sink back onto Ryan’s bed, next to Camilla’s butt. “Okay, which season?”

He tilts the screen toward me. “This one.”

I shriek. “San Junipero!”

“Okay?”

“Ryan. Like. You know that’s the official squad favorite, right? I can’t believe you’re watching this. It’s so good.”

“Noted.”

“I won’t spoil it. I’ll be quiet.” I peer at the screen, hands burrowing into Camilla’s fur. “Oh, I love this part.”

He flicks his eyes toward me.

“This episode is so romantic,” I add.

Which makes it perfect for today. Because, no question: today has been the most romantic day of my life. September tenth. Forever tattooed on my brain and engraved on my heart.

A part of me wants to spill the whole story to Ryan—though I have no idea how he’d react. I guess he’d probably be confused, like, why are you telling me this? I love Ryan, but we’re not the kind of siblings who have deep talks, or even how-was-your-day talks.

We used to be. I used to know all the stupid Ryan details, like how he knows every word of “Hey, Soul Sister.” Or that he hates insects so much, he used to keep his Weedles and Metapods facedown in his Pokémon card binder. I used to know all of that. And Ryan knew all my details, too.

I wonder if that’s a thing you can ever get back.

Ryan’s texting now, but his texts don’t pop up on his laptop like mine do. And Camilla’s blocking my view of his phone screen. But maybe if I lean a little closer—

“Wow,” Ryan says. “You are so nosy.”

“Absolutely not. I’m