Stephanie Perkins: Anna and the French Kiss

“Are you okay?” Professeur Hansen asks me. “Did any of these morons hurt you?”

I’m in shock. “St. Clair was defending me. It—it wasn’t his fault.”

“We don’t defend with our fists at this school. You know that.” He gives me a wry look before departing downstairs to join St. Clair in the head’s office.

What just happened? I mean, I know what happened, but . . . what just happened ? Does this mean St. Clair doesn’t hate me? I feel my first surge of hope, even though there’s a chance that he just hates Dave and Mike more. I don’t see him for the rest of the school day, but when I arrive in detention, he’s already sitting in the back row.

St. Clair looks weary. He must have been here all afternoon. The professeur in charge today isn’t here yet, so it’s just the two of us. I take my usual seat—it’s sad I have a usual seat—on the opposite side of the room. He stares at his hands. They’re smudged with charcoal, so I know he’s been drawing.

I clear my throat. “Thank you. For sticking up for me.”

No reply. Okay. I turn back to the chalkboard.

“Don’t thank me,” he says a minute later. “I ought to have punched Dave ages ago.” His boots kick the marble floor.

I glance over again. “How much detention did you get?”

“Two weeks. One per arsehole.”

I give a small snort of laughter, and his head jerks up. My own hope flashes at me, mirrored in his expression. But it disappears almost instantly. Which hurts.

“It’s not true, you know,” I say bitterly. “What Dave and Amanda are saying.”

St. Clair closes his eyes. He doesn’t speak for several seconds. When he opens them again, I can’t help but notice how relieved he looks. “I know.”

His delayed reaction irks me. “You sure about that?”

“Yes. I am.” He faces me for the first time in over a week. “But it’s still nice to hear it from your own lips, all right?”

“Right.” I turn away. “I can only imagine.”

“And what, exactly, is that supposed to mean?”

“Forget it.”

“No. Let’s not forget it. I’m sick and tired of forgetting it, Anna.”

“ You’re tired of forgetting it?” My voice shakes. “I’ve had to do nothing BUT forget it. Do you think it’s easy sitting in my room every night, thinking about you and Ellie? Do you think any of this has been easy for me?”

His shoulders drop. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

But I’m already crying. “You tell me I’m beautiful, and that you like my hair and you like my smile. You rest your leg against mine in darkened theaters, and then you act as if nothing happened when the lights go up. You slept in my bed for three nights straight, and then you just . . . blew me off for the next month. What am I supposed to do with that, St. Clair? You said on my birthday that you were afraid of being alone, but I’ve been here this whole time. This whole time .”

“Anna.” He rises and edges toward me. “I am so sorry that I’ve hurt you. I’ve made terrible decisions. And I realize it’s possible that I don’t deserve your forgiveness, because it’s taken me this long to get here. But I don’t understand why you’re not giving me the chance.You didn’t even let me explain myself last weekend. You just tore into me, expected the worst of me. But the only truth I know is what I feel when we’re together. I thought you trusted those feelings, too. I thought you trusted me, I thought you knew me—”

“But that’s just it!” I burst from my chair, and suddenly he’s right on top of me. “I don’t know you. I tell you everything, St. Clair. About my dad, about Bridgette and Toph, about Matt and Cherrie. I told you about being a virgin .” I look away, humiliated to say it aloud. “And what have you told me? Nothing! I know nothing about you. Not about your father, not about Ellie—”

“You know me better than anyone .” He’s furious. “And if you ever bothered to pay attention, you’d understand that things with my father are beyond shite right now. And I can’t believe you think so poorly of me that you’d assume I’d wait the entire year to kiss you, and then the moment it happened, I’d . . . I’d be done with you. OF COURSE I was with Ellie that night. I WAS BLOODY BREAKING UP WITH HER!”

The silence is deafening.

They broke up? Oh God. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t—

He stares me directly in the eyes. “You say that I’m afraid of being alone, and it’s true. I am. And I’m not proud of it. But you need to take a good look at yourself, Anna, because I am not the only one in this room who suffers this problem.”

He’s standing so close that I feel his chest rising and falling, quick and angry. My heart pounds against his. He swallows. I swallow. He leans in, hesitantly, and my body betrays me and mimics his in response. He closes his eyes. I close mine.

The door flies open, and we startle apart.

Josh enters detention and shrugs. “I ditched pre-calc.”

I can’t look at him for the rest of detention. How can I be afraid of being alone, if it’s the only thing I’ve been lately? It’s not like I’ve had a boyfriend all year, like he’s had a girlfriend. Though I did cling to the idea of Toph. Kept him as—the thought makes me wince—a reserve. And Dave. Well. He was there, and I was there, and he was willing, so I was, too. I’ve been worried that I was only with Dave because I was mad at St. Clair, but perhaps . . . perhaps I was tired of being alone.

But is that so wrong?

Does that mean it’s not wrong that St. Clair didn’t want to be alone either? He’s afraid of change, afraid to make big decisions, but so am I. Matt said that if I’d just talked with Toph, I could have saved myself months of anguish. But I was too scared to mess with the relationship we might have, to deal with what we really did have. And if I’d bothered to listen to what Matt was trying to tell me, maybe St. Clair and I would have had this conversation ages ago.

But St. Clair should have said something! I’m not the only one at fault.

Wait. Isn’t that what he was just saying? That we’re both at fault? Rashmi said I was the one who walked away from her. And she was right. She and Josh actually helped me that day at the park, and I ditched them. And Mer.

Oh my God, Meredith.

What’s wrong with me? Why haven’t I tried apologizing again? Am I incapable of keeping a friend? I have to talk to her. Today. Now. Immediately. When Professeur Hansen releases us from detention, I tear for the door. But something stops me when I hit the hall. I pause beneath the frescoed nymphs and satyrs. I turn around.

St. Clair is waiting in the doorway, staring at me.

“I have to talk to Meredith.” I bite my lip.

St. Clair nods slowly.

Josh appears behind him. He addresses me with a peculiar confidence. “She misses you. You’ll be fine.” He glances at St. Clair. “You’ll both be fine.”

He’s said that to me before. “Yeah?” I ask.

Josh lifts an eyebrow and smiles. “Yeah.”

It’s not until I’m walking away that I wonder if “both” means Meredith and me, or St. Clair and me. I hope both means both . I return to Résidence Lambert, and I knock on her door after a quick trip to my own room. “Mer? Can we talk?”

She cracks open her door. “Hey.” Her voice is gentle enough.

We stare at each other. I hold up two mugs. “Chocolat chaud?”

And she looks like she could cry at the sight. She lets me in, and I set down a cup on her desk. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Meredith.”