Even Death Won't Do Us Part

Chapter 18

5 years, 1 month, 2 days earlier

Auburn said it was her diary, so when Lilly  unrolled the narrow paper scroll she was immediately confused. My To Do List was preprinted in purple at the top. Auburn had crossed out "To Do" and written "Did". Below that was just a list of names, a half dozen or so.

          "I don't understand," Lilly said.  

          "Well, it's the only diary I will ever keep. Everything else, you can help me remember." She grinned. "These are the boys I've kissed. I wrote really small because I figure there's going to be a lot of them, and I'm going to keep this list for my whole life." She pointed to the first name, Trevor Jones. "We were in first grade. He tried to stick his finger up my nose after, the little perv."

          Lilly had never kissed anyone, though recently she'd let a cute boy on the bus have a sip from her water bottle and it felt kind of like something at the time, his mouth where hers had been and all that. But now, here with Auburn, who was her brand-new friend and her very own age and had kissed--Lilly counted quickly--five people, she felt the full weight of how silly that was.

           "You've done a lot of kissing," Lilly said. She meant it as a compliment.

          Auburn laughed. "Well, I'm not sure the first few count. But yeah . . ."

          Lilly stared at Auburn's lips--shiny with mango gloss. You couldn't usually just look at a mouth and tell whether they got kissed much. But the thing was, with Auburn's you kind of could. 

          Auburn shrugged, then went on. "Why is is that so many of the most important things happen with your mouth? Kissing, telling secrets, eating cake. I don't know."

           "Aren't you afraid your mom or someone will find this list?" 

          "Nah. I keep it hidden in a really good place. Which is lucky, because my ass of a stepbrother would kill me if he knew. Like if it's any of his business at all what I do." Auburn tipped her head to the side and one of her very glossed lips. "The messed up things is how so many people think your body is their  business, especially if you're a girl. It's not really the same with boys. But your body isn't their business . . . unless they're your freaking pimp or, like a plastic surgeon. Or a bloody pimp plastic surgeon. Then it totally is." Auburn stuck out her tongue. They'd only been friends for a couple months, but Lilly already knew this was classic Auburn--she'd say something real and true, and then something ridiculous in the very next sentence. And the world would suddenly seem bigger and smaller and more serious and less serious. And Lil would feel just how incredibly lucky she was to have found this girl.

          "Showing you this list is an important moment in our best-friendness," Auburn continued. "It's like when a couple is dating and one gives the other a key to their house and that's how they know it's true love." Auburn paused. Then smiled. "Except of course, we already knew it was  . . ."