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"Nice coat," Nate said as I perched next to him. He had barely looked up from his guitar, but a sly smile played on his face. I was still trying to figure out if he was being genuine or sarcastic, when in a single motion he slid the guitar to his side, wrapped his arms around me, and pulled me in for a kiss.

Did I say "a kiss"? That didn't do it justice. Our lips seemed to melt together, and his tongue rolled over mine in a way that made me dizzy.

A beautiful eternity later the kiss ended, but Nate still held me and my blanket of a coat tucked close under one arm. "I had a great time Friday," he said.

"Me too."

Do not ask why he didn't call,
I screamed inside my head.
Don't do it. Do
not
ask why he didn't call.

"I was kind of surprised you didn't call, though," I said.

WHY? Why did I say it? No good could come of that statement!

"Whatever," Nate said.

He peeled his arm off me, spun his guitar back around, and started playing.

"Not that I would have answered if you had," I said, trying to dig my way out. That sounded mean, though, so I added, "Not that I wouldn't
want
to talk to you—it's just that I was away from home and I forgot to pack my phone cord, so I couldn't charge it up after it ran out of power, which it did pretty much right after I saw you..."

What it really came down to was that I couldn't be trusted to function on my own as anything close to a normal human being. Nate hadn't moved since I'd started babbling, but I could feel him pulling further and further away. I thought about Claudia's football players and hot dog eaters and realized I had only one hope to save this encounter.

I let the silence take over for a few minutes as Nate strummed, then casually stepped away from the rock.

"I'm gonna take off," I said. "See you around."

Nate stopped playing. "Why?"

I shrugged, lifted my hand in a bored farewell, and turned back toward the school.

"Wait. Stay," Nate said. "I want to play you something. I wrote it Saturday. I was thinking about you."

Hold up—he wrote a song because he was thinking about me? This was huge! I couldn't show it, though. I folded my arms and silently dared him to impress me.

"I don't have the words yet," he said. "It's just a melody."

He started playing.

It was the most beautiful song I'd ever heard. Of course it was—it was the first song I'd ever had written for me. And writing a song wasn't a quick thing, was it? If he had been thinking of me when he'd written it, he must have been thinking about me a lot. I imagined him sitting in his room, strumming his guitar as he replayed every second of our evening together.

"Did you like it?" he asked.

"It's beautiful," I told him. I sat next to him on the rock again. "Thank you."

"I meant getting high," he said. "I could tell you really liked it. That's what I was thinking about when I wrote the song: your trip. I've never seen anyone get so high that they couldn' t move. You must have some kind of super-sensitivity. It was incredible, right?"

"It was ... you know." That was the best I could do. Terrifying, horrifying, the-closest-thing-to-being-buried-alive-I-ever-want-to-experience were all more accurate, but I was pretty sure they weren't what Nate wanted to hear.

"Yeah, I know." He smiled.

He started playing again, and I felt so sad for him, because I got it. Of course being so overcome by pot that you couldn't function sounded like heaven. Look what he had to deal with when he functioned. This was the perfect time to start helping him, to talk about everything he was masking with his DangerZone persona.

I put an understanding hand on his thigh. "You know," I said gently, "I've been thinking about your mo—"

"Shhh," he said. "This is my favorite part."

Nate shushed me. I had never been shushed by anyone but Karl. Was he shushing me because he knew what I was going to say, or was he really just that into his song?

I wasn't sure, but I shushed. When he finished the song, the bell rang.

"I'll be here tomorrow," he said. It was his usual line, but I thought I picked up something else in it this time. Like he knew he'd see me tomorrow and was looking forward to it.

"Actually," I said, "I thought maybe we could study together after school. You know, with finals next week and all."

This was off-script. I had a feeling it might be a little aggressive for Claudia's taste, but I couldn't help it. If Nate and I were going to be together, I wanted more of him. I wanted to get to that easy place I'd had with ... well, with Archer. Except it would be better with Nate, because Nate was attracted to me. He and I would have something deeper than Archer and I ever could.

"Sure," Nate said. "You know the place. Come by after school."

I was a little worried when I called Claudia on the way to Nate's place. She wasn't one to hold back when she disapproved. She surprised me, though: she didn't seem bothered by the plan.

"It's so beautiful," she said, sniffing back fake tears. "Baby's First Booty Call."

"Shut up! I'm going there to study!"

I was not going there to study. I had all my studying props: texts, notebooks, a six-pack of Diet Coke, and my iPod with the noise-canceling headphones. With a stash like that, I could spend a whole night studying.

But I wouldn't.

I pictured Nate and me in his room, all our books and papers spread out in front of us. Nate would sneak looks at me while we pored over the books. I'd feel his eyes on me and smile up at him with a coy "What?"

Then he'd pounce. And though there was something cinematic about us rolling around on all our books and notes, I did still need them to study, so maybe we'd push them out of the way first. We wouldn't go crazy far. We'd just make out until at some point we'd get tired or need a break to breathe. Then I'd lie in Nate's arms, he'd play with my hair ... and he'd start talking.

He'd open up about what he was really feeling: his anger, his hurt, his fear—he had to be terrified all the time. What if his dad left for good? What if his mom never woke up? What if she did but she wasn't the same? What if she didn't recognize him or Thackery—and what if his dad left for good
then?

By the time I pulled up to the mansion, I was practically in tears; I was so full with Nate's pain. I almost expected him to read it on my face and dive into my arms, crying tears of relief and joy because someone finally understood.

Instead he opened the door and blew a cloud of smoke in my face.

"Sorry. I was gonna wait for you, but you know..." As his voice trailed off, he gestured to my overstuffed messenger bag. "What's that?"

I was still blinking my way out of the smoky haze. "Books, soda, music: study stuff."

"Right. Study stuff. Let's leave that right here." He eased the bag off my shoulder, then leaned his body against mine and kissed me, long and deep. I didn't like the taste of the smoke clinging to his mouth, and I almost pulled away, but then I felt a bulge in his jeans pressing into my hips.

Whoa.

It actually took me a second to realize what it was. I mean, I knew that's what happens when guys get excited, but only in an intellectual way, not an is-that-a-Maglite-in-your-pocket-or-are-you-just-glad-to-see-me way.

The bulge was flattering, right? It meant he really liked me. I just worried that it was poking me with an expectation I wouldn't be able to fulfill.

Then Nate kissed my neck ... and my ear ... and then came back to my lips, and I stopped worrying. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed my body into his and knew I'd be blissfully happy if we never moved from this spot and just stood here making out, not two inches from the front door.

Nate pulled his lips from mine and stared into my eyes. "I want to introduce you to someone," he said.

I froze. Was it his dad? Was his dad right there in the next room while Nate and I devoured each other in the doorway?

But wait—Nate had been smoking when he'd answered the door. Was his dad okay with that? Maybe he was. Maybe a man who cheated on his comatose wife and pretty much abandoned his kids didn't live by a whole lot of rules.

Nate took my hand and led me to a long table. On it sat a large, beautiful, light purple glass tube.

"Tonight we blaze with Purple Haze," he said. "Watch and learn."

Ah. "Purple Haze" was a bong—a bong with a name. I watched as he lit it, then sucked on the top of the tube. The water inside gurgled. The whole thing looked and sounded ridiculous, but I wouldn't let myself laugh.

With his eyes closed, Nate gently pulled away from the bong, held his breath ... then slowly blew another plume of smoke into my face. "Sweet," he said. He offered me the bong. "It's easy."

I didn't doubt it was easy, but it wasn't tempting. Not after Friday night's paralysis party.

"I'm gonna pass," I said.

"Why?"

"No reason. I'm just ... not that into it."

"But Cara, you get
so
high. That's a gift. Wasting that, that's like ... like Superman saying he doesn't want to fly."

Sorry.

I worried this would be the end of the date, but Nate shrugged it off.

"Come on," he said.

He grabbed the bong and led the way to his room. He plopped on his bed, turned on the music and the screen saver, and gently placed Purple Haze on his night table. "We'll leave her here in case you change your mind."

I made a mental note to tell Claudia the bong had both a name
and
a gender.

Nate pulled me down next to him and kissed me, then pulled away, laughing.

Laughing?

"What? What did I do?"

"Nothing," he said. "I was just remembering you from last time. You just ... stopped. And your face: total perma-grin. You really couldn't move at all?"

Seriously? Were we seriously still talking about this? Did we seriously stop
kissing
to talk about this?

"No," I said. "I couldn't move at all."

"A baked coma," he said dreamily.

Coma? Did he say "coma"? My next words were vital. I wanted him to know I understood what he meant, that he could tell me even more and I'd be there for him. But I had a feeling that if I pushed, he'd stop talking.

"Yeah," I said, trying to echo his dreaminess. "Maybe if that's what it's like, it's not so bad."

It was a ridiculous thing to say, especially since the coma experience for me had been hell on earth. But I figured it would make sense to Nate, and maybe give him a little comfort.

"Cooooh ... ma," Nate singsonged. "Koooooh ... na. Coooooh ... la." He laughed, then rolled to face me and look me up and down. "Nice pocket," he said, his fingers reaching out to touch the chain trim on my shirt. "Can I try it?"

I wanted to steer the conversation back to his mom, but the next second he had slipped two fingers into the pocket and I gasped. Nate smiled and pulled me in for another kiss. This time he didn't laugh.

 

"Oh my God, Claudia—I think I'm a nymphomaniac!" It was an hour later and I was in the car, incinerating the speed limit to hit Wegmans and still get home in time for dinner.

"Don't you have to 'nymph' before you can be maniacal about it?"

"Define 'nymph,'" I hedged.

"You had sex with him?"

"Nooooo," I said, clearly implying more to the story.

"Were you naked?"

"Not
entirely
..."

"You whoreson trollop!" Claudia crowed.

"I know! I know! It's crazy! He just looks at me in this way ... this 'You Are the Most Gorgeous Creature Alive and I Want to Devour You' way ... and my brain melts. Gone. Completely. Claude, if I hadn't had to get home, he could've gone further. I don't think I would've stopped him."

"You wouldn't have had sex with him." It was a statement, not a question.

"No!" I said. "I mean, unless maybe he had something ... you know, like a condom..."

"
Cara!
" Claudia cried.

"I know! And it's not like I'm in love with him! What is wrong with me?"

If something
was
wrong with me, it didn't take me long to stop caring. Nate and I "studied" every afternoon that week. After the first time, I didn't bother bringing my books—although maybe I could have used them to fan away the giant cloud of smoke that engulfed me every time I walked in.

That was really the only problem; Nate hadn't given up on making me a pothead. He talked constantly about my "gift" and what a crime it was to deny myself a high that some could only dream of achieving.

"And you're just a noob," he'd say. "That means it'll get even deeper."

If my high got any deeper, I was pretty sure I'd end up dead. Nate didn't get that. He hoped a good contact high would rope me in—hence the cloud of smoke when I entered.

Part of me was flattered. Sadly for Nate, getting high was life's peak experience. I figured he had to care about me a lot to want to share it with me so badly.

Still, he never let up, and I was tired of finding new ways to say no. Plus to me the "sweet perfume" of pot smoke smelled more like a combination of wet grass and cat pee.

By Wednesday I dreaded going into the house. Then I spent the first half hour there fighting with myself about whether to leave and never come back.

But then Nate would kiss me, and it felt so good that within seconds I wouldn't even notice the pot on his breath.

Claudia always snapped up her phone on the first ring when I called her from the car each evening on my way to Wegmans.

"Sex Addicts Anonymous, this is your sponsor speaking," she answered on Thursday.

"We have not had sex!"

"Right, but you're hitting practically a base a day, which means by my calculations you'll have done the deed by this time next week."

"Okay—in baseball? Three bases. Four, with home plate."

"Whatever. So what happened today?"

The second she asked, I had a physical flashback and felt a shivery jolt. It was so unexpected, I actually let out a scream.

"What?" Claudia wailed. "Is he there? Tell me he isn't there. That's just weird. And aren't you driving?"