Lips Touch: Three Times(5)
Author: Laini Taylor

Luckily the bell rang then and she didn’t have to think of a reply. She just said, "See you around, Jack Husk."

"You will," he said, cocking his head to one side and looking at her a moment longer before walking away.

Kizzy turned around to find Cactus and Evie staring at her, round-eyed. "Did that just happen?" she demanded of them.

"Thanks a lot for introducing us!" pouted Evie.

"Jesus. Sorry. I was just trying really hard not to faint or start crying. Jesus. Seriously, that did just happen? It wasn’t, like, a really realistic daydream?"

"Oh, it happened," said Cactus. "Kizzy! You just mingled saliva with the most beautiful boy ever to tread the hallways of Saint Pock’s. Saliva. There’s DNA in saliva. You’re, like, carrying his cells in your mouth like one of those weird frogs that incubates its eggs in its cheeks!"

With a squeal, Evie added, "You could have his mouth baby!" "God! Only you guys could make his saliva sound gross. I mean, did you see how perfect?"

"Oh, I saw," said Cactus.

"He was totally staring at you, Kiz," marveled Evie.

"Hell would he want to do that?" she muttered.

The girls climbed back over the low wall and headed inside with the student herd, and Kizzy floated through the rest of her classes in a daze.

She saw Jack Husk after school, leaning against the flagpole in his long-limbed, easy way. She wondered if he was waiting for her, and then felt ridiculous for wondering. Of course he wasn’t. But he was. He straightened up when she came out, and tilted his head to motion her near. "Hey, Kizzy," he said softly. "Hey, Jack Husk."

"Listen, I was wondering," he started, but paused, seeming a little sheepish. "I have this clothing situation." He motioned to his old-man pants.

"Yeah? Don’t worry about it. Probably half the sheep here are going to show up tomorrow in their grandparents’ stuff."

He laughed. "Well, I need to get some clothes anyway. I thought maybe you could show me where to go."

"Oh, sure," Kizzy said, a little disappointed. For a second she thought he’d waited to walk home with her, since they were going the same way. "There’s this second-hand store I go to, it’s pretty cool and cheap. It’s up by the gas station and the pizza place with the solar system hanging from the ceiling." She started to point the way, but Jack Husk caught her hand in the air and held her fist inside his own for a moment like it was some small delicate thing, like a tulip bulb or an egg.

He said, "No, I meant, I thought you could show me, and … help me."

"Oh," said Kizzy faintly.

"Unless you have somewhere to be."

"No, I just have to be home in time to make dinner. But I can go with you for a little while."

"Great." He smiled. Not the skewed half-smile, but a full and lovely one that dazzled her.

They started walking, and Kizzy turned around to wave to Cactus and Evie, who flashed her quick maniac grins behind Jack Husk’s back. As they passed through a crowd that included Jenny Glass, Kizzy heard someone whisper, "What’s the new guy doing with Butterfly Rape?" and her heart instantly cinched into a tight knot.

She hoped Jack Husk hadn’t heard, but as soon as they were clear of the crowd, he looked at her with one eyebrow cocked and asked, "What did that girl just call you?"

Kizzy grimaced. "Forget it."

"Okay." He paused, then looked at her again. "Because it sounded like butterfly rape."

Mortified, Kizzy nodded. "Yep," she said, popping the p sound. "That’s me."

He looked puzzled. "Why?"

Turning purple once more, Kizzy chewed her lip and finally said, "Well, freshman year, before I learned not to participate in class discussions, we were talking about human nature or something in Life Science, and this girl Heather Black starts saying how humans are the only violent species, and how noble the animal kingdom is, blah-de-blah-blah, only killing for food, and the only species that has, like, war and murder and rape, is humans."

Jack Husk snorted. "I guess she hasn’t met any orangutans."

"What?"

"Orangutans rape. They even gang rape."

"Oh. Well, I’m glad I didn’t know that then. My nickname could be worse."

"What, you told this girl that butterflies rape?"

"Yeah. Well, they do. Some kinds, anyway. The males will, like, wait for a female to hatch out of her chrysalis and rape her before she can even fly. Like, welcome to the world, lovely butterfly. Then, as if that’s not bad enough, they secrete this stuff into her that hardens like a plug, so she can’t mate with any other males — though, after her first, you know, date, I don’t know why she’d want to. Then the males adapted these things on their feet for gouging out the plug, so they adapted again, and started secreting, like, a whole shell over her abdomen, like a chastity belt that can’t be gouged off. Isn’t that insane?"

"Did you make that up?" Jack Husk asked, looking a little repulsed.

"Could anyone make that up? There’s crazy shit in nature, like these spores that invade a caterpillar’s body and turn it into a vegetable, and then cannibals use it to make tattoo ink. How sci-fi is that? I told Heather Black she watched too many cartoons. Animals do too murder. Chimpanzees even kill each other’s babies sometimes. Humans are not the only species to kill for territory, for dominance –"

"For fun," added Jack Husk.

"Ooh." Kizzy wrinkled her nose at him. "Serial killer comment."

"Not me" he said, elbowing her playfully. "I meant cats" "Yeah. Weirdo. Anyway, that’s where I got my charming nickname." "Sucks."

"Yeah. I shouldn’t even have argued. Heather Black might be a stupid cow, but I basically agree with her. Humans are totally the worst. We’re vile."

"Yeah, you can be," Jack Husk agreed. "The thing is, you throw brains and souls into an animal and stir, you don’t really know what you’re going to get. If humans are going to be vile, they’re going to be a bigger and better kind of vile than, like, a dog could ever be."

"When they were good, they were very very good, and when they were bad, they were horrid" said Kizzy.

He laughed. "Yeah, totally. I like that. Which are you, Kizzy? Very very good, or horrid?" He cocked his head and squinted at her like he was trying to decide.

"Oh, horrid," she replied at once.

"Yeah," he said, his eyes seeming to flash silver again. "Me too."