**Boston, Massachusetts—October of Junior Year**
It smells like old books and broken promises in the Riverside Academy library.
I'm sitting at our usual table in the back corner, close to the poetry section where no one ever goes. I'm watching Aurelio Santoro read "Romeo and Juliet" for what seems like the hundredth time this week. His dark curls keep falling into his eyes, and he keeps pushing them back with this absent, unconscious gesture that makes my stomach do stupid things.
We've been working together on this project for four weeks and three days. Not that I'm keeping track.
The October sky has changed from blue to gray to that strange shade of purple that means Boston is about to throw a fit. Somewhere far away, thunder rumbles softly, like a warning. A few students near the windows look up nervously as they pack their bags.
Aurelio breaks the silence by asking, "What do you think?"
I stop reading my paperback copy of *Wuthering Heights* and look up. I took it from the public library because I couldn't afford to buy it and the late fees were already piling up. "About what?"
"About Juliet's choice." He leans back in his chair with an air of casual grace and expensive confidence. The coffee cup from his family's café in the North End, where a medium cup costs seven dollars, sits between us like a wall. "Should she have run away with Romeo or stayed with her family?"
Ms. Okonkwo would love this kind of question. The kind that doesn't have a clear answer.
I think about it. About Juliet. About lovers who are meant to be together but can't be, and how love can ruin you.
"I think," I say slowly, picking my words carefully, "that Shakespeare set her up to fail. There was no good choice. If she ran away, she would lose her family. If she stayed, she would lose herself."
Aurelio's storm-cloud-grey eyes, the kind that make you think of weather and warning, fix on me with such intensity that I forget how to breathe. "But what if you had to choose?"
"I'd run."
His smile starts out small and then spreads across his face like the sun rising. "Yeah. Me too."
The thunder is getting closer and shaking the old windows. The lights blink once, twice, and then stay on. More students grab their bags and grumble about getting caught in the rain, practice, clubs, or whatever normal teens do on Thursday afternoons.
We are always the last ones here. For weeks now.
Aurelio and I work on our AP Literature project, "Forbidden Love in Classic Literature," here twice a week. Later, when I'm lying awake at 3 AM going over everything that went wrong, I'll realize how ironic that assignment was. But right now, I'm just trying not to look at how his fingers tap on his coffee cup, how his lips move a little when he reads, or how he seems to be in a space that is too small for him.
His name is Aurelio Santoro. His family owns half of the North End of Boston. Restaurants, real estate, and the kind of old Italian-American money that doesn't even need to say its name. He has a BMW. He wears clothes that cost more than my grandmother's rent for a month. He lives in a world that I've only read about.
My name is Cassia Monroe. Student on a scholarship. The Roxbury girl who works in the library to help pay for her books. The girl who brings her own lunch to school because the cafeteria is too expensive. The girl whose dad left before she was born and whose mom couldn't handle being a mom, so she left too.
We don't add up.
But here we are, meeting twice a week, and somehow four weeks has turned into something that feels dangerously close to friendship. Or maybe it's more than just friends. Maybe it's something I shouldn't want.
Every time, he brings me coffee. With cinnamon. I said once, in passing, that I like cinnamon in my coffee three weeks ago. And he remembered.
Aurelio Santoro and other boys like him don't remember things like that about girls like me.
But they do, it seems.
"Do you believe in it?" he suddenly asks, breaking my train of thought.
I blink. "In what?"
"Love that is not allowed." He puts down his copy of *Romeo and Juliet*. "The kind that destroys everything. The kind people write about."
The sky outside turns black. Not little by little, but all at once, like someone turned on a light. The lightning is so bright that it makes me see spots. Thunder comes right after that, and it's so loud that it shakes the building.
There aren't many people in the library now. There are only us and maybe two other students in the stacks.
My heart is doing something strange in my chest.
"I think," I say carefully, "that people mix up destruction with passion. Just because love hurts doesn't mean it's real."
"What makes it real, then?"
It starts to rain. Not slowly, but all at once, it hits the windows like it's mad, like it has something to prove. The lights flicker again, this time for a longer time. When they come back on, they are dimmer and flickering.
I should say something casual. Something that doesn't show that my heart is racing, my hands are shaking, and I've been trying to convince myself for the last four weeks that I don't feel what I clearly do.
I tell the truth instead.
I whisper, "I don't know yet."
The last student picks up their bag and runs out the door. The door slams shut behind them.
We're on our own now.
All by myself.
It was just us, the storm, and the thousands of books around us, all those stories of love and loss and people who wanted things they couldn't have.
Aurelio gets up. The movement is smooth and planned. He walks around the table and sits in the chair next to me instead of across from me, where we always sit.
We've never been this close before.
I can smell his perfume. Something that smells like cedar and costs a lot of money. It probably has a French name that I can't say. I can see the stitches in his button-down shirt, how his pulse beats in his throat, and how his hands are shaking a little where they rest on the table.
He is anxious.
Aurelio Santoro, who always seems so sure of himself and confident, is nervous.
That makes us both.
"Cassia," he says. Only my name. But the way he says it sounds like he's asking a question, giving an answer, and praying all at the same time.
Lightning strikes again, and for a moment, the whole library turns white. In that instant, I can see everything clearly: the way he's looking at me like I'm something special, the way my journal is open to a page where I've written his name in the margin without meaning to, and the way it feels like I'm about to jump off a cliff.
Thunder booms. All the lights go out.
It's completely dark.
I can hear him moving. Feel him getting closer. Close enough that I can feel the heat coming off his body and hear the slight hitch in his breathing.
He says, "I've been wanting to do this for three weeks." His voice is close by. I'm so close that I can feel his breath on my lips. "Stop me."
I need to stop this. We come from different worlds, and this can't end well. I know I'm going to get hurt.
Should keep in mind what Grandma Rosa said about guys like him. Should remember Sterling Hayes, his ex-girlfriend who is blonde, perfect, and from the right kind of family. She still looks at him like he's hers.
I should remember every book I've read where the poor girl falls for the rich boy and it ends in heartbreak.
Should, should, should.
But I don't say anything.
His lips touch mine, and everything stops.
It just stops.
The storm, the thunder, the rain pounding on the windows, and my overthinking mind all go quiet. It felt like someone hit pause on reality and left us in this perfect, impossible moment.
His hand comes up to my face, and his fingers are shaking. His other hand slides into my hair, tangling in my curls and pulling me closer. I go willingly, desperately, as if I've been waiting my whole life for this moment.
At first, the kiss is soft. Not sure. Testing. His lips are warm and unsure, as if he's asking a question with his mouth.
I kiss him back to show that I agree.
After that, it's not soft anymore. It's not uncertain. It's urgent and desperate, and I've been alone for sixteen years without even knowing it. He grips my hair tightly. I grab the front of his shirt and pull him closer, even though there's no closer to get.
I hit the bookshelf behind me with my back. I'll remember that it was the poetry section later. Neruda, Plath, Browning, and all the other poets who wrote about love as if it were a religion and the only thing that mattered.
I get it now.
I get it, God.
He kisses me like I'm air and he's drowning. Like he's been hungry and I'm food. Like this is the only thing that has ever mattered. Maybe it is, and maybe this is what all those poems were about. Maybe this is what Ms. Okonkwo meant when she said some stories need to be told.
When we finally break up—seconds later? minutes? Hours?—We're both out of breath. The lights come back on, but they are dim and flickering, making strange shadows on his face.
He puts his forehead on mine. I can feel his heart beating against my chest, and it's beating just as fast as mine.
He whispers, "I think I'm in trouble."
My voice sounds rough and worn out. "Why?"
"Because I know what I've been missing now, and I don't think I can go back to not knowing."
The thunder rolls again, this time more softly, as the storm moves away from us. But I can still feel it in my bones, the electricity in the air, and the taste of him on my lips.
The rain is still falling outside, but it's not as hard as it was before. Things have changed inside.
Every. One. Thing.
"What do I do now?" I ask. My fists are still in his shirt. His fingers are still stuck in my hair. It doesn't look like either of us wants to be the first to let go.
He pulls back just enough to see me. Look at me closely. He looks at my face like he's trying to remember everything about it, like he's afraid that if he looks away, this moment will be gone.
"Now," he says slowly and clearly, "we see where this goes."
"Where does what go?"
"This." He points to the space between us. "You and I. Whatever this is."
I can feel my heart pounding so hard that it might break my ribs. "You don't even know what this is."
"No. But I want to find out." His thumb brushes across my cheekbone, and the gentleness of it after the intensity of the kiss makes me want to cry. "Don't you?"
I guess I should say no. I need to protect myself. Remember that stories like this—scholarship girls and legacy boys—don't end well.
But now that I see him, with his hair messy, his lips swollen from kissing me, and his eyes holding something that looks dangerously like hope, I can't care about the ending.
Not yet.
"Yes," I say in a low voice. "I want to know."
Seeing his smile is like seeing the sun break through storm clouds.
He kisses me again. This time, softer. More sweet. Like a question that sounds like a promise.
My hands are still shaking as we get ready to leave this perfect bubble we've made and face the world outside.
"Can I take you home?" he asks.
I think about his BMW. About driving up to Grandma Rosa's building in Roxbury in a car that costs more than most people make in a year. About the questions she'll ask. About the look she'll give me that says she knew this was going to happen even though I didn't.
"I'll take the T," I say.
He seems upset but doesn't say anything. "Send me a text when you get home?"
"Do you have my number?"
"I've had your number for three weeks. I was just waiting for a reason to call."
That makes me smile even though I don't want to. "This is your reason?"
"Best reason I've ever had."
We walk together to the front of the library. The storm is over, and everything is now clean, wet, and somehow new. The sun is already trying to break through the clouds, which makes everything look strange and golden like it does after it rains.
He stops at the door. He looks at me like he's trying to figure out if this really happened or if he made it up.
"Cassia?"
"Yes?"
"I don't want this to be a one-time thing. I don't want to go back to being project partners who don't talk much."
My throat hurts. "What's up?"
"I want you. You. I want you. However I can have you."
His voice is so honest that it almost breaks me.
"Okay," I say. It comes out as a breath.
"Okay?"
"Okay."
His smile could brighten up the whole city.
He asks, "I'll see you tomorrow?"
"I'll be here."
"I'll get coffee."
"With cinnamon?"
"Always."
I watch him walk to his car and drive away. Then I stand there in the storm's aftermath, trying to remember how to breathe normally and figure out what just happened.
Aurelio Santoro gave me a kiss.
Aurelio Santoro wants me.
And even though I know I shouldn't, I want him back.
---
It takes forty-five minutes to get home on the T. I spend all of them replaying the kiss and touching my lips to try to convince myself it was real.
When I get to Grandma Rosa's apartment building—a three-story walk-up that always smells like someone's cooking something and the elevator hasn't worked in five years—I'm still floating.
I go up the stairs to the second floor, unlock the door, and see Grandma Rosa in the kitchen cooking. She moves around the small space with the ease of someone who has cooked in this kitchen for thirty years while humming along to the reggae station she always plays.
"Hey, baby," she says without looking back. "How was the library?"
"Good." The word sounds weird. Too high. Not bright enough.
She turns around, looks at my face, and in about two seconds, her expression goes from casual to knowing.
"Uh-huh," she says. "What happened?"
"Nothing."
"I've known you since you were two days old, Cassia Monroe. I know something happened. Now sit down and tell me."
I sit at our little kitchen table, which wobbles unless you put a folded napkin under one leg, and try to figure out how to say what I need to say.
"I have this boy," I say.
"The Italian boy? The one you've been working on the project with?"
She knows, of course. She always knows.
"Yes. Aurelio."
"How about him?"
"He kissed me in the library today."
Grandma Rosa puts down her spoon, walks over to the table, and sits across from me, paying full attention.
"And what do you think about that?"
"Scared."
"Why are you scared?"
"Because he's..." I point helplessly. "Grandma, he's from a whole different world. His family has money. Real money. And I'm... I'm me."
"And what's wrong with being yourself?"
"There's nothing wrong with me. But our worlds don't mix. You know that."
She reaches across the table and grabs my hand. Her hands are rough from years of working as a nurse, a housekeeper, or whatever else she needed to do to keep us fed and housed. But they're warm. Safe.
"Baby, I'm not going to lie to you. It's hard to date someone from a different background. People will judge you. His family might not accept you. You'll have to deal with things that hurt."
My heart sinks. "So you think I shouldn't—"
"I didn't say that," she says, squeezing my hand. "I said it's hard. But I can see how happy you are when you talk about him. There's something in your face that I haven't seen before. Maybe that's worth fighting for. Maybe that's worth the hard parts."
"But what if it doesn't go as planned?"
"What if it does?"
I don't know what to say.
She gets up and goes back to cooking. "Just be careful, baby. Guard your heart. But don't close it off completely. Sometimes the best things in life are the scary ones."
Later, in my room, which is barely big enough for a twin bed and a desk, I take out my journal. The walls are covered with quotes I've copied from books because I can't afford posters.
Since I was twelve, I've been writing in journals. Ms. Okonkwo once told us that writers write to figure out what their lives mean. That there's no worse pain than having a story inside you that you can't tell. Maya Angelou said that.
That's why I write. To make sense. To keep in mind. To be sure that this life I'm living is real.
I open a new page. Put a date on it. Look at the empty space.
Then I begin to write.
*Day One. The day Aurelio Santoro kissed me in the library while it was storming. The day that everything changed.*
*I can't find the words to describe it. The kiss, I mean. I've heard about kisses. A lot of them. In all the romance novels I sneak from the library, in all the literary fiction where love is hard, and in all the poetry where desire is dressed up in metaphor.*
*But it's not the same to read about something and feel it.
*It felt like recognition when he kissed me. Like remembering something I had forgotten. Like going home to a place I'd never been.
*Emily Brontë said, "His and mine are the same."
*I used to think that was beautiful but not possible. How can souls be alike? Everyone is different. Different choices, different lives, and different situations have shaped us.*
*But today, in that library, with the windows shaking from the thunder and the rain pounding down, I thought, "Maybe this is what she meant." Not that we are the same. But we know who each other is. That on some fundamental level, we fit.*
*I'm scared.
*Not of him. Of this. Of wanting something this badly. Of letting myself have hope.*
*Because I've read enough books to know how these stories end. The girl who got the scholarship and the boy who got the legacy. The girl who is poor and the boy who is rich. The girl from Roxbury and the boy from the North End.
*It doesn't end well.
*But I'm going to let myself hope anyway, even though my heart is still racing, my hands are still shaking, and I can still taste him on my lips.
*Only for tonight.*
*For now only.*
My phone vibrates. I grab it so quickly that I almost drop it.
**Aurelio:** Did you get home safely?
I look at the message. At the name on my screen. The fact that this is real, that it happened, and that he's texting me.
**Me:** Yes. Just got here.
**Aurelio:** Okay.
**Aurelio:** I can't stop thinking about today.
**Aurelio:** About you.
My heart is doing that thing again. That thing that is hard and impossible.
**Me:** Not me either.
**Aurelio:** I'll see you tomorrow. First thing. I'll be at your locker.
**Me:** You don't have to do that.
**Aurelio:** I understand. I want to.
**Aurelio:** Is that all right?
I think about what will happen tomorrow. About him waiting for me at my locker. About everyone seeing us as a couple. About Sterling Hayes and all the other students who will have something to say about the scholarship girl dating Aurelio Santoro.
About how much this will make things public.
About how this can't be undone.
**Me:** Yes. That's fine.
**Aurelio:** Okay. Since I'm done hiding how I feel about you.
Five times I read that message. Ten times. Until the words get blurry.
He has stopped hiding how he feels about me.
This means he has feelings.
So this isn't just a kiss. Not just a moment.
That means that everything is going to change.
I put my phone down. Look up at the ceiling of my tiny room in my tiny apartment in my tiny life.
And for tonight, I let myself think that maybe some stories about poor girls and rich boys don't end the way I think they do.
Maybe some of them end with a storm in a library.
Some of them might end with hope.
---
**Chapter One is Over**