Shortly after the fireworks ended and the darkness settled across the pasture again, most of the town had already packed up and gone home.

My mom found me with Bray, Lissa, and Mitchell.

“Time to go,” she said, standing over me.

Bray was lying next to me, her head pressed against the side of my shoulder. I hadn’t really noticed it much, but my mom sure did. I saw a look in her eye—upside down, since she was standing behind us, which made that look all the more scary—that I’d never seen before. I raised myself up from the grass and turned around to face her.

“Can’t I stay and hang out a while longer?”

“No, Elias, I have to work in the morning. It’s already late.” She gestured with her free hand for me to get up and follow.

Reluctantly, I did as I was told.

“Oh come on, please, Ms. Kline?” Mitchell said on the other side of me, looking goofy with a front tooth missing and a light brown mullet lying against the back of his T-shirt. “I’ll walk home with him.”

Mitchell was a year older than me, but I did not need him to walk me home. This made me mad, probably because it embarrassed me in front of Bray.

I glared at Mitchell, and he looked back at me with apologetic eyes.

“I’ll see you guys later,” I said.

I took the ice chest from my mom to relieve her of some of the load she was carrying, and I followed her through the pasture toward our truck parked along the dirt road. Aunt Janice waved good-bye and sputtered away in her old beat-up Corsica.

My mom went to bed right after we got home. She was the manager at a hotel and rarely got any time off. My dad lived in Savannah. They had divorced three years ago. But I had a great relationship with them both. I often stayed at my dad’s in the summer, except this year he had to go to Michigan for his job, so I was staying with my mom all summer for the first time since their divorce.

I think it was fate. Bray never would’ve ended up outside my bedroom window that night, tapping on the glass with the tip of her finger, if my dad hadn’t gone to Michigan. I wondered how she knew where I lived but I never asked, figuring Mitchell or Lissa must’ve told her.

“You’re already in bed?” Bray asked with mock disbelief as she looked up at me.

I raised the window the rest of the way, and the humid summer air rushed in past me.

“No. I’m just in my room. What are you doin’ out here?”

A sly little grin crept up on the edges of Bray’s lips. “Want to go swimming?” she asked.

“Swimming?”

“Yeah. Swimming.” She crossed her arms and cocked her head to one side. “Or are you too chicken to sneak out?”

“I’m not afraid to sneak out.”

Actually, I kind of am. If my mom catches me she’ll whip me with the fly swatter.

“Then come on,” she said, waving at me. “Prove it.”

A challenge. Fly swatter or not, I couldn’t back down from a challenge or she’d never let me live it down. She’d go to school and turn my friends against me. The whole town would think I was a chicken afraid of his mommy, and I’d grow up an outcast and never have a girlfriend. I’d end up homeless and die an old man living underneath a bridge—these are the things my mom told me would happen to me if I ever dropped out of school.

OK, so I was overthinking this whole sneaking-out thing.

I bit down on my bottom lip, thought about it for a moment. When I noticed Bray about to start running that mouth of hers again, I tossed one leg over the windowsill and hopped outside, landing in a smooth, crouched position, which I was quite proud of.

Bray grinned, grabbed my hand, and pulled me along with her away from my house.

Admittedly, I thought of the fly swatter all the way back to the pond in the pasture.

Chapter Two Elias

Bray was so free-spirited, she didn’t seem to have a worry in the world. I noticed this about her the moment we reached the outskirts of the pasture and she broke away from me and ran out toward it. Her arms were raised high above her head, as if she was reaching for the stars. Her laughter was infectious, and I found myself laughing right along with her as I ran behind her. We jumped off the end of the little rickety dock and hit the water with a loud splash. She didn’t even stop to take off her flip-flops, nor I my shirt, beforehand.

We swam for a while, and I splashed her in the face every chance I got, until she finally had enough and swam back to the dock.

“Have you ever kissed a girl before?” Bray asked, taking me by surprise.

I glanced nervously at her to my left; we both moved our feet back and forth in the water.

“No. Have you?”

Her shoulder bumped against mine hard, and she giggled and made a horrible face at me.

“No way. I wouldn’t kiss a girl. Talk about gross.”

I laughed, too. Really, I didn’t realize what I had said until after she pointed it out; I was too blindsided by the kissing topic to notice. But I played it off smoothly as though I was just being weird.

“I’ve never kissed a boy,” she said.

There was an awkward bout of silence. Mostly the awkwardness was coming from me, I was sure. I swallowed and looked out at the calm water. Every now and then I heard a random firework pop off in the distance somewhere. And the song of crickets and frogs surrounded us.

Not knowing what to say, or if I was supposed to say anything at all, I finally added, “Why not?”

“Why not what?”

“Why haven’t you kissed a boy before?”

She looked at me suspiciously. “Why haven’t you kissed a girl before?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. I just haven’t.”

“Well, maybe you should.”

“Why?”

“I dunno.”

Silence. We stared out at the water together, both of us with our hands braced against the dock’s edge, our bodies slumped between our shoulders, our feet moving steadily in the water and pushing poetic ripples outward across the surface.

I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, right next to the corner of her mouth.

She blushed and smiled, and I knew my face must’ve been bright red, but I didn’t care and I didn’t regret it.

I wanted to do it again.

Next thing I knew, Bray jumped up from the dock and ran back out into the pasture.

“Fireflies!” she shouted.

I stood up and watched her run away from me beneath the dark star-filled sky and she grew smaller and smaller. Hundreds of little green-yellow dots of light blinked off and on out in the wide-open space.

“Come on, Elias!” Her voice carried my name on the wind.

I knew I’d never forget this night. I couldn’t have understood why back then, but something within me knew. I would never forget it.

I ran out after her.

“We should’ve brought a jar!” She kept reaching out her hands, trying to catch one of the fireflies, but she was always a second too late.

On my third try, I caught one and held it carefully in the hollow of both hands so that I wouldn’t crush it.

“Oh, you got one! Let me see!”

I held my hands out slowly and Bray looked inside the tiny opening between my thumb and index finger. Every few seconds my hand would light up with a dull glow and then fade again.

“So pretty,” she said, wide-eyed.

“Just like you,” I said, though I had no idea what made me say that. Out loud, anyway.

Bray just smiled at me and looked back down into my hand.

“OK, let it go,” she said. “I don’t want it to die.”

I opened my hands and held them up, but the firefly just stayed there crawling across the ball of my thumb. I leaned in to blow on it and its tiny black wings finally sprang to life and it flew away into the darkness.