Tonight is Our History

As soon as he touched her, he wondered how he'd gone this long without doing it. He rubbed his thumb through her palm and up her fingers, and was aware of her every breath.

Park had held hands with girls before. Girls at Skateland. A girl at the ninth-grade dance last year. (They'd kissed while they waited for her dad to pick them up.) He'd even help Tina's hand back when they "went" together in the sixth grade.

And always before, it had been fine. Not much different from the holding Josh's hand when they were little kids crossing the street. Or holding his grandma's hand when she took him to church. Maybe a little sweatier, a little more awkward.

When he'd kissed that girl last year, with his mouth dry and eyes mostly open, Park had wondered if maybe there was something wrong with him.

He'd even wondered-seriously, while he was kissing her, he'd wondered this-whether he might be gay.