How to Say I Love You Out Loud (25 page)

Then I introduce Alex to Phillip. Alex is as kind, compassionate, and genuine as I’d expect him to be.

Phillip is as . . . well, Phillip as I’d expect him to be. And that’s okay. I’m not bothered. I’m not bothered at all.

After Alex and I eat, I allow him to coerce me onto the dance floor for more silly selections, like the Cupid Shuffle and some other group dance I’d never bothered to learn.

I roll my eyes at Alex as I agree to join him. “I guess so. As long as we’re just being ironic.”

“Get over yourself, Michaelson.” Alex wraps his arms around me as he nudges me toward the dance floor. “This is fun and you know it.”

For the second time that night I consider how much I’d really like this boy to kiss me.

It’s a pretty great night, and by the time it’s over, I can hardly remember my state of mind when I told my mom what an absolutely awful idea the Sparkle Ball was. We have so much
fun, Alex and I, competing against each other at the carnival games and stuffing our faces with funnel cake fries dripping with powdered sugar.

Alex came down on the train and my parents invite him to ride home in the limo with us. So just before the ball ends at eleven o’clock, he walks me to the coat closet to collect my wrap.
The attendant has left for the evening, and before we walk inside to find my wrap, Alex’s head whips back and forth across the empty lobby. He licks his lips once and then pulls me hurriedly
inside.

We are bathed in near darkness and I find myself following Alex’s lead until my back is pressed against a soft wall of wool, tweed, and something that feels a lot like fur.

Alex’s hands find my hips. My throat dries up at once and my heart takes off like a freight train, knowing the moment is here, knowing I’ll no longer just be
thinking
about
kissing Alex. I’ll actually be kissing Alex.

The irony of it all dawns, and I start running my mouth, nervous. “What is it with you and closets?” I croak.

Alex lowers his lips to my ear and I can hear him smirking in the darkness. “Truth be told, I hate closets.”

His mouth grazes my earlobe, sending an onslaught of chills down my spine. His fingertips dance over my hip bones. “I have a conditioned fear of closets, actually.” Alex raises his
head, finding the other side of my neck with his lips. He plants the smallest of kisses there and I hear my breath vibrating in the air between us. “One time, this girl completely crushed me
inside a closet.”

He brushes his forehead back and forth across mine, and we are sharing the same breath now, and I know within a matter of seconds, Alex will kiss me.

Only I don’t want him to because it’s time for me to make a move. It’s time for me to
finally
make a move.

My hands find his jaw in the darkness. “This girl has regretted that moment a million times over,” I whisper. “This girl is really sorry.”

Then I bring his face all the way to mine. I kiss Alex.

It is not the intense, all-consuming kiss from last summer. It is a soft spark rather than a raging fire, all gentle lips, traces of powdered sugar, and soft hands. It’s perfection.

Then Alex rests his forehead on my shoulder. “The thing that broke my heart about your speech,” he begins, “was that part where you said how hard it is to say ‘I love
you’ knowing that you’ll never hear it back. . . .”

He brushes the hair back from my face, continuing to whisper to me. His hands are trembling. “You should know . . . you should know . . .”

It is one more thing I don’t want to make him do first.

“Just wait a minute,” I whisper.

I think how he was brave enough to confront me in the parking lot, how honest he was, how he shared with me all the things he saw in me last summer.

I lace my fingers back through his and hold his hands against my heart. “I noticed you, too, you know. Last summer. I saw you, too. I remember the very first second I laid eyes on you, how
your smile was pure sunshine and how you’d share it with anyone.” I let go of his hands and trace his lips with my fingers, feeling them part softly at my touch.

“I noticed how kind your heart was. And I knew at once how rare, and special, and good you were.” My hand slips down to his chest, inside his lapel, and I actually
feel
his
heart pounding in response to my words.

Tears fill my throat, and they are a mixture of happy and sad, regret and hope. “I remember falling in love with my best friend.” I pull his head closer to mine. I whisper into his
ear. “I’ve never stopped. I loved you right away and I’ve never stopped.”

His response is an exhalation of relief and joy. “I love you, too, Jordyn. Thank you for
finally
letting me say it out loud.”

We find each other again in the darkness.

Our second kiss is the one I remember, the one I’ve longed for for over a year. It is starched cotton crushed against taffeta, my hands running over the planes of his strong back as I
claim his body with no fear of the consequences. It is heartbeat matching heartbeat, as they both take off, ignited by the fire that sparks between us. We fumble in our attempts to get close
enough, determined to close the distance that never should have existed in the first place.

My life might never be perfect, but I’m really glad it’s mine. I happen to really like my life now, too much to care about what anyone else has to say about it. I like it enough to
fight for it.

Holding Alex’s hand, I pull him out of the dark room, ready to take on the world. Together.

Jean Feiwel and Holly West, I will never be able to fully convey my gratitude. I understand there is great happiness in making “the call,” and I can only tell you,
it increases exponentially at the receiving end. Thank you for giving me this opportunity when the Swoon imprint was still young, and for your faith and support along the way. Zoey Peresman,
I’m extremely grateful for your enthusiasm and contributions to this project. Allison Verost, thank you—as promised. A good margarita is never forgotten. To the rest of the Swoon team,
thank you for your warmth and excitement about my story, for whipping it into shape and making it look pretty. I’m honored to be associated with such an innovative, energetic, and creative
team.

Capturing emotions in words is a passion of mine, and I am so thankful for this opportunity to have a voice. I want to acknowledge all the students I’ve met who struggle to understand the
world of words around them and convey their basic needs, let alone more complex thoughts and feelings. You are brave, you are amazing. I am humbled by the strength of your spirits. It is my hope
that in some small way, I have shared my voice with you and adequately captured some of your challenges and victories.

I’ve made several writing buddies along the way, and I can count on one hand those who have become true partners. Anna H., Jackie C., and Krysti H., thank you for your willingness to read
anything I ever sent you, sometimes for the hundredth time. Thank you for keeping the faith, for saying over and over again “and you
will
get published someday,” and for being
the reason for me to believe this assertion when I had no other reason to. You have a special place in my heart, right next to khakis and caribou and peppermint mochas.

Theresa H., Jen D., and Sally W., thank you for sharing your talents, opinions, time, and support. Thank you for never once making this feel like a competition, for always being so quick in
responding, and for being awesome in general. Your friendship is swoonworthy and then some. Sandy H., Jenny E., Katie V., Temple W., and Kim K.—thank you all for being so uniquely cool and
collectively supportive. I’m thrilled to be a part of this group.

CC, thank you for being my go-to girl every single day. Your support and friendship is invaluable.

Finally, thank you to my family: my nan, who always took pride in my artistic endeavors and told me I was “clever.” Thank you to my parents and brother, who shared the attitude that
everything I did was sort of amazing, naturally. This may not have always been the case, but their belief instilled a deep-rooted confidence (and stubbornness) in my ability to accomplish anything
I wanted to achieve. Thank you to my Hamill/Feldman family members, for supporting me and this story in so many ways. Thank you, James, for handling my aspirations with such care, respect, and
seriousness. For every way you supported me, every step of the way. Thank you to my kiddos, for inspiring new levels of love on a daily basis and helping me understand and write the parent
perspective in this story. With a little princess in a shimmering blue gown routinely belting out “have faith in your dreams and someday, your rainbow will come smiling through,” how
could I ever stop working toward mine? For all of this and more, my deepest appreciation—I love you all.

with author Karole Cozzo and her editor, Holly West

“About the Author”

Holly West (HW): What was the very first romance novel you ever read?

Karole Cozzo (KC): I was thinking about this and what stands out in my head in terms of teen romance is the
Ocean City
series by Katherine Applegate. I just remember
thinking they were so hot and scandalous when I was a teenager, particularly the second book,
Love Shack.
My friends and I were all reading them and they were the epitome of hot summer
romance novels at that age.

HW: This is one of my favorite questions: If you were a superhero, what would your superpower be?

KC: I gave this one some thought and right now if I had a superpower it would be to expand time. So for every hour of normal time, I would be able to stretch it out so that it
was about three hours of time in my world. So I could actually get all the things done that I want to get done in a given day.

HW: That is a
fabulous
superpower. If you were stranded on a desert island, who or what would you want for company?

KC: I was laughing about this with my husband, because when we were on our honeymoon, he actually opened a coconut for me using nothing but a seashell, and this was a really
impressive feat he’s never forgotten. So I guess if I were stranded on a desert island, somebody having that skill would be good to have around. Otherwise, I might just take my best friend
because we both really need a vacation.

“The Swoon Reads Experience”

HW: How did you first learn about Swoon Reads?

KC: I got an email before the site started, probably because I was on the National Novel Writing Month website, and had done some work over there. I saw the initial email coming
out a few months before the site actually went live, and I just kept checking around because I was really excited for it to get started and be up and running.

HW: I remember that you were one of the earliest members on the site. But not with
How to Say I Love You Out Loud.
Originally, you had uploaded something
called the Broken trilogy. Why don’t you talk a little bit about your original experience on the site?

KC: I really liked being one of the earlier people to be a part of the site launch because a community formed quickly among the earlier users. There are people from that
original group that I still talk to everyday. So it’s awesome in that way because I picked up a lot of writing companions. It felt very interactive at that point because it was a nice, small,
contained group and everyone was talking with everyone and reading each other’s stuff. That was a really good thing to be a part of.

And all along, there was a lot of thoughtful feedback. Once you get past the initial just-wanting-to-hear-that-people-like-your-story-and-like-your-writing, you really start to value the
constructive criticism. There was actually a little bit of a thrill to it because it was like, “Ooh, a new tool. Something new to work with or a new angle to pursue.” And people are
pretty good about posting constructive criticism in addition to just the positive stuff. I’ve always had a really good experience on Swoon.

HW: What made you decide to take down
Broken
and post
How to Say I Love You Out Loud
?

KC: I really tried to be responsive to the information that I’d learned about the genre. I tend to want to write these long, sweeping, very slow, realistic progression
stories.
Broken
itself was very long (three long novels) and I decided I really wanted to try playing by the rules. I wanted to take everything I’d heard about including too many
details or having too slow of a buildup and really challenge myself and see if I could do it. So, from the beginning I outlined and set up
How to Say I Love You Out Loud
to work better as
a standalone that was somewhere in the appropriate word range. For me, writing a shorter story was a huge accomplishment and I was really proud and excited to be able to share something totally
different.

“About the Book”