Absolute Brightness by James Lecesne

and there was no one else around. It was up to me to step up to the plate.
    â€œIf I don’t get that money clip back right now,” I told them, “both of you are dead meat.”
    Anyone with half a working brain cell could tell you that threatening Travis Lembeck was not a smart idea. Not in public. Not anywhere. Ever. But I couldn’t just stand by and let him and his henchman, Curtis, walk away with Leonard’s lousy clip.
    â€œThat’s right, Lembeck,” I said, moving closer to where he and Curtis were standing. “I’m talking to you.” And then I added, “Now.”
    I reached out my hand expecting him to fork over the clip. I could almost hear him thinking, Who does she think she is ? When nothing happened, I realized that he was in shock. He never would have predicted that I had it in me to do such a thing. Then the right side of his face resumed its usual sneer, and he looked at me out of one narrowed eye.
    â€œReally? And what if I don’t feel like giving it up?”
    â€œNo problem. I just report it stolen and give the police a couple of names.”
    There was a moment when everything just hung in the air between us. I thought Travis might haul off and hit me in the head. Curtis kept looking back and forth from Travis to me, from me to Travis. This was making me very nervous, because I knew that Travis was going to have to do something in order to prove to Curtis that he was still the alpha idiot.
    â€œTell you what,” Travis finally said. “How ’bout I give you the clip and then you get to be the one who’s dead meat. How’s that?”
    â€œWhatever.”
    I was suddenly a cartoon superhero with cartoon superhero powers. I felt that I was able to see through the cloth of Travis’s down parka and into his sorry little pocket—some stray lint, a few bits of loose tobacco, coins, an old butterscotch-flavored LifeSaver, and a pack of matches were all nestled up against Leonard’s money clip. I just knew it was there and I wanted it.
    I had no way of making Travis give it to me. Not really. Leonard’s sob story about how his mother had given him this useless thing would never sway the likes of Travis and Curtis. I just kept thinking, What next? What next? And then a new thought occurred to me. What if I had miscalculated my move, what if I was in the middle of leaping a tall building in not quite a single bound, what if I didn’t know what I was doing? I wasn’t sure if it was the fright, but my legs began to wobble beneath me, and my shoes felt like they were shrinking as I stood there for what seemed like forever.
    â€œSo, you queer, too?” Travis asked me.
    â€œExcuse me?” I heard him all right, but I needed some time to think about how to answer.
    â€œYou heard him,” Curtis piped in. “Wants to know if you’re a lesbo.”
    And then Curtis let out a squeal of girlish laughter that shook his middle and forced tears to his piggy eyes.
    That’s when I made my move. I’m not even sure how it happened; I was just there, attached to Travis’s mouth. Leonard gasped with surprise, or maybe it was horror. Curtis lost control of his shopping bag, and it landed with a clank on the pavement. He had stopped laughing and just stood there watching me kiss his friend. Travis went rigid for a minute and tried to pull away from me. But his mouth had developed a mind of its own, and I could feel him kissing me back. His tongue, small and darty and fully alive to the possibilities, was busy leading him forward, into the future and closer to me. He tasted like an aluminum measuring cup or those old canteens from our camping days with my dad. I also caught a whiff of tobacco that clung to his hair and skin, and the smell of him, a surprising mix of chocolate milk and hard candy.
    â€œWhoa,” I heard Curtis mutter in the background.
    When I stepped back, Travis looked like a totally