Elevated

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Book: Read Elevated for Free Online
Authors: Elana Johnson
Tags: Romance, Contemporary, Young Adult, teen, dating
what she thought she might see,
    Just that she’d find it.

“REMEMBER OUR FIRST REAL DATE?”
    I don’t know why I ask,
    Now,
    In this non-moving elevator.
    Why I want to talk about this at all.
     
    “Every second.”
     
    That’s why.
     
    Trav provides the confidence I need,
    The anchor in the storminess of life,
    The promise that no matter what,
    He’ll know what to say,
    What to do.
     
    “I want to take you out again,” he says,
    “Start over. Find a new forever together.”
     
    I don’t answer,
    Can’t answer.
    So much has changed.
    Can I really start over—here?
     
    In this same,
    Stale,
    Place?
     
    With this same,
    Broken,
    Boy?
     
    I don’t know,
    But as my chest expands with a new breath,
    I feel hope—something I haven’t entertained for a long time.

DINNER WITH TRAVIS HAPPENED IN A GREASY DINER.
    I ordered my favorite food:
    Cheeseburger and fries.
    He ate the right side of the menu.
    We laughed,
    Joked,
    Talked,
    Like best friends do.
     
    We walked downtown,
    Me with my hands in my skirt pockets,
    Him with his hanging loose,
    Because I was afraid of holding his hand
    Under the wide, open sky,
    Afraid of claiming him as mine where everyone could see.
     
    In the park,
    Everything looked new and alive,
    Because I was with Travis.
    The trees towered taller than I remembered.
    The grass smelled sweeter.
    The moon shone with more silver.
     
    Everything with Travis felt higher,
    Better,
    More.
    Like I could be higher,
    Better,
    More.
    Because he was.
     
    We wandered,
    Went to a movie,
    Blasted the music in his car with the windows rolled down,
    Played with the heat waves of summer.
     
    After his typical bad parking job,
    We waited for the elevator with shy glances,
    With awkward,
    Shifting feet.
     
    Once in the security of the elevator,
    Travis and I reached for each other at the same time.
    His lips pressed warmly against mine,
    He seemed to have more than two hands.
    He cradled my face,
    Ran his fingers through my hair,
    Slipped one hand under my shirt to the small of my back.
     
    Faintly,
    From somewhere far away,
    A ding! sounded.
     
    As if in a dream,
    I felt Trav pull away,
    Heard him swear and punch one of the elevator buttons,
    Before he reclaimed my lips.
     
    After that, nothing else mattered.
     
    The next day,
    I timed how long it took to get from the lobby to Trav’s floor:
    Three minutes, twelve seconds,
    With an additional twenty-nine seconds to get to my floor.
     
    I couldn’t believe I’d only kissed him for three minutes and forty-one seconds.
     
    It felt like three lifetimes and forty-one degrees of infinity.

I’M CERTAIN IF TRAVIS COULD SEE
    What’s written on the shattered pieces of my life,
    He wouldn’t be so quick to promise me forever.
     
    There are still secrets he doesn’t know.
    If I tell him,
    I might lose him.
    Just like I lost—
     
    Enough, I scold myself.
    Dr. Tickson doesn’t believe my theory
    That the truth brings destruction.
    He says that’s not why the people I love most have experienced tragedy.
     
    Coincidence, he calls it.
     
    He doesn’t have to walk down Senior Row
    With an empty space at his side.
    Doesn’t have to see my dad lying in a hospital bed
    With legs too short.
    Doesn’t have to feel the tightening in my abdomen
    When I think of Trav.
     
    I keep the secrets bottled up,
    Unwilling to take the chance.
    I wish Travis were more like me in this respect.
     
    “I had to tell her,” he says in the elevator.
    “I made a resolution.”
     
    “Congratulations,” I say.
    Most people resolve to lose weight,
    Or get out of debt.
    Trav decided to come clean about our relationship.
    “You should’ve talked to me first.”
     
    “I didn’t give her specifics.”
     
    “She wasn’t stupid, Travis.
    You told her you’d started dating someone else.”
     
    “She was fine when I left,” he says.
     
    “She was fine?”
    I cross my arms.
    “Trust me, she wasn’t fine.”
     
    I think of Honesty’s eyes when she opened

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