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  I walk over to him, open my mouth and what comes out is... “Why don’t you ever talk to me? Do you even listen when I tell you things? Do you even care?”

  His brows shoot up.

  Oh God, that’s it, I’ve lost it. I blink, put a hand over my mouth, then turn around and walk away as quickly as I can, my face burning and heart racing.

  What am I doing? Accusing him of things when I was only going to apologize for asking private questions and invading his private space and...

  “Gigi, wait.” His deep voice startles me, but I keep going.

  I don’t even know what’s going on in my head. It’s like an explosion. My thoughts spin uselessly. I just know I need to leave, hide somewhere until things make sense again.

  “Gigi.” His hand closes around my arm, and I come to a stop, panting. “I said wait.” He turns me slowly until I’m facing him. “I listen.”

  I shake my head, not sure what he’s telling me.

  “Your best friend is Sydney,” he says. “Your favorite subjects at school are music and history. You like your fries with blue cheese dressing or ketchup. You used to live in a town called Destiny, and you don’t like living here much.”

  He talks some more, but I’m gaping at him. I can’t believe my ears. He’s been listening all along, all these days and weeks when I’ve been babbling at him, vomiting every thought and feeling, thinking he ignored me.

  And yet I can’t face him now, can’t chat. I don’t know why I still want to flee.

  But he won’t let me. His grip on my arm gentles, but never releases me. “What’s wrong?”

  I could swear there’s concern in his voice. “Merc... he’s sick,” I blurt. “And I’m worried about him.”

  He nods, and finally lets go.

  I don’t want him to let go. Merc wasn’t even the real reason for this panic attack.

  But Jarett steps away. He heads over to the lawn mower and drags it into the garden shed, and I wonder if I imagined all this.

  His hold on me, his voice, this connection between us.

  Until he returns with his sweater in his hand and gestures at the garden gate. “Wanna take a walk?”

  It makes me smile.

  He’s wrong, though, about me not liking it here.

  Sure, I didn’t like it before, but since I met him, everything’s changed.

  Since I met him, I like it here just fine, and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.

  ***

  Walking beside Jarett down our street feels natural. His usually slight limp is a bit more pronounced today. I asked him once why he limps, but he never replied. Glancing at the shape of his broad shoulders against the backdrop of trees and old houses, seeing the way his biceps bulge when he lifts a hand to shove hair out of his eyes... it’s familiar to me by now.

  Dear to me.

  He’s fascinating. A gorgeous riddle. He takes my mind off everything else—Merc, school, the past. He demands and occupies my whole attention. My whole body is attuned to his every word and move, my every nerve sings when he’s near.

  I’m happy.

  His strides are long, despite the limp, but like every time he checks himself and slows down when he realizes I’m starting to lag behind.

  He shoves his hands into his pant pockets, shoots me a smirk.

  Says nothing.

  And that feels natural, too. That’s how he is. Letting the silence settle between us. Waiting for me to break it.

  “So...” I tug my ponytail over my shoulder and chew on the end. “Life okay with the Lowes?”

  His brows go up. He shrugs. Kicks at a pebble.

  Right.

  “How is having Sebastian as a brother?”

  He glares briefly at the street ahead, then huffs.

  Okay...

  My mind keeps returning to his hand gripping my arm, so warm and strong, to his words. He was trying to keep me there, convince me to stay.

  He wants me here, with him.

  I have to remember that, when he’s quiet.

  And then he says, “They’re okay. Too good for the likes of me.”

  He speaks! But then his words sink in. “You can’t seriously think that. You’re great, Jarett—”

  He shakes his head so vehemently I fall silent again.

  This conversation thing isn’t working out today. So I fall back on my habit of talking about everything and nothing—about school, and Mom, and Sydney who has so many boys following her around and I don’t get it, like how can you be just friends if you’re a boy and a girl?

  “Sydney always said that it’s something that almost never happens, you know?” I mutter, mostly to myself. “A girl and a boy, just friends. Almost never,” I repeat, thoughtful. “No idea why.”

  I realize he’s stopped walking and I turn to face him.

  He has a light flush on his cheekbones, an intensity in his green eyes, and a flicker of fear lights them up right before he turns around and starts walking back.

  “Hey.” I take two steps after him but he doesn’t turn around. “Jarett!”

  He doesn’t even slow down this time. He keeps going until he vanishes between the trees, leaving me to stare after him, hurt and confused.

  What was that about, huh?

  Boys.

  And this particular boy is the most confusing of all.

  Chapter Five

  Jarett

  “Jarett!” Mrs. Lowe’s voice calls through the house. “Jarett, come down here now!”

  No fucking way. Sitting on the ledge of my attic room window, legs hanging out, I draw on my cigarette and contemplate the street.

  Empty.

  A metaphor for my life, or some shit like that, I’m sure. Mrs. James keeps harping about metaphors in English class. As if I care. As if it matters.

  Literature.

  Or my life.

  “Jarett!” Mrs. Lowe’s voice is getting louder. “I know you’re up there. We need to talk.”

  What about? About how they’d be sending me packing?

  Oh shit, she’s coming up.

  She knocks. That’s fucking ridiculous. This is her house.

  I suck on my cigarette, inhaling the bitter smoke.

  “Open this door, Jarett,” she says from outside, and strangely she’s not shouting anymore. “Open this door now.”

  Or what?

  I stab the glowing embers into the sill and throw the cigarette down the roof. I watch it tumble, tiny pinpricks of red in the gathering darkness.

  “Please, Jarett,” she says from behind the door. “Let me in.”

  My throat closes and I have no fucking idea why. I’m eighteen, for fuck’s sake. I don’t need gentleness. I’ve learned to fight for my place in the world.

  But for some reason I swing my legs inside and close the window.

  Then I open the door.

  Mrs. Lowe gives me a watery smile. I hate her wet cheeks, her red-rimmed eyes. Hate I made her cry.

  Hate that I give a damn.

  I lean against the door frame, folding my arms over my chest, and school my face into a bored expression. “What is it?”

  “Look.” I see her try to school hers yours, and fail. “May I come in?”

  I step aside, giving a mental eye-roll. “It’s your house,” I mutter.

  She walks inside, wringing her hands together. “It’s yours, too.”

  I shrug. Yeah, right.

  Mrs. Lowe is a short, plump woman with deep wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and mouth. Her hair is a washed-out dyed blond, her eyes a washed-out blue, like her son’s.

  She’s usually quiet, and kind, and foreign to me, as distant as the far side of the moon.

  “Come sit here,” she says, sitting down on my unmade bed and patting the mattress beside her.

  I don’t budge. I watch her, waiting to hear the verdict. My bag is under the bed, all packed. My phone’s in my pocket. I realize I’ve been waiting for months for this moment—when the look of disappointment would enter my n
ew foster parents’ eyes.

  Only this time the social services won’t arrive to take me away. I’ve turned eighteen. I’m on my own, but that doesn’t scare me.

  Nah. Fuck no.

  My heart is racing, betraying me. My palms are sweating. I lower my hands and wipe the sweat off on my jeans, hoping she won’t notice.

  “Why don’t you tell me what happened today?” she asks quietly.

  I snort. “What do you think?”

  “I want you to tell me.”

  “Like it will make a fucking difference?”

  “Language, Jarett,” she says.

  Fuck that. “There’s no fucking point.”

  She sighs. “Tell me.”

  “I got into a fight. That what you want to hear? Beat Nelson Wells to a pulp. I broke his nose. Fucking shit deserved it and more.”

  And there it is, the disappointed look in her eyes.

  Didn’t take long.

  But strangely... she doesn’t send me away. I wait and wait for her to corner me and say something, for Mr. Lowe to come up, too, and have a talk with me, but nothing.

  In fact, by the next day she seems to have forgotten the whole episode. I have no idea what it means.

  It took a while to connect the pieces, and by then, it was too late. Truth is, it was too late all along.

  For her, and for me.

  ***

  It’s some days later, and I’m smoking in the school yard after classes when I hear Gigi call my name.

  “Rett? What’s up?”

  I’ve been avoiding her but here she is, approaching me warily, her backpack slung over one shoulder, her red coat making her face glow.

  I don’t wanna look. I hate that she’s calling me that, that she has a nickname for me.

  I like it.

  It’s ridiculous.

  It’s nice.

  Fuck it, it doesn’t matter, cuz I don’t wanna talk—to her or anyone. The goddamn anniversary is coming up, the date Connor died, plus things have been sort of weird at the Lowes’ house. I don’t know if I’m imagining things but I somehow have a bad feeling in my gut.

  I trust my bad feeling. It always comes true.

  “Rett,” she says again, low and patient, and it only fuels the low-level anger that’s been simmering in my chest for the past few days, fanning it into fury.

  Funny how my fear often turns to anger. It’s a well-worn path in my mind.

  “Fuck off.” I throw my smoke away and turn on my heel to go, resisting the pull she always has on me. It’s a sweet rope around my neck, a grip around my goddamn dick, tying me to her. “I’m busy.”

  “Come on. Don’t do this.” She’s coming after me, and I wanna stop and grab her in my arms, bury my face in her neck and draw in her sweet scent, hold her until my world stops spinning out of orbit and it all settles.

  But the damn anniversary is tomorrow, the anniversary when I lost everything for the second time in my life, and everything I lost is a weight in my chest, in my heart, a lump of lead that I can’t shake.

  Or maybe it’s a premonition of more bad things to come. Who can tell? I always expect bad things to happen. They tend to rain down on me on a semi-regular basis.

  “Rett, stop.” Her small hand latches on my arm, and then I’m dragging her along in my flashflood of anger and sorrow. “Stop!”

  I stop.

  I’m breathing hard, and it’s not as if I was running. Her hold on me seems to be the only thing preventing me from sinking into the ground.

  “What’s wrong?” she whispers. “Talk to me. You’ve avoided me for days. You have hardly ever come to class. What’s going on?”

  Although I don’t want to, I shake her hand off me. “Nothing.”

  I can’t tell her. Can’t tell her of my fears, the bouts of panic that wake me up in a cold sweat and keep me up all night. I’m afraid... afraid I’ll lose everyone.

  So I can’t have anyone. You can’t lose what you don’t have, right?

  “You shouldn’t miss so many classes,” she’s saying. “Were you sick? There’s this bug going around, the one Merc caught last week. Were you—?”

  “I’m fine.” I shove a hand through my hair. “Look, I’m not good at anything. There’s no use in my coming to school, I fucking suck at it. I’m not sure I’ll finish.”

  “I’m sure you can do it.”

  I glance at her, surprised. Nobody has told me that since Connor. Sure, the Lowes keep nagging at me to study and work harder, but this trust...

  It distracts me.

  She distracts me. All the time.

  I wish I could let her, but right now it’s all I can do to keep breathing.

  Forcing air into my lungs, I set off again, my only thought to get off the school grounds, maybe hop on a bus and go into town, or out of town even, out into the unknown. Why the hell not?

  It’s not until I’ve made it to the school gate that I realize she’s followed me. I swear, this girl doesn’t know how to quit.

  “Now tell me.” She nudges me with her bony elbow and shoots me a faint smile. “You know you can talk to me, right? God knows I talk your ear off on a daily basis. I can be a good listener.”

  I grunt at her. Doesn’t she get that I don’t wanna talk?

  But of course this is Gigi, and she blinks at me with those ridiculous, big eyes of hers, sticking her tongue out a little, and the words just rush out of me, and I’m fucking helpless to stop them.

  “It’s just that... It’s a bad time, and Mrs. Lowe has been acting weird, and I’m so damn worried.”

  Fuck. I rub a hand over my face and snap my mouth shut.

  That’s stupid. She’s fine. Everything’s fine, even the dark mood Mr. Lowe seems to be in lately, and Sebastian’s tantrums.

  “Acting weird, how?”

  “Know what, forget it.”

  “Just tell me, Jarett. We’re friends, or we aren’t. Friends talk to each other, okay? Take it from me.”

  Again that friends thing. I’m friendzoned, it seems, and instead of being shocked she still wants to be my friend, to be around me when I’m such an asshole, I want more.

  Goddammit.

  “She’s forgetting stuff, and insisting she doesn’t, and I just...” I shove my hands into my pockets, roll my stiff neck. “It’s nothing.”

  “It bothers you.”

  “Jesus, Gigi, lay off it.” She flinches at my angry bark, and I... fuck, I don’t know what to do with the twisty feeling in my chest. “Look, it’s just that... it’s the anniversary of the death of someone I used to know.”

  “Who? I’m sorry, Jarett.”

  Fuck. I kick at the school fence, then again for good measure, before walking on, trying to ignore the pressure in my chest and the shaking in my arms.

  “Come,” Gigi suddenly says, grabbing my elbow and pulling me in the other direction.

  Where is she going? That’s not where the bus stop is.

  I let her lead me away, because I don’t wanna talk, or think, and the feel of her hand on me calms me as much as it excites me. Either way, it keeps the demons at bay. She always casts that spell on me. I stare at her blond ponytail bouncing as she leads me determinedly away from the school, from our predetermined path, toward the unknown.

  ***

  She takes me to a small diner I’ve only ever passed outside but never entered before. Inside it smells of coffee, melted cheese and fried bacon, and when she drags me to a table in the back, I follow, my sleep-deprived brain stuck on the brightness of her hair and the shape of her so close, so fucking close to me.

  I can’t process the fact that I’m here, with her, when five minutes ago I was sinking in the spinning eddy of my dark thoughts.

  I force myself to sit down, moving away from her, breaking the lifeline of her touch. “What the hell are we doing here?”

  “Having coffee.” She says it like it’s the most natural thing in the world. She lifts a hand to stop my protests when I open my mouth. “I’m teaching you
how friendship works, okay? Let me do the honors.”

  What is she talking about?

  Amusement creeps through my dark mood when she waves at the waitress and then proceeds to order coffee and pancakes for both of us. Taking charge. Sort of...controlling me, mothering me, like I’m a baby.

  She’s so damn cute, and yeah, when she shrugs off her coat and tugs on her sweater, my eyes dip to her cleavage.

  Can’t fucking help myself. I love looking at girls, love their tits and their curves, their smooth skin and their smell, but I’ve never felt as helpless as with her.

  That should have been my warning, but it got lost in all the bad swimming around in my head.

  “Hey, Rett.” She smiles. “You like pancakes, don’t you?”

  She keeps calling me that annoying nickname that I like hearing when it comes from her.

  This is nuts.

  “I’ll feed you at least.” She sighs, props her chin on her hand and gazes at me. “What is it with you boys that you don’t like it when people try to take care of you? Merc won’t let me look after him, won’t let me help him, but at least I’ll look after you.”

  “I don’t need looking after,” I scoff.

  But I can’t meet her gaze when I say it, cuz I like her being here, talking to me, and I’ll be damned before I admit it.

  The waitress pours us tall mugs of coffee and then brings the pancakes and bacon, and I dig in, suddenly famished.

  I’ve inhaled two pancakes and going for a third, when I catch sight of her making faces at me, showing me her teeth full of pancake.

  I can’t help it. I give a sharp bark of laughter. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  She chews thoughtfully, and swallows. “Did you notice that doing what others tell you to do doesn’t always work out?”

  I lift a questioning brow at her, taking a huge bite of pancake.

  “Like, everyone tells you that you should eat with your mouth closed. But have you noticed that if you eat with your mouth open, everything tastes so much better?”

  I look into her wide eyes and laugh. I laugh so hard I almost choke on the pancake. And then I laugh some more when she snickers.

  This girl will be the death of me. And man, what a way to go.

  Chapter Six

  Gigi

  “So where’s your crush today?” Sydney asks me as we put our books in our lockers after school.