It made me wonder what I ever saw in him.
But people changed.
Still, I didn’t understand why he was acting all Neanderthal when he obviously hated me.
Something was bugging me about the whole ordeal though. He’d brought up the party... purposefully insinuated to Joel that we’d met there.
Why?
“Josie,” I said, unable to let it go. “You know the party we went to at your brother’s house?”
“Yeah...”
“Who helped you carry me home?”
Her brows furrowed. “We already went over this. It was Brad.” The words came out smooth, and well-rehearsed, but I saw the flash of guilt in her eyes.
I narrowed my gaze. “Yeah, I know that’s what you told me... but I spoke to Zach yesterday—”
“Hold up, you spoke to Zach and didn’t tell me?”
“I needed time to process.”
She kicked off her pumps and folded her legs onto the bed. “He really gets under your skin, huh?”
“Honestly,” I let out a frustrated sigh, “I don’t think he ever left.”
“Ready to tell me what happened?”
“I...” Did I want to open the can of worms? It had taken me a long time to get over the heartache Zach had inflicted on me. I wasn’t really looking to go back to that place.
But this was college. A chance to put the past behind you.
Except my past was right here, and it felt like no matter where I turned, I couldn’t escape it.
“Zach and I met the summer before I started junior high,” I took a deep breath, readying myself for the pain that remembering brought. “He and his family were new to the area. He found me down at the beach, crying. My parents were arguing a lot. Callum was already a local protégé. He and Zach’s brother became instant friends. They bonded over their love of basketball, and me and Zach bonded over our hate of it.”
“I can’t imagine that...” She frowned.
“It’s true. When I met him, Zach had zero interest in playing. We used to hang out in the treehouse at the bottom of his yard.”
“Calli and Zach, kissing in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n—”
“Really?” Disbelief clung to the word.
“Sorry.” She ducked her head, fighting a smug smile, “continue.”
“We were inseparable. Zach struggled to make friends, and I had none, so we just gravitated to each other. We had a secret club and everything.”
“Shut up, you did not.”
I nodded. “BHS, the basketball haters society. It was totally lame, but it made me feel a part of something.” My heart ached. “I’d never had that before.”
“So, what happened?”
“At the end of eighth grade, I found out my dad had been having an affair. He announced he was moving away... and Callum announced he wanted to go too. I was devastated.
“My dad had never showed an ounce of interest in me growing up, but he was still my dad. We were still a family. I’ll never forget the look in my mom’s eyes when Callum told her. He was a junior, the star basketball player at our school, and he wanted to leave that all behind.”
To leave me behind. That had taken some getting my head around.
“He’d already been recruited by SU.”
“I can’t believe Callum just left you.”
“We were never really close. He loved basketball, and I hated it... but I was pissed he chose my dad, a liar and a cheat, over my mom.”
“Yeah, that’s rough. So Callum and your dad left and you and your mom stayed?”
I nodded again. “It was hard for her though, being a single parent, trying to balance work life and me.”
“Didn’t she get a settlement?”
“There wasn’t much. It had been a tough few years for them.” My dad had lost his job at the investment bank during the recession. He’d found something else, but with Callum’s training camps and personal trainers, it didn’t stretch far.
“That summer, after they left, was hard. I cried... a lot. But Zach was right there to wipe away my tears.”
If I closed my eyes, I could still feel the weight of his growing body curled around mine. I was only fourteen, Zach a year older, but I could remember being fascinated with his changing body. He’d shot up that summer, his arms became bulkier thanks to his father’s home gym, and his voice turned deeper.
He was a boy on the edge of becoming a man, and there was something magical about witnessing that. Something powerful knowing he chose to let me be the one to witness it.
By the time we started school again—me in ninth grade, and Zach in tenth—he had shed his lanky frame and grown into his body. I wasn’t the only girl to notice either. I spent my days watching as other girls, older girls, all tried to catch his attention. But he never once strayed from my side.
We were best friends.
Until one day, we became more.
“You were childhood sweethearts,” Josie stated as if she’d gotten it all figured out.
“I wish it were that simple,” I said around a sad smile. “We danced around each other for most of the year. I think Zach was worried because I was younger than him.”
Josie let out a disapproving groan. “By a grade.”
“Yeah but there’s almost two years age difference.”
My birthday was June tenth, and Zach’s was late August. When you were barely fifteen, and the guy you were crushing on was almost seventeen, it seemed like a big deal.
It was a big deal.
“Everything changed the following summer.”
“You had sex.”
“Almost... we almost had sex.”
We’d been fooling around all summer, learning each other’s bodies under the cover of darkness in the treehouse.
“I wasn’t ready, and I knew Zach wanted to wait until I was a hundred-percent sure. It just didn’t feel right. We weren’t even an official couple.” Even though we spent all our time together. “Declan left for college that summer and Zach finally asked me to be his. I was so relieved.”
I didn’t realize it then, but looking back, I think he’d been worried about what his brother would think. Even though Callum was gone, he and Declan were still friends. They were still our older and wiser brothers.
“This is like a soap opera.” Josie had stretched onto her stomach, her chin propped up on her fists.
“I’m glad you find my life so entertaining.”
“One of us needs some drama, because lord knows I have none.”
I wasn’t so sure about that given the way I constantly saw her watching Brad whenever he was around.
“So you went public. You’re in tenth grade and Zach’s in junior year... then what?”
“Everything was fine. I was blissfully happy.” One of those super annoying girls in love with her best friend.
“So what happened?”
“I wish I knew.” Dejection pulsed through me. “One minute everything was fine, and the next, I’m sitting in a school pep rally watching my boyfriend be announced as the new captain for the Bay View Vipers.”
“Okay... back up, I thought he didn’t play basketball.”
“He didn’t.”