“What do Blair and Vincent have to do with any of this?”
“Everything!” I snap before I can stop myself. “Your parents… if you only knew…”
“Knew what? What really happened last summer?” She jumps on the fragment of truth, clinging to it before it slips away. “I know there’s more to the story. More than just your accident. Something doesn’t add up. My mother told me you came to the house to drop off that letter…” Her voice breaks when she mentions it, as though just thinking about the things I wrote still causes her deep pain. “I caught her in the lie, and now she won’t tell me anything more. Won’t even discuss the matter.”
“Blair Valentine isn’t being cooperative? Shocker.”
“You’re one to talk.”
“Do yourself a favor — leave it alone. It’s ancient history.”
“Ancient history?” Her voice rises another octave. “Maybe for you, but not for me. I think I deserve to know why you lied to me about going to All-Star camp. Why you didn’t tell me about your accident. Why you broke my goddamn heart in that letter. And don’t tell me it was to protect me from Jaxon’s shady friends or keep me from getting dragged into danger.”
“Your heart must not have been too badly broken,” I mutter darkly. “Seeing as you moved to Switzerland and immediately fell into bed with someone else.”
She slaps me — a hard, clear hit across the cheek. I flinch, more in surprise than any actual pain. Judging by the stunned look on Jo’s face, she’s just as caught off guard by her actions as I am. “Oh, god, I—”
I rub at my smarting cheekbone. “I probably deserved that.”
“No, you didn’t. I shouldn’t have… I’m sorry.” Her bottom lip is trembling; she sinks her teeth into it to stop the quivers. Reaching up to brush at her face, she clears the mix of rain and tears from her cheek. “Not that it’s any of your business,” she says stiffly. “But I didn’t fall into bed with anyone. And even if I had… you don’t get to be pissed about it. You don’t get to judge me for how I pieced myself back together this past year. Not when you’re the one who broke me.”
“I’m sorry. I was out of line. I don’t have any right to talk about your love life.”
There’s a tense moment of silence. We’re both drenched. There’s water pooling in my sneakers, dripping down my neck. My white shirt has gone completely see-through, plastered against every plane of my chest. I hold Jo’s gaze, watching as a shiver moves through her body. The water has sculpted her sundress against her every curve. Loose tendrils of hair frame her face. The summer sunshine has exposed a riot of freckles across the bridge of her nose.
She looks so beautiful, standing there.
A single bright spot against the dull, gray landscape all around us.
A supernova in the bleak, bottomless universe.
And I’m a fucking black hole.
“Go home, Jo.”
Her teeth set in a stubborn clench. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me the truth. I don’t care if I have to stand out here in the rain all night.”
“Suit yourself.” I turn to walk away from her, up the front stairs to my apartment. She races around me, beating me there, blocking my path with her petite frame. Standing on the bottom step, she looks directly into my face with defiance etched across her features. We’re eye-to-eye.
“You don’t get to walk away from me,” she tells me plainly. “Not this time. You don’t get to push me away. I’m not going.”
“Don’t you get it? You don’t belong here.” I gesture around me at the block, with its overgrown grass and cracked asphalt. Josephine Valentine fits in here about as well as her convertible. “You belong back at Cormorant House. You belong with a guy who’ll make your life easier — not complicate it even more.”
“You only met him for five seconds—”
“Five seconds were enough.”
Her tears spill over. “So you’re just bowing out? Walking away? Taking the easy road—”
“Easy?” I practically shout, my voice cracking out like a whip. My blood is suddenly boiling with rage. “What exactly about this do you think is easy, Josephine? Being forced to walk away from you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life! Harder than losing my baseball career. Harder than having my scholarships pulled. Harder than getting the bogus charges dropped—”
“Charges? What charges?”
I plow on. “Harder than all the surgeries. Harder than physical therapy. Harder than saying goodbye to my parents. Harder, even, than knowing you’ve found someone else. Someone who actually fits into your world. Someone who’ll make a perfect addition to the Valentine family.” I grab her by the shoulders and pull her closer, my fingertips digging into the damp material of her dress. “Do you really think, if I’d had any choice in the matter, I would’ve let you go? Do you honestly believe, if I hadn’t been backed into a corner with no other options, I would’ve willingly sat back and watched you stroll off into the sunset with another guy?”
“What do you mean, forced?” she asks desperately. “Who forced you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I mutter tightly.
“Stop saying that or I will strangle the life out of you, Archer Reyes, I swear to God!” She’s yelling now, too, her eyes full of rage that mirrors mine. Her face is so close, I can feel the heat of her breath on my lips with each word that flies out of them. “It matters. We matter. More than anything.”
I laugh, but the sound is broken — broken, right along with the dam inside me. The one that’s been holding back everything I haven’t been able to tell her. Every painful truth, every disastrous lie. I try like hell to patch the holes, to brace it back shut, but it’s too late to halt the flood roaring from the deepest banks of my soul in an unstoppable river.
If she asks me one more time, I’ll tell her.
Everything.
Her mouth opens, the question poised there.
A question I have to stop her from asking, any way I can.
I don’t think.
I just act.
My hands tighten on her shoulders. I yank her closer, our bodies colliding with a jolt of pure static electricity. And then, before a single whisper can escape her lips, my mouth slams down on hers.
TWENTY-SEVEN
josephine
In my AP Biology class last year, we read a chapter about the psychology of human desire. A scientist named Maslow introduced a theory that our needs are arranged in a pyramid, with the most vital, life-sustaining elements — food, shelter, water — at the bottom, and our more superfluous aspirations — self-esteem, spirituality, emotional stability — stacked atop. The theory goes, you can’t move up the pyramid if your bottommost layer is incomplete; essentially, you can’t build on a shaky foundation. For most people, this means having a roof over your head, a steady supply of nutritious meals, and a sense of safety.
But I think my pyramid is built different.
I think I’m built different.