“Why do I feel like I screwed up?” I said, sitting next to her, a strange weight settling in my chest.
“It’s easy for you,” she whispered, looking at her feet instead of me. “You’re popular and funny and gorgeous…”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I teased, nudging her shoulder with mine.
“Maybe I should have said yes to Peter.”
“What the hell, Birdie? You just said you didn’t want to go out with him.”
“I don’t. But I don’t want to go to high school and…” She stopped herself.
“And what?” My brows scrunched tighter.
“Nothing.”
“Come on, B. This is me. We don’t keep secrets.”
She peeked up at me and let out a breathy sigh. “I don’t want to start high school and be the only girl who hasn’t ever kissed a guy, okay?” Her cheeks flushed and it was so damn cute.
“You want to kiss someone, B?”
The thought of Harleigh kissing someone made me feel all weird inside. Because she was like a sister to me, yeah that must have been it.
What else could it be?
I blinked the strange thoughts away and scoffed. “You can do better than Peter Fairn.”
“Thanks, but we both know that’s not true.”
Silence hung between us. This was weird. We didn’t talk about kissing. Even when Harleigh had seen me kissing girls—and there had been a few already—she didn’t say anything.
Unable to stand the silence for a second longer, I nudged her shoulder again, capturing her attention. When she lifted those green eyes to me, I said, “I wish you could see yourself like I see you, Birdie. You’re special.”
Too special for the likes of Peter Fairn.
And definitely too special for the likes of me.
Harleigh
“Hey, how do you feel?” Celeste slipped into my room the next morning and tiptoed over to the bed, climbing in beside me.
“Like I’ve been hit by a truck.”
I’d slept like the dead, my head barely hitting the pillow before I crashed.
“No more mixing alcohol and pills for you.”
“It was two beers. I didn’t know…”
But I should have known. It was the first talk they gave you at Albany Hills—the dangers and side effects of mixing medication with alcohol and recreational drugs.
I’d just wanted to be normal though. For one night, I’d wanted to say screw it and be a regular teenage girl out having fun with her friends. And maybe, just maybe, part of me had wanted to say a giant fuck you to Zane Washington.
But I shoved those thoughts down. Right down beside the hazy memories I had of Nix finding me by that trailer, freaking out.
Ugh.
Darling Hill was a big enough town, big enough for the both of us. Especially with him being in The Row and me being stuck on this side of the reservoir now. But time and time again, like magnets unable to fight their natural attraction to one another, we found our way back together.
I guess we’d always been like that. Or I’d always gravitated to him. He was the flame and I was the moth who couldn’t stay away. No matter how much it burned.
And burn it had.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I stared at her blankly, and she added, “What happened with that asshole Zane and Nix, I mean?”
“No.” My bottom lip trembled. “But thank you.”
“I think we should lay low today. Hang out by the pool and soak up the last few days of the sunshine. Mrs. B said the weather is set to turn soon.”
“Actually, that sounds kind of perfect.”
This place might have felt like a prison, but the one good thing about the gated perimeter, it didn’t only keep me in, it kept unwanted visitors out.
Zane and Nix couldn’t reach me here, not that I ever imagined them wandering into Old Darling Hill territory.
At least of all for me.
Not after everything.
“What?” I whispered, noticing the distant look in Celeste’s eyes.
“Nothing.”
“Spit it out…”
Heat bled into her cheeks. “Do all guys like look that at Darling Hill High?”
“Like what?”
“Nix… and Zane.”
“Oh my God, Celeste. Whatever you’re thinking, unthink it, right now.”
“What? A girl can look.”
“Zane Washington isn’t someone you want to get tangled up with,” I said with warning.
She clicked her tongue. “Please. The guy is a Grade-A asshole. But you can’t deny he’s a hottie.”
I shrugged. “I’ve never really thought about it.”
I hadn’t. Because Nix eclipsed everyone else.
Always had.
Probably always would.
Only back then, I’d thought we stood a chance. That I’d stood a chance. Until I’d realized that everything we’d ever shared had been a lie.
I’d loved him. Desperately… hopelessly… irrevocably. He had been my friend, my protector, and I would have given him my heart if he’d have taken it.
I inhaled a shaky breath, closing the door on the old, painful, pointless thoughts.
We weren’t the same people anymore. I had to move on.
“Nix isn’t so bad either.”
“Will you stop?” I implored, despite the smile tugging at my mouth.
Nix wasn’t a hottie; he was the most beautiful guy I’d ever laid eyes on. All that dark hair and those piercing gunmetal gray eyes. The muscles and tattoos. The fact he towered over me and made me feel safe and protected. That hadn’t changed. Not even when he was spewing cruel hateful things at me.
The face of an angel, the voice of the devil.
Pain rolled through me. An unrelenting wave that threatened to pull me under. To swallow me whole. But a warm hand wrapped around mine, squeezing hard. “I’m sorry,” Celeste whispered, a buoy in angry, angry seas.
My eyes flickered open, focusing on her. Her soft smile. The sympathy glittering in hers.
“I’m sorry for all of it.”
The sun was good for my soul. I basked in it, letting the warm rays heat my skin, filling some of the icy cold cracks inside me.
I wasn’t brave enough to lie in a swimsuit like Celeste—not even in the privacy of my father and Sabrina’s yard—but I had agreed to wear a bikini top and some black cotton shorts, shoving a fluffy hair scrunchie over my wrist.
“Are you sure you won’t come in?” she called from the pool, flicking some water in my general direction. A couple of drops landed on my foot, and I rolled my eyes.
“Do you ever stop?”
“But it’s so refreshing.”
With a murmur, I got up and moved to the edge of the pool, dipping my toes in.
“It’s just the perfect temperature,” Celeste added with a reassuring smile.
I carefully sat down, letting my legs dangle into the water. “Happy?”
“It’ll do, I suppose.” She shrugged. “It’s a shame Miles had to babysit.”
“I’m sure he’ll be disappointed he missed you in your bikini,” I teased, earning me another splash. This time the water soaked me through, making me shriek.