So she stepped up. Stepped closer to Ravi. She rested her hand on his arm, fingering the soft cotton of his sweatshirt. He pressed his hand on top of hers, and a rush of adrenaline made her dizzy.
“I’ve wanted to ask you out since last year,” he said, his breath hot against her cheek.
Last year? He’d liked her since last year? She could have had this, her heart pounding, her skin tingling, and her whole body alive with butterflies, since last year?
Regret threatened to dampen the feelings overwhelming her. But last year she wouldn’t have been ready. Without everything that had happened since, this moment would have never become this moment.
So she embraced it all, the excitement and the fear and the way her stomach pitched with surprise and her mind filled with wonder as she brushed her lips against his.
37
When Angeline Rock Climbs
1 DAY TO THE (NOW CANCELED) ELECTION
THE NIGHT BEFORE OPERATION RED, BLUE, AND VIOLET
Angeline and Leo scaled the steep incline, securing each foothold among the small, flat rocks on the uppermost layer of the dune. When they reached the top, they could see the foaming whitecaps in the moonlight, the waves meeting their end against the shore. Though it wasn’t an end. Not really. The froth simmered and eased, dissipating into waters the tide would reclaim and energize once again. The crash was simply a stage in the transition to something else.
Hoping to ease his fear, Angeline extended her arm toward Leo at the same time as his reached for hers. They clasped hands and supported each other as they navigated down the other side of the dune, the clatter of rocks mixing with the thunder of the waves until they hit the beach.
On the ride over, after Leo had again thanked her for finding evidence that might exonerate him, they talked about Emmie. Angeline would have liked to say she was surprised that it was Emmie behind The Shrieking Violet, but it took time to really know someone, to know what they’d do and not do, to know the kind of person they were.
To understand what it meant when that person betrayed you.
They skirted the edge of the water, the occasional spray dancing against their legs. The rock they both thought of as theirs lay just ahead. The destination in each of their minds without having to be voiced.
The flashlight from Leo’s phone lit up the sand, and Angeline spotted the white line of a wish rock right in front of her. Beige. Like the one she’d given Cat all those years ago. She pocketed it and fell back into step with Leo.
They climbed the large green rock whose small, flat top forced them to sit close. Their arms and legs brushed against each other, and Angeline could almost convince herself that it was two months ago, on a crisp summer night, when the beach roses still bloomed and all that lay ahead was more of the same, not an upending of everything.
Leo shut off the flashlight, and Angeline’s eyes adjusted to the darkness. Stars previously invisible began to emerge.
“Bear,” Leo said, pointing to the sky.
“Gemini.” Angeline lifted her own finger beside his.
When they’d first starting coming here three years ago, the only constellation they could identify was the Big Dipper. Using an app on Leo’s phone, they’d discovered more, quizzing each other on each visit until they no longer needed the app.
Angeline realized she hadn’t looked up in weeks. Hadn’t looked at herself for far longer than that. Her life had been all about looking ahead, to a future post, to a future video, to a future she had spent so much time and energy crafting to make a reality. She would never apologize for being ambitious, for having goals, for wanting success. She had that in common with Leo’s mom.
The consequences of such drive had always been so clear when it came to Mrs. Torres. Leo and Sammy feeling less important, more like set pieces than an integral part of a whole, of a family that existed independently of their mother’s grander desires. The intentions or actual feelings of Mrs. Torres mattered less than how her sons interpreted them.
The same was true with Angeline and Leo. She’d been blind to the pitfalls her own demands had laid in their path.
The more success she found, the more thumbs-ups and likes she received, the more she craved. She was supposed to be the influencer, but the truth was, she’d been letting them influence her. Their validation pushed her forward, and it didn’t matter what she actually believed, be it flesh-eating loafers or no limos to prom, she said what she said to gain more. She took for granted that she could do anything in service of her goal and her followers and supporters would applaud using every emoji that existed. She’d allowed it to skew her judgment. And she’d alienated the one supporter she cared the most about.
She laid her hand on his knee. His muscles pulled taut, and she drew back, but he caught her hand and enveloped it in both of his. The warmth spread to her toes.
“I’m sorry,” Angeline said, straight out, no buildup, only the honest truth.
“I know,” he said back, just as simply.
Her heart pounded even though it wasn’t the first time she’d said this. Yet it seemed like the first time Leo was truly open to hearing it. “I never set out to hurt you, Leo. But everything that’s happened since, with us, with the election and the Frankengirls and Emmie and The Shrieking Violet, all of it . . . it’s made me realize something. When I planned that live-streaming, it wasn’t so much that I thought the end result would justify the means, it’s that I was self-centered enough to think the means wouldn’t matter.”
“That I’d just be okay with it?”
Angeline breathed in the smell of seaweed and brine and wanted to have an answer that was different from what it was. “Yes. Because what I needed mattered more.”
Leo rubbed the skin on the back of her hand with his thumb. “I almost was—okay with it. Because how could I hate you for anything? And yet, those things I said . . . about missing my mom, missing her knowing me, afraid she never would. Gutted me to say them out loud and to just let the tears come. The reason it was all okay was because I was saying them to you.”
Angeline’s stomach clenched. “And I broke your trust. Just like she did.”
He pressed his hands harder against hers. “Yeah, but that’s it, isn’t it? Like you said, I was partially blaming you for all I kept bottled up about her. About thinking she put everything before us, before me. And then it was like you were doing the same. So I followed Tad’s lead and acted like an ass to get back at you both. Maybe partly even to fit in, back to that kid in elementary school who was afraid to speak up. The worst part is that you didn’t set out to hurt me, but I can’t say the same. I’m really sorry, Ang.”
Her heart ached, and she almost made a wish on the rock that was to be Cat’s—for all of this to have never happened. But it had. And she’d learned so much she didn’t want to forget. “We both did things we shouldn’t have.” She looked into his eyes and was flooded with how much she missed him. “But I’m tired of fighting, Leo.”