It would never be right between us. Not after this.
He may not be able to walk away, but I—I still could.
Chapter 19
Now
The police. Years of being an outlaw, of skirting the cops, and now Coop was handing himself over. Tying himself to the stake. Going up in flames.
“I won’t let you.” I moved ahead of him and crossed my arms.
“You don’t get a vote. For about a thousand reasons.”
“Does Caro know?” I hated to bring her up, but I needed any ally I could get.
A rustling noise made Coop look past me into the trees. “I came clean about dealing. Told her all of it—the pot, the molly, the tweak. The whole thing.” His eyes found mine. “Well, I left you out. She doesn’t want me to go to Eric or the cops, either.”
“That’s because it’s an insane plan. The cops are not the answer.”
Just like that, we were twenty-two again, arguing a decade-old argument. My voice echoed back: Just go to the cops, Coop, and turn them in. They’re dangerous, and they’re going to hurt you. I bet you’ll get immunity or something. His voice: I can’t do that. I’d torpedo law school and kill my mom. It’s hypocritical, anyway. I’m not innocent.
How ironic that we’d now switched sides: Coop, running to the cops. Me, urging him not to.
Time, making fools of us all.
He schooled his face into a blank expression. “Jess, if you don’t agree with me, just walk away. It should feel pretty familiar by now.”
Like a knife to the heart. “I don’t want to.”
Coop moved around me. “Let me guess: you just want everything to go back to normal. You want to go back to the party and parade yourself in front of everyone, show the whole school how successful and glamorous you turned out. You want Mint to follow you around like a lovesick puppy. You want to pretend everything’s perfect and none of us are fucked up. Same old, same old.”
I seized him before he could walk away. “You’re wrong. I don’t want anything to stay the same. Don’t you see? I hate how things used to be. I hate it so much I want to scream.”
“Then scream, Jessica. Christ, be honest.”
When I moved, it was both surprising and inevitable. Like a gun going off in a movie you’ve already seen. I saw my hands move to Coop’s face, pull him down with a familiar roughness. Twenty-two or thirty-two, it didn’t matter: it was always going to happen like this. The movement echoed backward and forward through time, too quick for Coop to be anything but surprised. I kissed him and drowned in it.
If we were being self-destructive tonight, Coop had nothing on me.
There was a moment of perfect—his stubble rough against my fingers, his hair as soft as I remembered, his mouth moving against mine, breathing me in, my heart, untethered, lifting—and then he broke away with a sharp intake of breath.
Coop looked at me with such wonder that I knew, for all his provocations, he’d never expected me to do this. Then the wonder turned to hunger—that old, private look, like he was a man starving for me, and no amount would ever be enough.
“I’ve got to admit, I didn’t see this coming.”
I wrenched myself out of Coop’s arms.
Eric. He stepped out of the dark trees, where there wasn’t even a path.
“It’s not…” I fumbled the words. “We were just…”
Coop moved in front of me. “I have something to tell you.”
Still cloaked in shadow, away from the circle of light cast by one of the old-fashioned lamps, Eric crossed his arms. “It would seem so.”
“Don’t—” Before I could finish, there was a slapping sound—footsteps on the stone path.
Oh god. My heart seized. Caro ran toward us, Mint and Courtney close behind.
Ground, swallow me whole. This was it. Eric would tell them.
“Coop, I told you no!” Caro’s perfectly curled dark hair was now loose and stringy over her shoulders, a sheen to her face. Her eyes were red-rimmed. She looked terrible.
Caro, who didn’t deserve any of it. Caro, who would hate me if she knew.
“Will someone please explain what’s going on?” Mint clutched his chest. “And why Caro made us run out of the party?”
Courtney swayed on her feet. “You took us back to him.”
“It’s past time this came out,” Coop said. He looked at Caro apologetically, and I hated myself for feeling wounded by it. “Eric, I know why the toxicology report showed tweak in Heather’s system.”