“Hey. You can’t go. You still haven’t apologized for the rock last spring.”
“Next time,” I said briskly. It was our refrain. Our promise that I’d be back. A promise I needed to give serious thought to breaking.
I got one foot up on the window seat when she grabbed me by the back of my sweatpants. “Seriously, Sloane?”
“Let me look at your mouth. I mean the blood on your mouth,” she insisted.
She clung to me like one of those fucking burrs you got stuck to your socks after a walk in the woods.
“Fine,” I muttered. I sat on the cushion between a John Grisham and an Octavia Butler.
“Stay,” Sloane ordered.
“You’re bossy for a pixie,” I complained.
She snorted as she collected the clump of tissues and a glass of water from her nightstand. Her bottle-green eyes were solemn as she approached me. And I knew then that she knew.
She knew and she felt sorry for me. My hands closed into fists again.
“So are you ready for your chem test tomorrow?” she asked.
She knew my secret, knew I didn’t want to talk about it, so she was just going to clean me up and pretend everything was normal. I didn’t deserve her.
“Sorry for never…you know…” I gestured helplessly.
“Acknowledging me at school?” Sloane guessed, filling in the blank for me. She had an uncanny knack for knowing what I wanted to say even when I didn’t have the words to say it.
“Yeah.”
She shrugged those dainty shoulders and flashed me a smirk. “Eh. It’s fine. It would ruin my street cred if the captain of the football team started paying attention to me.”
“Your street cred?” I scoffed.
She dunked the tissues into the water and began to gently dab at the corner of my mouth. It felt…nice to have someone care.
“People would start expecting me to try out for the cheerleading squad and go to the bonfires at Third Base. It would cut into my reading time. Plus, I’d have to give up my secret crush on Philip.”
“Stage Crew Phil is your secret crush?” I teased.
Stage Crew Phil’s claims to fame were his perfect grades in calculus and the headset he got to wear backstage during school productions because he was in charge of the curtain. He gave zero shits about what anyone thought of him and went to school in the same jeans and black T-shirt outfit every single day. Except for Picture Day when he wore a bow tie over the T-shirt.
“I can’t help it. I’m a sucker for a guy with power. Every time I think of him hissing ‘curtain up,’ I get weak in the knees.”
I was smiling in spite of…everything. That was the effect she had on me. She was good. Everything about her seemed to sparkle. Good people got good things.
Then I remembered Jonah.
“Your dad said you were on a date tonight.” It sounded accusatory, but I couldn’t help it.
“Relax. I went out with Jonah so I could dump him in person.”
I straightened. “You broke up?”
“Mm-hmm,” she said, her gaze glued to my mouth. “He was kind of an ass. You were right.”
“Say that part again,” I insisted.
Her lips quirked as she worked. “No.”
“Come on,” I wheedled.
“No. And shut up. But seriously,” she continued, pressing the wet wad of tissues to the corner of my mouth, “I understand.”
“You understand what?”
“You can’t be seen being friendly to a four-eyed sophomore nerd. It would tear a hole in the space-time continuum of high school society.”
She didn’t know the real reason why I didn’t want anyone to know about us. If my father had an inkling that something mattered to me, he destroyed it or ruined it in whatever way he could. The only thing he “allowed” me to have was football because it meant something to him to have a son who excelled on the field.
But if he ever had a hint that Sloane meant something to me, that I valued her, he would inflict damage. And if he did, if he managed to hurt her in some way, I didn’t think I could live with that…or let him live.
“Nerd,” I said lightly.
“Does it hurt?” she asked me, changing the subject again. Her voice was husky and serious now.
“It’s fine,” I lied.
“Lucian—”
“Don’t,” I said.
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“Yes, I do. And it’s none of your business.”