by Jenna Mills
“What about you?” he asked quietly, coaxingly. “Have you ever imagined anything?”
The haze swept me along, swept me up. “Sometimes,” I murmured, lost there, lost in the moment, the haze. If I was being honest, I had. Fleeting thoughts. Idle curiosity. A schoolgirl crush on an attractive older man…
Not a girl, I reminded myself.
Not anymore.
“Being with you,” I made myself admit, “…like this and…”
He lifted a hand to my face, rubbing his thumb along my lower lip. “And what?”
Everything blurred. “More.”
And then suddenly his mouth was there, his mouth was where his thumb had been, rubbing at first, softly, gently, skimming against my own. Then firmer, more demanding.
“More is good,” he said, and then I was opening to him, opening to him as his mouth slanted against mine, his tongue sweeping in and claiming.
The kiss started out soft, the warmth of his lips coaxing against the side of my face, along my jaw, exploring, saying hello, moving closer. I felt myself sway, heard the soft moan breathe from my own lips.
But again I was removed from it all, not in my body, but watching. And I didn’t understand. Didn’t understand how I could be separate like that. Didn’t understand how my body could be melting into his, while the rest of me watched.
Because it was too crazy, I realized. Too crazy to believe this was really me and him. Too crazy to sink into the moment where I was about to hook up with Coach Grimes. That wasn’t me. Couldn’t be me. That wasn’t—
But it was. It was me, sliding my hands along his back and holding on as his kiss deepened, hardened—demanded. As his whiskers scraped and his hands claimed. It was me, and it was what I wanted to happen. He would make it better. Everything. He would make me better. The pain would go away, melt away. The hurt. The broken dreams. I would have my future back. I would have me and Josh—
Josh.
Everything inside me froze. I could feel it, like a horrible moment etched in time, the blast of cold, the absolute lack of anything.
“Em,” he whispered, but I just stood there in his arms, confused—lost. Then everything started to play again, not the moment I was in, there in Coach Grimes’s house, his arms, but further back, further away, like a slide show, lazy afternoons and snowball fights, long hikes and marshmallow wars, one image chasing the other at such lightning speed nothing registered but the swirl of emotion: happiness and excitement and anticipation, security and…hurt.
Betrayal.
The room tilted, or maybe that was me. Edges lost definition, everything rounding and blurring.
“Hey,” he said, softer this time, and then he was tilting my face to his, and I saw him, saw Josh—
No. No, no, no. Not Josh. He didn’t belong here, with me and Coach Grimes. Josh was the past. Josh was—
The room kept spinning. I tried to hold on, to him, the moment, but it was like the whole world kept twirling around me, while I stood absolutely still.
And then his mouth was there again, on mine, and suddenly it was too much, and I couldn’t look, couldn’t watch. Instinctively I closed my eyes, and saw Josh.
Chapter 8
FOR A LONG time I drifted. I was aware but not aware, awake but not awake. Every time I tried to surface, I pulled myself back, not ready, not wanting to leave the moment. There was safety there. I could float with the clouds, suspended in that moment, where there was no before or after, where nothing mattered and consequences didn’t wait, much like when I was in the hospital—
Hospital.
My eyes popped open.
Darkness blanketed me. I lay there a moment, disoriented and staring into the grainy darkness, trying to clear the haze. Bits and pieces of memory danced around me: the scene at the coffee shop, Josh so angry, the white lilies. Driving. Crying. The text.
A quick blast of cold went through me.
Swallowing, I tore at the haze, but the images slipped among the shadows, blurring—
But I knew. I knew where I’d driven, the things I’d said. What I’d done—
Oh, God.
Alone there, an icy wave obliterated the warmth, as it all rushed back to me, the way he’d pulled me close and the feel of his arms around me, his body pressed to mine…
His mouth brushing mine…
The sudden thought of Josh…
The realization of what I was doing…
What I was about to do.
The way I’d pulled back and stared at him, shaking my head violently.
He’d looked at me as if I were crazy.
And maybe I was.
Dizzy, disoriented, I’d backed away. “I have to go,” I whispered, while inside I screamed. “I shouldn’t be here.”
And he…he’d just stood there, watching me, watching me with the strangest look on his face.
And outside, on my windshield, the single flower tucked under the wiper blade. I’d ignored it, ignored it until I got home—because I hadn’t wanted anyone else to see, to know. Especially Coach Grimes.
Because I could still see the hard glitter in his eyes when he promised he’d make Josh leave me alone, and I had no idea what he would do.
No idea what anyone would do anymore.
No idea how far anyone would go.
Not even myself.
Especially.
Myself.
“You’re not just saying that, are you?”
Lexi was the last person I wanted to see. She sat cross-legged on my bed, Goldie sprawled beside her, exactly as she’d been when I stepped from my bathroom into the bedroom. My mom had let her in while I showered.
Now, dressed in a t-shirt and running shorts, I worked a comb through wet, tangled hair.
“You really wimped out?” she said. “You are so lame! That was your chance—a living fantasy. It was right there, waiting for you.”
I’d run through all the hot water, but the cold kept right on seeping, like an icy stream running from the inside out.
“I shouldn’t have even been there,” I said, my voice a pathetic imitation of itself. “I still can’t believe…” Memories played, one after the other, how close I’d come to making a mistake that could never be taken back. Lines existed for a reason. Once crossed, once destroyed, nothing could ever be the same again. “I have no idea how that even happened.”
Lexi rolled her eyes. “Let me get this straight: the man—the uber, drop-dead hot object of every school girls’ fantasies—invited you over to his house, with no one else there…and made it clear he wants you…and you…left?”
Everything inside me stilled.
“You sure you’re not lying to me?” she said, eyeing me. “Telling me nothing happened because you don’t want anyone to know what really did happen? Because he made you promise?”
My eyes flashed. “Nothing happened.”
She grinned. “I’m not sure I believe you. I think maybe something did happen…something amazing.”
Automatically I glanced at the floor, where the friendship bracelet lay discarded by my dresser.
“Come on, this is me,” Lexi prodded. “I see it in your eyes. Fess up.”
I reached for my running shoes. “There’s nothing to confess. We talked. He was…nice.”
“Nice?”
“Nice.”
“How nice?”
Very.
Tempting.
Scary.
“Just nice. He listened. He’s worried about me.”
Lexi’s eyes danced. “Well what do you know. Maybe you tore a page out of Zo-Zo’s book, after all.”
The walls of my room pushed in on me. Away. I needed to get away from there, away from the walls, the room, the memories. From Lexi. From everyone who wanted to tell me what to do.
Grinning, she stretched, her eyes on mine through the mirror. “So when are you seeing him again?”
Never if I went to Santa Fe. Everything would be so different, a new start…no shadows. No memor
ies. “I’m not.”
Lexi’s eyes kept dancing, sparkling, the way they did in therapy when she deliberately baited Zoe. “Come on, don’t be a coward. Now you know how easy it is, and that you can have him.”
“I don’t want him.” I didn’t.
“Bullshit,” she said. “You’re just scared. So used to being the good girl.”
“Maybe I am the good girl. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Doesn’t mean you can’t have fun, live a little. Fear is like a box, Emmie. It holds you back. Holds you in. Until you break free, you’ll never know how amazing life can be.” She smiled, slow and catlike. “Your coach is delicious, and he obviously wants you. It’s like the Universe is offering up this amazingly perfect gift, just for you. You’re an idiot if you don’t go for it.”
Memories played—burned. She was right. Almost every girl on the Cross Country team had a thing for him. More than one had made a play.
“Why don’t you?” I tossed back. “Didn’t you say you could have anyone you wanted?”
She laughed. “Trust me, I will,” she said. “But I’ve got someone a whole lot more interesting in mind.”
I shot her a look.
She didn’t seem to care. “It’s more fun to go after someone who thinks they don’t want you, and show them how wrong they are.”
“You realize that’s seriously messed up, don’t you?” I said. I should never have listened to her.
She lifted a hand, running her fingers through her long, ridiculously silky hair. “Sometimes messed up is more fun.”
“Maybe for you, but I just lost a couple hundred dollars a month in babysitting money.” No way could I go back to that house, no way I could so much as look at Coach Grimes without remembering…
Wondering…
But Lexi kept smiling. “You might be surprised,” she said. “Where you see closed doors, I see ones wide open. Maybe next time you go back, you’ll realize how easy it is now that things are different.”
“No.” I still couldn’t believe what had almost happened.
What had happened.
That was so not me.
Except…
For those few dangerous moments…
It had been.
“Here,” Lexi said, fishing around in her wristlet and pulling out two small white pills. “For next time…just in case you change your mind.”
I watched as she pressed them into my palm.
“Magic friends,” she announced, smiling. “To get rid of all that apple pie that keeps holding you back and help you go after something a whole lot more fun.”
I ran.
The second I reached the cabin, after finally getting rid of Lexi and driving for almost two hours, I set my bag down inside, buried my keys under some leaves, and ran.
A breeze swirled among the trees, cooler up here in the mountains, flirting with the leaves and the branches. They swayed, sending splinters of sunshine dancing along the well-worn path. I ran hard, fast, pushing myself in ways I hadn’t since the accident. My heart pounded and my breath tried to shallow, but I refused to let myself stop, or even slow. I needed the exertion, the challenge. I needed to push myself, to forget.
Every now and then my phone vibrated with a text, but I refused to check. I didn’t want to see, know. So far there’d been nothing from Coach Grimes—
Coach Grimes.
His name was Mitch. But I still couldn’t think of him as that, not even after last night. And yet it felt strange to think of him as Coach Grimes, as well, after the way he’d pulled me against his body.
After I’d felt him pressed up against me.
All of him.
Wanting me.
Me.
Jerkily I picked up my pace, leaping over a tangle of roots and dead branches. There was no going back to before, but I didn’t know how to go forward either. I couldn’t avoid him forever. I could tell him we made a mistake, but there was no getting around the things he’d said to me, that he’d been waiting so long. There was no getting past the hunger I’d seen in his eyes, tasted in his kiss.
No getting past those dizzying moments, when there’d been just the two of us, in our own little secret forbidden world, and how close I’d come to finding out what came next.
The high altitude made every step slower, harder, like running through a web, but I pushed until I was past the point of exhaustion. I had nowhere to be and no time to be there. I didn’t want to see anybody. I just wanted—
I stopped and wrapped my arms around my middle, held on so, so tight. I had no idea what I wanted, only that I didn’t want to hurt anymore.
Increasingly light-headed, I sucked in a deep breath and turned back toward my family’s cabin.
The splintered sunlight of before was gone, replaced by a harsh glare, blurring the trees and the undergrowth and even the path into a hazy glow. At least, I told myself it was the sunlight that made everything run together. But with each step I took, dizziness swirled.
Twenty minutes. Thirty. I had no way to be sure, only that my pace was slower, less steady, until finally the narrow path spilled into the clearing. Relieved, I stumbled toward the cabin—and saw him.
Chapter 9
HE STOOD IN the shadow of a tall Douglas fir with the mountains and blue sky behind him, exactly like I’d seen him so many times before, the pitcher’s stance, all tall and wide-shouldered with a sweep of dark hair falling against his sunglasses. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I could feel them, the intensity, the laser burn as they locked onto me—and didn’t let go. And for a fractured moment I waited for the smile, the one I knew so, so well, the one from my dreams, from before: the crooked one that always came when we escaped to our special place, just the two of us—
The moment tilted, hard. I stood there, frozen in a bright wash of sunlight, as memory fractured into reality, and questions sliced through the haze.
Our place.
Where we could be alone.
And cell coverage was spotty.
Instinctively I edged toward the skeletal aspen where I’d tossed my keys.
“Hey—” he said, and then he was moving, too, moving toward me, his steps forceful—urgent.
“Stay where you are—” I said, reaching down to sift through the scattered leaves.
He stopped.
There. My fingers closed around the cool metal—and the small canister I kept on the ring. “You shouldn’t be here,” I said, pushing upright against another hard tilt of vertigo. But I didn’t let him see, couldn’t let him see.
Couldn’t let him know.
His movements were slow, deliberate as he slid the sunglasses from his face, revealing the familiar burn of his eyes—narrow, watching me.
“I had to see you,” he said. “We need to talk.”
“No.” The word rushed out more breath than voice. “We don’t. It’s all been said.” Over and over and over. “There’s nothing left.”
He stood against the backdrop of lush green pine, so still, a stranger in a painfully familiar body, the jeans I’d helped him pick out the fall before, even the grey Henley he was wearing. My favorite.
“Then don’t say anything,” he said. “Just listen.”
My chest squeezed. His voice was low, as uncertain as he looked. It was a stark contrast from the night before, at the coffee shop when he’d been so out of control, and for a fleeting second, I wondered what would have happened if he’d never showed up there. I wouldn’t have been upset. I wouldn’t have left, wouldn’t have gone to—
But those were my actions, not his, and I couldn’t blame anyone but myself.
“How’d you find me?” I breathed. “How’d you know I was here?”
I hadn’t told anyone.
His shoulders rose, fell. “Zoe told me how upset you were. I took a guess—”
And found me. Here.
Where no one else would come looking.
At least not for a long time.
“You shouldn’t
have done that.” Unease slipped closer. “I came here to be alone.”
“That’s what I want, too, Emmie,” he said, again starting toward me. “To be alone. I know you’re upset with me—you have every right to be—but if we can just go inside—“
Everything closed in on me, the dark thoughts I didn’t want to think—crazy thoughts I would never have thought only a month before. The lilies. The scene in the coffee shop. Even the forest of pine, so beautiful only moments before became like prison walls slowly boxing me in.
I reacted without thinking, jerking my hand up between us. “I mean it, Josh—don’t come any closer.”
He stopped, hard, but it was too late. The distance between us, the distance I’d tried to keep between us, that I needed between us, was gone, and just that, standing so close after everything that had happened, made all those places inside me start to hurt all over again.
His eyes, normally the same vibrant blue as the sky, narrowed, darkening like the monsoonal clouds of summer. “You’re afraid of me.”
The words were rough, jagged, the unnatural quiet of his voice that from the darkest corners of my memory. And for a crazy, broken moment, I wanted to tell him, no, never. He was Josh, Josh from forever. I could never be afraid of him. Not him.
But those words wouldn’t form.
They couldn’t.
Not with the memory of the lilies smothering them.
Instead I swallowed, reminding myself to be strong. “Just go, okay?”
“You know I’d never hurt you—”
“Don’t.” I tightened my fingers around the canister. “Don’t tell me what I know,” I warned. “Because I don’t. I don’t know anything anymore. The Josh I knew would never have turned into a crazy person at the coffee shop last night.”
And the Emily I knew would never have kissed…
Oh. God.
