“Besides the fact that I don’t want to hurt my friend?” he says. “I don’t trust you.”
“What?”
“You’re leaving soon, Ellis.” He focuses on the dark, leaf-littered ground. “I don’t believe you won’t move on once you’re gone again. Out of sight, out of mind, just like last time.”
“I would never do that again. I swear,” I tell him, my chest tightening. He’s slipping away. I’m losing him again, right after getting a taste of what things could be like.
Cooper takes a step backward, pulling his hand from mine.
“Can we just… forget this happened?”
There’s no way I can forget this happened. Kissing Cooper will be forever ingrained in my mind. An unshakable core memory I will dream about. It’s the kiss I’ll measure every other one against.
But if he doesn’t want to be with me, what am I supposed to do? I can’t make him want me.
“Please, Ellis,” he rasps.
I pinch my eyebrows together, fighting off the urge to cry and instead letting my hurt fuel my anger. “Fine. Then stop being so damn nice to me.”
“You want me to be mean to you?” he asks, confused.
“I want you to stop bringing me cookies and lattes. I want you to stop saving me when I fall off ladders or taking horseback rides with me. I want you to stop pulling all-nighters just to help me. And I want you to stop making me bacon!”
He tries not to smile, but he can’t suppress it. “No bacon. Noted.”
“I’m serious, Cooper. If you’re saying this isn’t happening, then fine, I’ll respect that. But I want you to stop making me fall for you.”
His smile fades. “Okay. Fair.”
“Okay.” I nod. “Then consider it forgotten.”
He huffs out a breath. My heart is crumbling, and he’srelieved.
I blink back tears as a voice to our left calls for Cooper.
“Sounds like they’ve sent out a search party for us,” he says.
“Yeah. I guess we better get back.”
I brush past him, hoping the memory of his lips on mine somehow gets lost in these dark woods.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Sloane, wake up.” My cousin grumbles as I shake her.
Her eyelids flutter open. “What? What time is it?”
“Three a.m.”
I tried to keep playing the game. I tried to pretend like nothing happened. But that proved to be impossible, and ultimately I trekked the two miles back home in the freezing cold after everyone was searching for the ghost after me.
“Three a.m.? Go away, you psycho,” she says, throwing a pillow over her head.
“I need you,” I tell her, trying to keep my voice from breaking the way my heart is.
She bolts upright, making me jump as she throws the pillow off her face and swings her legs over the bed, suddenly wide awake. “Let’s go.”
“Um, what? Where?”
