I reach for him, curling my fingers over his chest muscles. "I've known you for a long time."
Wyatt smirks. "That probably doesn't work in my favor, does it?"
I laugh lightly. "You've always been wild," I admit. "But you seem different now."
"Good different?" he asks hopefully.
I smile. "Yes. But remember, I liked you when you were a handful, too."
"Why, Jo?"
It's an odd question. I push myself up onto one arm, my chin propped on my hand. "Why did I like you?"
He nods. Vulnerability plays at the edges of his eyes.
"Well." I think back to high school when my massive crush first sprouted. We'd just come from the cult after they asked us to leave, and I was terrified to make a wave. All I wanted to do was blend into the sea of faces, be accepted but not memorable. I kept my head down, my nose in a book, but it was impossible not to notice Wyatt. He was handsome, confident, a Hayden. I'd learned quickly what that meant.
I kept my distance and only made one friend: Shelby. Wyatt was always in the middle of a group. He might have been in the center of everything, but he was quiet. A unique brand of wild. Not boisterous, but he damn sure was going to be the most involved. If there was a prank, he was in on it. If there was a dare, he was up for it. If an outsider showed up and started something with one of his friends, Wyatt would be the one to end it. He was like glue, keeping everyone together, but he himself seemed to float up above it all. He was aloof, but with flashes of brilliance. All of this I knew because I watched and listened, but it made me wonder why he worked so hard to be so…significant.
I could tell he was broken. Just like me. Deep, deep down, there were cracks in him. I never knew why, though I'm starting to get the picture.
"I had a pretty big crush on you in high school," I start, sitting up and pulling the covers around me when they slip down. I'm naked, and my level of undress doesn't seem to meet the current mood. "Me and every other girl."
"No way." He rubs my lower back.
"Don't act like you didn't know every girl would've fainted if you'd looked their way."
"I know about everyone else." He smiles. "I just didn't know about you."
I reach behind me, taking his hand from my back and resting it in my lap. I flip his palm over and trace his lifelines. "You seemed sad sometimes." The muscles in his hand strain. "I think that's what drew me to you in the beginning."
"We barely knew each other." His voice is uneasy. "How could you notice that about me?"
"Sadness can be seen from a distance. Sometimes it's an air, or the way you react to something. Sometimes it's the way youdon'treact to something."
Wyatt's hand releases and I resume tracing. "Why did that draw you to me?"
I moisten my lips, thinking about how I should respond. How much should I tell him? "I was sad too, Wyatt."
"Why?"
A flush sweeps over my ears, heating the tips. Shame can be so suffocating. "Before we moved here, we were members of this "church" called God's Redeemers.” I put that word in quotes because it was a cult, plain and simple. “And I did something that got us kicked out of the cult. When my mom tried to go back, they refused her. They told her she'd raised a jezebel and couldn't be trusted."
"A jezebel?"
"It means—"
"I know what it means." His hard tone tells me he doesn't like what he's hearing, even if it's all in the past.
"Anyway, we ended up in Sierra Grande, and I stayed behind when she left. She took Travis with her, and when the church refused her return, she went somewhere else to start a new life."
"Why didn't you meet her there? Wherever she went?"
I flip Wyatt's hand over, outlining the shape like there's construction paper below us and my fingertip is a marker. "My mom made it pretty clear what she thought of me. She said I ruined her life. She was right, I suppose."
"What kind of life was it if she was living in those conditions?"
"The kind she was used to, I suppose." I glance back at Wyatt. "Aren't you going to ask me what I did to get us kicked out?"
