“Then why did you call me bunny?”
River shrugged loosely. “I dunno. I call Brody ‘bear’ because he’s big and scary. You just remind me of a bunny, so I called you it.”
The swing swayed as I kicked my legs back and forth lightly, hearing his words but not knowing how to reply. River glanced at Wesley and his friends, who were picking on some kid by the slide behind us.
“I will tell them no for you,” he muttered, taking a seat on the swing beside me. “After I swing with you.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “You don’t want to go play kickball with your friends? I’m sure they’re looking for you.”
His head moved from side to side. “I play with them every day, and it gets boring. We’re only eight, so we have lots of years to play kickball. I want to swing with you.”
Something warm swarmed in my chest. “Okay, River.”
“Bet I can swing higher than you!”
“I’m not allowed to swing high,” I said sadly.
River’s eyes widened like I had told him I came from an alien spaceship. “Why not?”
“Mommy says it’s dangerous.”
He looked around the playground, searching hard for someone who obviously wasn’t there. Then, he shrugged. “I don’t see your mommy.”
I looked around the area, and like him, did not find the tall blonde woman who was my mom. When my eyes met his again, he was watching me with a large, mischievous smile. I mimicked the smile and pumped my feet faster to make myself go higher than I ever had before, pushing away the brief worry that Mom was standing in the corner watching me with disapproval.
River and I swung on the swings together every day for the rest of that year. He came by my house and played the console with me, and he even spent the night a couple of times. From that day forward, I would call River Moore my best friend.
Chapter One
ALEX
“I’m not sure this is working anymore.”
I wasn’t sure anything in life was working anymore. This was just another thing to add to the list.
“Okay,” I muttered, my dignity being the only thing stopping me from begging him to stay. “Is it me?”
“No.” My boyfriend—wait,ex-boyfriend—stood before me. Killian’s blonde hair lay messily on top of his head as his lips pressed into a thin line. “Well, I don’t know, Alex. I think we need space.”
Which felt crazy to me because I never got the impression that we needed time apart until a month ago. We were close throughout high school, any distance between us feeling like we had been thrown straight into Hell. Then we go to college for a year, and suddenly it’s too much togetherness?
Killian was my first boyfriend, and I thought he’d be my last. Stupid me, apparently.
While I couldn’t say that I did not see this coming, it didn’t make it feel any better. My heart contorted into a shriveled-up piece of paper inside my chest the moment he asked,“Can we talk?” It, like I, already knew what was to come.
The walls inside my throat clenched, and each swallow felt like a golf ball forcing its way down my esophagus. As much as it was paining me to ask, I wanted to know. I needed arealreason for why he wanted things to end between us.
Vague answers that left me wondering and speculating felt like pins and needles poking at my brain—I hated them. No matter how bad the reason, it was better than being left in the dark.
“Can you give me more than that?” The fabric of the couch squeaked against my skin as I adjusted myself, pulling my knees to my chest and hugging them.
“I don’t know, Alex.” He let out a frustrated sigh. “I just don’t want to do this anymore.”
I choked down the lump in my throat and nodded once. Kill had never been one to elaborate, especially when it made things uncomfortable. Maybe I’d never get to know what changed my boyfriend’s feelings for me. Did he get bored? Was there someone else?
Am I to blame?
I pushed the racing thoughts to the back of my head as best I could because now was not the time to send myself into the mess that was my mind. There was always time to overthink when I was alone. Not when in the face of the man who was holding my heart in his palm, slowly crushing it.
