“It’s—” I held it up, realized it was a true-crime book about a serial killer in the 1970s, and wanted to die. “It’s stupid. You wouldn’t?—”
“The Stranger Beside Me?” His eyebrows rose. “Ted Bundy?”
“You know it?”
“I know of it. Claudette says you’re obsessed with true crime.”
My face went hot. “I’m not obsessed. I just—I find it interesting. The psychology of it. Why people do terrible things. It’s—” I was rambling. I was absolutely rambling. “Never mind. It’s weird. I know it’s weird.”
“It’s not weird.” He sat on the lounge chair next to mine, casual as anything, like this was something we did.
“I think it’s fascinating, actually. Most people don’t want to look at the dark stuff. They want to pretend it doesn’t exist. Butyou can’t understand the world if you don’t understand the parts of it that make you uncomfortable.”
I stared at him.
He’d said the exact right thing. The thing no one else ever said. Everyone else looked at me like I was morbid, disturbed, a little girl with strange interests who should be reading romance novels instead of books about murder. But Jack looked at me like I made sense.
That was the moment I realized I was in real trouble.
We talked for an hour. Then two. He
told me about his classes, his plans, the pressure of being the Specter heir and how sometimes he wanted to disappear and become someone else entirely.
“You could,” I said. “Disappear. Start over. Be whoever you wanted.”
“Could I?”
“Anyone can. That’s the beautiful thing about being human. You’re not locked in. You can always change.”
He looked at me for a long moment, something unreadable in his eyes. “You really believe that.”
“I have to,” I said. “Otherwise what’s the point?”
That was when things changed between us. The wanting became something more, something that pulled us together despite all the reasons we should have stayed apart.
But I should have known better. I should have remembered that boys like Jack Specter didn’t end up with girls like me. That I was a fun distraction, a secret to be kept, never something to be claimed.
He proved it the night of the party.
I heard voices through an open window—Jack’s voice, and his friends, laughing about something.
“—seen you with that girl,” one of his friends was saying. “The one with the curly hair. Claudette’s friend. What’s her name?”
“Pauline.” Jack’s voice, and my heart lifted for just a second, waiting for him to say something—anything—that proved I meant something to him.
“You hitting that?”
Laughter. Crude, casual laughter.
And then Jack’s voice, light and dismissive: “Pauline? Nah. She’s just Claudette’s best friend. She’s always had a crush on me.”
More laughter. Jack’s joining in.
The world dropped down on me. I pressed my hand against the wall to keep from falling.
She’s always had a crush on me.
Like I was pathetic. A joke. Everything we had shared meant nothing at all.
