“Um, thanks for the ice cream, I guess. I’ll walk the rest of the way on my own.” I tuck my hair behind my ears and slide off the counter.
He steps closer, crowding me until my ass hits metal. “Don’t leave. We still need to talk.”
I roll my eyes. “I must have misunderstood what we’ve been doing all night.”
His grips the counter in frustration. His phone screen illuminates, the vibration rattling against steel.
I don’t mean to look, and Icertainlydon’t mean to read the notification on West’s lock screen, but it’s second nature: Hear a phone buzz, look toward the sound. When my eyes land on the name of the sender, the air seeps from my lungs.
In a blink, I digest the subject of the email. It’s only three words, but it snaps me back to reality. Like waking up from hypnosis.
Noon on Sunday?
A shock runs through me. “I’m an idiot.”
“Mars, no.”
I step around him, too stunned to speak. “You’re speaking withherthis weekend? That’s not a coincidence. It can’t be.” I glare at him, daring him to contradict what I already know is true.
West hesitates, a wolf caught in a trap.
I let out a disbelieving laugh. “I can’t believe I thought you changed. I can’t believe Ikissedyou!” His expression flickers to one I recognize but can’t name. “Don’t follow me.” I turn on my heel to do the thing I should have done an hour ago—run.
West’s voice trails after me, but I don’t stop until I’m safely off campus and away from our memories.
For one shining, nostalgic hour, I tricked myself into thinking that West and I could outrun the things we did to eachother, but I was wrong. It won’t happen, and I was a fool to believe it could.
It’s only later, while I’m staring at the ceiling of my hotel room, that I put a name to the emotion on West’s face as I fled.
Heartsick.
I could weep for the irony of it, but I don’t. Instead, I laugh as tears run sideways down my cheeks, mad as hell that I can’t tell the only other person who would understand the joke.
18
10 Years Ago
Senior Year, Second Semester
It’s official; Ihave an agent for my West-inspired faerie novel. (Weeks later, my face still flames with embarrassment when I think of the Fox-West parallels. West’s ego has never been bigger. It’s a fantastic disaster. An absolutely humiliating dream come true.) In the span of one month, I went from anaspiringwriter to anagentedone. Danielle is smart, experienced, and almost as obsessed with Juniper and Fox as I am.
When I finish my revisions based on her notes, she plans to send the book to every major publisher in New York. No sale is ever guaranteed, but her confidence makes it hard to keep my hopes from spiraling wildly out of control. It starts with daydreams about book signings and launch parties and hitting bestseller lists and ends with me booking plane tickets to New York. Sure, Icanbe a writer from anywhere, but if Hannah Horvath taught me anything, it’s that grad school sucks, and why would you live in the Midwest when you could live in Brooklyn instead?
It’s almost midnight, and my heart is racing when the trainspits West and me out into Penn Station. I’m hopped up on Red Bull, disgusting airplane coffee, and the incomparable high of blasting “Welcome to New York” through my headphones as the city came into view. We drag our suitcases up the steps and emerge into a cold night in Midtown. It’s spring break in Arizona, but it still feels like winter here. Goose bumps race across my bare legs, and my breath puffs in front of me.
I glance at West as he messes with the strap of his bag, swearing lightly under his breath as he struggles with it. He’s finally letting his hair grow out, and the East Coast humidity has unearthed a loose curl above his ear. The urge to run my fingers through it is stronger than ever, and my head feels a little buzzy. After so many years of schooling my heart and my hands into submission around him, it’s wild to know that I can touch him whenever I want.
My eyes trail from his stern profile to the busy midnight street, and cold spring air expands like champagne bubbles in my chest, fizzing with the promise of dreams I’ve been carrying for more than half my life.
“You ready?” I ask.
He slings his bag over his shoulder and nods. “How do we get to the hotel? Cab? Subway?” He surveys the dark street with wide, apprehensive eyes. West has never been to New York, and I plan to wield my vast experience over his head. (I spent four days here with my family the summer before fifth grade. If West needs to know what the inside of the Statue of Liberty looks like, I’m his girl.)
I bounce on the balls of my feet to stay warm. “We walk.”
He drops his arm around my shoulder and rubs his hand against my skin to warm me up. We walk a few blocks to a Koreatown hotel wedged between a liquor store and a hair salon, andI’ve never felt as grown-up as I do standing at a hotel check-in counter with my boyfriend. The moment West palms the room key, however, my nerves catch up with me. He might be a New York virgin, but I’m anactualvirgin, and this week we’ll be staying together, in a hotel room, in the samebed.
I didn’t set out to be a twenty-two-year-old who has never had sex, but it never felt right with anyone else. (Likely because I was in love with West. Obvious only in hindsight, if you can believe it.) It’s been about a month since West kissed me in our spot outside Modern Languages, and it’s getting harder and harder to say goodbye when he pulls himself out of my arms at night. Until now, we’ve been taking our time, tiptoeing over lines that were once carefully drawn, finding new places to touch, new ways to make each other gasp.
