All those women I’d glimpsed going in and out of the poolhouse? I’d seen them from the safety of my bedroom window.
“Heard you were leaving,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“Have a good year at school, okay?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Then he gave me a hug and I let him. His big, warm body wrapped around mine. He smelled good.
He felt better than good.
“You know we’re here for you, if you need us,” he whispered in my ear.
We?
Who was this magical ‘we’ he spoke of?
By the time I arrived at the school that night, there’d be no one there for me. Not my parents, or my brother, or him. Not even the Lil Brat Society.
Shayla had graduated from Westmont last June.
This year, I’d be on my own.
Xander released me and I looked at his face. He seemed to be looking somewhere between my eyes and my mouth, but not really seeing me. It was this totally weird way he’d been looking at me all summer, and it made me feel grossly invisible.
I resented it.
I resentedhim.
“You need a ride to your mom and dad’s or anything?”
“No. I’m okay.”
I let him off the hook so he didn’t have to force himself to be nice to me anymore, and went back into my room. I shut the door and sat on my bed and waited for my dad to pick me up. And I made a vow to myself right then and there. A solemn, holy vow.
To never again fantasize about Xander Rush.
Of course, I broke that vow.
Passionately and often.
I didn’t mean to… but Xander just had a way of creeping up on me. Lurking in the back of my mind. Rattling around in my heart. Just waiting for me to let my guard down.
To feel lonely.
To long for that warm, special feeling he’d given me when I thought he really cared about me.
Thank God Steel Trap had left on tour by the time I came home that Christmas.
Because by then… I hated him.
At least… Iwantedto hate him.
But maybe the truth was I’d always kind of loved him.
I felt connected to him. Attached.
