“But—”
“You’re not going anywhere,” she interrupts.“It’s fine where it is.You don’t need to add to the scene.”
“How did you know this was going to happen?”
“I got a call,” Dad tells me without turning around.“I had a feeling you’d be here and didn’t want you to have to see this.”
Except I did.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Your arms are getting heavy.You vont to let go,” Collin says in a stupid Dracula voice right beside me.
“Collin, knock it off,” I say between pants.I reach for the next bar—or where I think it is.
“Keep coming, Sadie,” Jonathan calls out from somewhere in front of me.“You’re almost there.”
“You’re so far away,” Collin counters.
“You suck,” I tell him.
“Yeah, you suck,” Collin mimics.
“Not you, Jonathan!”I say, grasping for another bar.“Whose idea was it to shut our eyes?”
They both say, “Yours.”I groan.Of course I did.Collin comes up with the game.I add some sort of challenge to make it harder.Why do I do this to myself?
“Two more.”Jonathan encourages me forward when I hang still for too long, panting.
“That’s cheating!”
“Shut it,” Jonathan tells him.“No one harassed you when you did it.”
“That’s because I was too fast.”
I reach again, but my fingers slip, and I’m dangling from one hand.A big hand grips my flailing one and secures it to the bar ahead of me.My palms are super sweaty.
“Foul!”Collin declares.
I reach for the last rung and exhale when I swing onto it with both hands.I rock my body, kicking for the platform.The same hands grip my waist, and I’m hoisted onto the landing, my body colliding with Jonathan’s.I fling my arms around his shoulders.
I open my eyes, and he’s still right there.I blink, not sure what to do.Is he going to—
“Are you guys going to kiss?”Collin asks from behind Jonathan.
“Ew, what?”I take a step back and almost fall off the playscape.
I grab the metal post to steady myself.Jonathan moves to the other side and sits at the top of the slide, resting his feet on a ladder rung.
My face is already hot from struggling across the monkey bars; now it’s on fire.
“Jonathan kissed a girl,” Collin announces like he’s just as grossed out by the idea.“He said she tasted like bubblegum.”
“You could taste her gum?”I ask, scrunching my face in disgust at the same time my heart breaks.
“No.”Jonathan glares at Collin.“That’s not what I said.And why are we talking about this?”
“And she’s an eighth grader,” Collin adds like it’s such a big deal.It is, actually, since we’re barely sixth graders.“Andyousaid you could taste her bubblegum.”
