Page 55 of Let the Light Shine Through

“You really don’t.”

“No one I’ve hooked up with had any similarities, so…” Aside from being dope-ass people that like a good time.

“I’m not talking about hook-ups.”

“What else is there?”

Roz rolls to his side to face me full-on, and I immediately try to roll away from him, hugging the inflatable pool’s wall.

Laughing, Roz gives me a quick tug, making me land on my back again.

“Have you ever been in love?”

I don’t blink as I meet his eyes and say, “Every single day.”

His eyes harden but I explain, telling him, “Every day, I fall in love with something. The rush I get when I learn something new on my skateboard or four-wheeler. The excitement I feel when I teach someone else. The surprised smile from a stranger passing me on the street when I go out of my way to greet them. The smell of the ripe fruit at the summer farmer’s market. The sound of a baby’s laughter filling my dad’s restaurant. The colors of the sky just before the sun sets.”

Roz sits quietly for a moment, nodding his head like he’s trying to follow along, then says, “And yet, you only showed me a sunrise?”

“Maybe I’d already fallen in love with something that day,” I say without stopping to think.

“Have you ever fallen in love with a person?”

I shrug. “Yeah.” He already knows about Rowdy.

“Romantically?”

“I…don’t think so.”

“Why?”

I turn the question over in my head, picturing what it’d look like—being in love with a person like that.

“Because I don’t think you can walk away from someone you’re truly in love with.”

“I disagree.”

My eyes dash to Roz’s.

“I think if it was to save them from pain, you’d do anything for the person you love, even if it meant walking away.”

“Would you?”

His gaze falls to my lips, but he just shrugs the shoulder he’s not lying on.

“Have you ever been in love with anyone?”

Another half-shrug.

“Well, there’s always tomorrow,” I tell him, and with one push on his shoulder, Roz rolls on to his back, too, causing the entire pool to heave around us.

“And why not today?”

My thumb covers the moon and I close an eye, telling him, “Because it’s almost midnight already.”

“Were you some kind of scout or something?”

Moving my hand around, pretending to measure stuff in the distance, I nod.