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“Are we okay?” Chase asks without bothering with the usual teasing.
“There is no ‘we,’” I say with a sigh, leaning my elbow on the counter. “Why don’t you call your girlfriend, and see if you and her are okay?”
“Don’t make this hard for me,” he says, sounding defeated. “I’m not good at this kind of thing, but I really am trying.”
“You’re not good at calling your girlfriend?” I ask, knowing I’m being a brat but not caring. He’s the one who’s in the wrong here. He’s the one with a girlfriend. I can’t help how I feel. But he chooses to lead me on, to make it worse. If he was cold and aloof, I would quietly die every day, but at least I could take my crush to the grave with me.
After a long stretch of silence, Chase sighs. “I just wanted to make sure you’re okay. You took off last night, and then you wouldn’t talk to me or let me explain…”
“There’s nothing to say,” I answer honestly. “You have a girlfriend. You’re not breaking up with her. I accept that.”
“You’re not mad at me?”
“I’m not. Now go call Lindsey.”
I hang up before he can answer. His need to be liked is exhausting.
It’s also sort of sweet. Under the cocky surface, he’s a people pleaser who worries about being liked, weirdly enough. I guess everyone needs reassurance, even gods like Chase. Sometimes I forget that he’s a real boy under the image.
David is glaring daggers at me through his bangs.
My phone rings a second later, and Chase’s name flashes across the screen again.
I pick up, and say in a singsong voice, “Lindsey.” Then I hang up again, trying not to laugh.
I’m beyond flattered that the untouchable king of the school called to make sure I’m okay. More than that, he needs to know I’m not mad at him, practically begging for my forgiveness. The power I wield over him in this moment makes me feel giggly and high and reckless.
But he has a girlfriend, and she’s my friend, and I have to put a stop to this…
Whatever this is.
“Why do you pick up if you’re just gonna hang up?” David asks, startling me.
My phone rings again, and I cast a guilty glance at it and then back to David. He shakes his head in disgust.
I silence my phone and shove it back into my pocket. David’s right. In some weird way, I was flirting. The only way to truly put a stop to it is to stop engaging altogether.
So that’s what I’ll do.
I’ll forget the boy on the shore, the boy with the dirty whispers in my ear, the boy whose hands turn me to liquid fire. I’ll only see what everyone else sees—the shallow jock, the shameless flirt, the gorgeous goofball.
I’ll pretend that’s all he is. I’ll pretend I never knew he was anything else. I’ll pretend I don’t hear the echoes of his screams into the abyss.
And when he tries to remind me, I’ll turn a deaf ear to his suffering, just like I do to my own.
*
The next day when I walk into school, I notice a few people glancing my way and whispering. Paranoia instantly snaps shut around me, gripping me in a stranglehold. Did Daria tell Lindsey there’s something going on between me and Chase? Am I about to feel her wrath?
My fingers tremble as I open my locker, and I have to put in the combination three times before I get it right. This cannot be happening. It can’t, it can’t, it can’t.
A vaguely familiar girl smiles as she passes my locker. “I think it’s great,” she says when our eyes meet.
I open my locker and stand there trying to breathe for a minute.
There’s a picture in the middle of the door held on with a magnetic peg.
The small, glossy printout stares back at me like an accusation—or damning evidence.
