“R-E-V-E-N-G-E.” Beck spelled the word slowly, and I watched his lips as he did so. “I’m not like you, who thinks things through and follows their strategy down to the letter. I am far more impulsive.” At that declaration, Beck swept his acorn forward, right into the path of my bishop. “Nellie.”
My heart hiccupped. “Beck.”
“Ask me why I always came outside when we were little.”
I didn’t want to tell you why I wasreallyoutside, counting the stars,he’d said the night we’d thrown mud at each other, when he’d shattered my belief that he actually was a geek about stargazing. The truth had been harder for him to share—and one I suddenly wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
But, crushing my flower petal bishop between my fingers, I couldn’t help but ask. “Why did you come out to look at the stars?”
“Because I was so horribly lonely.” Beck’s voice was soft, sad, and distant, even though it was just a chessboard that separated us. “And I knew you’d always follow me.”
Something inside my chest twisted, sharp and fast, like I’d misstepped at the edge of something high. I stared down at the board, at the neat little army we’d built out of pebbles and trinkets, but the pieces blurred together until I couldn’t tell one from another.I knew you’d always follow me. Because I had. Time after time.
“I liked you,” I whispered, staring at the board, at how I was only a few moves away from capturing his king. A cold ache seeped through me. “I really, really liked you.”
And not just back then, I wanted to correct, because I knew, without a shadow of a doubt.I still like you, Beckham Jennings. I L-I-K-E Y-O-U.
“I liked you, too,” Beck said softly, but the words didn’t sound anything other than resigned. “I liked you a lot, Eleanor Brighton.”
I curled my fingers against theedge of the board, grounding myself, because I didn’t trust my voice. Not when every part of me was screaming that if I let this moment pass, I’d lose him for good. But I couldn’t bring myself to say anything, because it hadn’t just been me who’d used the past tense, but Beck, too.
Beck flipped his pendant over, the equivalent of tipping over his king, surrendering. “I will never win against you, Nell-Bell,” he mused, staring at the board as if he were committing it to memory. “Not when you have your mind set.”
“You won before,” I whispered—I couldn’t help it. I wanted to unflip his piece. I wanted to keep playing. “In the game room. When we played.”
“Because I wasn’t playing fair.” Beck stood, swiping up the pendant and leaving the other pieces behind. He held his hand out to me, charm in his palm. “Come on. Let’s get you back before they cut the cake without you.”
There was a window of time that existed betweenthere’s still timeandtoo late. I’d learned that four years ago. Staring at the four-leaf clover in Beck’s hand, I came face to face with the realization again. My narrow window of time was closing.
I-N-E-V-I-T-A-B-L-E.
Instead of taking the pendant out of his palm, I grabbed his hand and stood, bringing us close. Without my heels on, I had to tip my head back to look into his eyes. They were so much more muted in the dark, but focused solely on me.
“Why did you come back?” I asked, the world feeling thin and dizzy. “Why didn’t you finish yourspring semester? Why did you come back to Addison?” And then, half-guessing his answer, I asked, “Was it because you were bored?”
“I was never bored.” Beck reached out and touched his fingertip to the space between my brows, gently touching away my frown. I held perfectly still, savoring the closeness, afraid it’d evaporate any second. Afraid to hear what he’d say next. “It’s easy to say you’re doing something because you’re bored. It’s far more embarrassing to say you’re doing it because you’relonely.”
Lonely.
At once, all the times he’d used that excuse came back to me.
When he’d called me, pretending to be Carter.Because I’m bored.
When he’d shown up at my school with his convertible.I was bored.
When I’d asked him if Stanford was boring.Horribly.
Because I’m lonelywas what Beck had really meant.I was lonely. Stanford was horribly lonely.
Something in my heart cracked, the same way it had when I’d gone out to find Beck gripping the porch railing outside my house. I ducked my head a little, as if going to rest my forehead against the black material of his shirt. “Beckham,” I whispered, lungs aching.
“Don’t feel bad for me,” he said, like a soft request. “It’d just make me feel more pathetic.”
My chest physically hurt. “Pathetic? Why would?—”
“For thinking you’d be the one person in the world who’d missed me.”
Something in me broke altogether. A rush of cold poured through me, freezing, like he’d dumped cold water on me.I did miss you. I missed you nearly every day you were gone. Alderton-Du Ponte events were miserable without you, and I had to fool myself into thinking they were fun. Nothing was fun with you gone.But I couldn’t get any of that out. Why couldn’t I justsay it?
