You have to like me at least a little, I’d told him that last night, looking at his lips.Because I like you a lot.
And then, without thinking it through, I’d kissed him.
I’d kissed Beckham Jennings.
I thought you were better than your sister, Mrs. Johnson had said when she’d found us, disgust on her face.Kissing bad boys.
“Nellie.” I jolted up at the sound of Mom’s voice. She stood in my open bedroom doorway, dressed in her pajamas with a cardigan wrapped around her. She had Jamie’s phone in her hand already. “It’s curfew.” And she held her palm out to me.
I wordlessly passed my phone over, feeling trapped in the blazing memory. “Mom?”
“Yes, sweetie?”
“Do you think it’s weird that the board of directors let Beck come back to Alderton-Du Ponte?” My words were slow, almost drowned out by how furiously the blood roared in my ears. “After… he ruined the garden?”
Mom sank down on the edge of my bed, her eyes wide on me. “Why? Are you upset about it?” She sighed. “I really wish Ally had given me a heads up. You know how she is. Ask for forgiveness, not permission, and all that. But if it’s bothering you?—”
“It’s not.” I couldn’t quite look her straight on, settling for the collar of her pajama shirt. “Has Mrs. Johnson said anything about that night at all?”
Did she ever tell you she caught us?
Mom seemed surprised. “Mrs. Johnson? You meanabout her putting out the fire Beck started?”
The fire Beck started.W-R-O-N-G. “Yeah.”
“You know Mrs. Johnson,” she said, and then shook her head. “She was dramatic about it, painting herself a hero. Conveniently leaving out the part where she was drunk out of her mind.”
She’d been drunk when she’d stumbled upon Beck and me and the fire? Ithadbeen late in the evening for the fundraiser, but I hadn’t remembered—then again, it hadn’t been my biggest priority.
“Ally wrote them a nice check to let him back for the summer.” Mom nudged my leg, drawing my eyes back to her. “Butyou, Nellie. I’m more worried aboutyou. I know you said the fire was an accident?—”
“It was.”
“But he still destroyed the rest of the garden. And you were there.” She reached out and pushed some of my hair behind my ear, the touch feather light. The scent of her rose perfume still lingered on her wrist, choking me. “Even if it happened so long ago, I’d feel better if you weren’t alone with him.”
Her words were gentle, consoling, prickling over my skin. Mom knew nothing about what really happened that night because I’d lied. Or, really, I hadn’t corrected any assumptions, only to save myself.
Because Beck hadn’t been the one to destroy the garden. It’d been me.
I thought you were better than your sister, Mrs. Johnson had said, the words as sharp as the pain in my chest now.
To Mom, and to the Mrs. Johnson in my memory, I murmured, “Me too.”
Mom pressed a kiss to the top of my head, and the action should’ve washed me with warmth, should’ve chased away the unease in my stomach, but it didn’t. I was still cold, even more so after she left. I burrowed underneath my covers, bringing them up to my chin. There was a gap in my blinds that some moonlight seeped through, enough to throw horizontal shadows on the wall. I stared at them, too wired to close my eyes.
You wound me, Nell.
Y-O-U W-O-U-N-D M-E N-E-L-L.
With Beck, it was what I was best at.
CHAPTER 7
Four Years Ago
S-U-F-F-O-C-A-T-I-O-N.
That was what was happening to me, standing in a room full of people sucking up all the oxygen. Or maybe they were all fish, and I was the only human, submerged and unable to breathe like they could. Whatever it was, IA-B-S-O-L-U-T-E-L-Ycould notB-R-E-A-T-H-E.
