Until I caught fire.
I dropped to the ground and grabbed a fistful of mud, and I didn’t even bother straightening before launching it at him. Beck turned to dodge it, prepared. It clipped him in his shoulder, but it wasn’t very visible against his dark tee. When he turned around, the idiot was full-ongrinning. “Wow, Nell-Bell, that was actually good aim?—”
I immediately scooped up another clump of mud and launched it, and this time, I hit my target’s bullseye. Themud splattered across the lower half of Beck’s face, into his open mouth, choking his words off mid-sentence.
He froze, spitting before his green eyes locked onto mine. There was a game we’d both been playing from the start—a move and then a countermove. Calculated. Deliberated. But as his wide gaze filled with the same fury I felt, alongside a sort of wicked glee, I knew whatever thoughtful game of chess we’d been playing was over.
“Oh.” Beck reached up with his clean hand and tried to smear the dirt off his lips. “It’son.”
And just like that, all bets were off.
We must’ve looked like two maniacs, ripping the ground up to throw the earth at each other. We weren’t quiet about it, either. One of Beck’s throws caught me in the eye, and I shrieked with pure rage. I retaliated by aiming for his mouth again, causing him to choke out a growl of his own. The mud was cold as it slipped between my fingers, but I didn’t really register it, too focused on pinwheeling the sludge at him to cover the jerk from head to toe.
We ended up close enough on the path that throwing mud became more like rubbing it on each other. I reached up to slap my fistful against Beck’s face, but he caught my arm, holding my bomb at bay while he threaded the sludge through my hair.
“You little brat,” Beck said with a grunt, holding me off. The only thing I could really lock onto as the world was a blur of dimming sunset and dark mud was the electric green of his eyes. Wide, fierce,bright. Like someonehad turned the lights on. “What is with you and taking your anger out on nature?”
“Me!” I scoffed in disbelief, trying to slap my muck-covered palm into his cheek. His hold was too strong. “Youthrew the mud first!”
Beck caught my other wrist, locking both my arms. “Because you sounded insane!Ooh, I’m so perfect, I’m so perfect—get a grip!”
“Oh!” The word echoed into the air. “I’minsane! I’d say look in a mirror, but with how bigyourego is?—”
I didn’t get the chance to finish my eloquent insult. My shoe slipped in the sludge, and since they were three sizes too big, my entire foot twisted sideways. The sudden lurch of movement caused Beck to lose his footing on the slippery ground, too. With nothing else to grab, I latched onto the front of Beck’s shirt, holding tight, and dragged him down with me.
Right before we slammed into the ground, Beck’s came up underneath my head, bracing it as we crashed into the mud with asplat.
Beck’s green eyes were wide as he lifted himself halfway off me, but it was the whites that were more vivid amongst all the mud on his face. “Are you okay?” he asked, voice tight, fingers firm against the back of my head. “Nellie. Are you okay?”
With the wind knocked out of me, it took me a second to breathe in, heart racing in my chest. The mud was cold, but the sun was a burning flame behind Beck. He was on top of me, our legs messy and tangled. I swallowed hard—and then winced again at the grit that slid down my throat.
A laugh pressed down on my chest. “You look ridiculous.”
The mud I’d managed to comb through Beck’s hair almost completely obscured the platinum blond, turning him once more into a brunette with splotches of white. “Me?” Beck snorted, hand still at the back of my head. His fingers felt softer now, almost a caress. “You should see what you look like.”
A strangled laugh burst out of me, because he had to be right—I had to lookhorrible. Lying in mud, my hair pressed flat into it, my cheeks stiffening with it. My sweater couldn’t even be called white anymore, not with how much dirt was packed on. I waslying in it. It’d probably never come clean. I laughed hard, squeezing my eyes shut, and I thought I could hear Beck’s soft chuckle join in. Light. Slightly concerned about a possible mental break. But there.
I laughed hard enough that a tear trickled out of the corner of my squinched eye. “I shouldn’t laugh like this,” I said with a breathy chuckle, the words amused and self-deprecating. In that moment, I felt like Beck. “You said it was ugly, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t mean it.”
I blinked my eyes open, and when our gazes locked once more, it felt like my heartbeat slowed to a crawl. Beck still hovered only a few inches above me, using his other arm to prop himself up so as not to crush me, making no move to stand up. “I’m not perfect?” I asked.
Beck just gazed down at me, lip pulling up, but notinto a smirk. “No,” he said with a real, soft smile. “But that’s okay.”
And then, carefully pulling his hand out from underneath my head, he swiped at the amused tear that’d started rolling down my cheek with the side of his dirty finger. I wanted to suck in a breath, but staring up into Beck’s eyes, I was frozen.That’s okay. For that moment, years and years of striving for perfection all felt wiped away in an instant with just those two words.That’s okay.
T-H-A-T-S O-K-A-Y.
I didn’t realize until that moment that my crusty fingers still gripped the fabric of Beck’s shirt. He had me in the perfect position to tease me, to say whatever suggestive thing he’d had lined up next, but he didn’t.
Four years ago, he’d been the same one to save me then.Here, he’d said, handing me the lighter.Explode.
I-N-E-V-I-T-A-B-L-E.
If it were an emotion, it’d be stirring in me now. I’d be filled to the brim with it. The words tumbled out of me. “I’m sorry for not telling the adults I’d been the one to light the rosebush on fire.”
The apology was four years overdue and lackluster, but the second the words left my lips, something in me quieted. The guilt and shame that’d been weighing me down all these years didn’t disappear, but I finally, finally, did something about it.
