“I deleted the message,” she says. “You didn’t hurt them and I don’t want anyone to think that you did.”
Hot tears pour down my face, but for once it’s not from pain.
Beck really, truly cares about me, doesn’t she? She cares about the real me.
And she’s in so much pain right now. I have to help her.
“You knew Paisley so much more than I ever could’ve pretended I did,” I say. “You could have loved her as a sister and still hated her as a person. You really don’t have to feel so bad about being angry or any negative feelings toward her.”
Beck takes a shaky breath. “The truth is, I could love her or hate her or feel nothing for her, but it doesn’t take away how fucking devastated I am at what my life’s going to have to become now. I can’t deal with my parents alone. I’ll never be Paisley, and every day I wake up dreading having to see the disappointment in my mom’s eyes when I fail to measure up. And yeah, I could tell her this, right? But I know she isn’t going to hear it.” I nod, the tears burning in my eyes too. “She won’t. This is just my life now. Paisley left me with a fucking mess.”
I take her hand, finally feeling sure that this is the comfort that she wants. The single lamp in this room shines off her tear trails. “Hey. It hasn’t even been a year. Everything’s going to be a mess and you have every right to be a mess. And even if it takes forever, you’ll figure it out. You’ll find a purpose in this new world. It’s what our species does, right? We just keep going, even when everything feels so, so changed.”
Beck swallows. “Thank you for saying that.” She looks away. “Let’s get the phone and pliers back to someone a little more adult than us. I hate this forest.” She laughs weakly. “I actually want to go home to Leslie Van Dutch.”
Truthfully, I really want to go home too. I miss Aemond curling around my side and the sound of my brothers’ loud footsteps and my parents’ voices.
We collect our backpacks but stop short when we reach the balcony on the porch.
It’s pitch-black outside.
It’s pitch-black…and the stars shine in one of the most beautiful, brilliant displays of the galaxy above us I’ve ever seen. It’s enough to take my breath away.
It’s the first time this trip that it truly feels safe enough to admire how gorgeous this place is.
Silence falls over us. We make eye contact.
Giggles burst out of both of us.
I eye the little bench sitting along the porch. “Maybe we can stay the night here.”
“Definitely,” Beck says. “This place could be a vacation rental.”
And for a few minutes, we sit on the bench and take in the stars. We let our nervous systems slow down as much as they can. Beck scoots in close to me, our thighs touching in an easy, familiar warmth. For a moment, everything feels like it might be okay.
“You know,” she says. “Not all the changes were bad.” Her gaze meets mine, flickers down, then back up. “I got to spend more time with you.”
Heat radiates down every vertebra of my neck deep into my spine. “You could’ve done that anyway.”
“Paisley would’ve never let me have access to her friends. I know too much. God forbid I ever tell them the story about when she shit her pants at the Christmas party when she was eleven.”
I fall into a fit of giggles, even if Beck is completely making up an embarrassing story to prove a point. “I think you could’ve found a way.”
Beck shrugs. “What if I’m too cowardly? Would you have ever made a move?”
My heartbeat picks up, but I like the feeling of its march. “Me? Ever think my friend’s cool athlete alt sister would want to spend time with me? Not even in my dreams.”
Beck snorts. “I’m not that cool. I would happily spend the rest of our time together showing you exactly how uncool I am.” She presses her thumb under my jaw. “Now you…I’d love to tell you how cool you are.”
She does that flicker thing with her eyes again.
“What’re you doing?” I whisper.
Beck smirks. “Kissing you, if you want.” She says it in a growl that sends my body aflame. She cocks her head. “Do you?”
I imagine a swell of music as I take Beck’s cheeks between my hands and close the gap between us. The feeling of her lips against mine is familiar, a sensation put to an image I’ve seen a million times with other faces on screens. But the way Beck’s whole body shudders in a sigh makes it all real. I’m kissing Beck Horne. I’m kissing Beck Horne on the porch of a watchtower three stories up in the middle of a death woods, and I haven’t eaten properly in hours, and if we tried to move, we might both collapse due to our overused muscles.
But there’s not enough space here. The ache of my hip bone digging into the wooden bench keeps everything moving.
