Page 28 of The Moment I Knew

But even with the guilt gnawing away at my stomach, I couldn’t bring myself to tell her about dad. At least not here on the steps of school on a random Thursday.

“Of course I like your friends. Where did that come from?”

Ainsley crossed her arms over her chest. “Every time I invite you to hang out with us, you say no.”

“I hang out with you guys all the time! Or have you already forgotten last Saturday?”

“After I twisted your arm until you came out with us.”

“I like your friends,” I repeated before we could get caught up in me listing all of the times I’d hung out with them over the last three months until she felt better. “I just don’t feel like going out tonight.”

“But you’re going to another sleepover later,” Ainsley said. Her brows furrowed. “Is it me? Do you not like spending time with me?”

I really needed to come up with a better excuse to give her about where I was going on the nights I visited Dad before she developed some complex about me having fun without her. There were just so few excuses for why I was gone overnight. I desperately wished that we could be like any other family with divorced parents, where I could be honest about staying over at Dad’s place for a night, but I still wasn’t sure Ainsley was ready for the truth yet.

I stopped walking and turned to face my sister, putting my hands on her shoulders.

“I love you, Ainsley,” I said. “And I love spending time with you, and your friends are great. I just don’t like The Corner Cup that much. Is that so horrible?”

It was probably for the best that I didn’t mention how I’d gone there on my own on Tuesday after school to study. That was a moment of desperation and nothing more. Sure, I’d gotten plenty of work done and okay, yes, my teacher had been impressed by the part of the essay that I fixed after Cole’s suggestions when I showed her my draft the next day, but none of that was anything that needed to be repeated.

“Actually, yes,” Ainsley said. “And it’s a very big problem.”

“Why?” I asked, throwing my hands up in exasperation.

“Because it’s the only place in town to hang out, and I want to hang out with my twin.” She crossed her arms. “It’s just so different at home, especially now that…” She trailed off but she didn’t need to say the words: now that Dad was gone. “And between swim and dance, I have so many practices, and you have your clubs and your sleepovers and I just feel like I don’t see you anymore. I miss you.”

The guilty feeling was now fully consuming my entire stomach. “I miss you too,” I said. “We’ll do something this weekend. I promise.” She brightens slightly and opens her mouth, but I hold up a hand to cut her off. “Something besides going to the coffee shop.”

She snaps her lips shut and sighs. Her eyes catch on something over my shoulder and her lips twist up slightly. “Remind me why you hate The Corner Cup again?”

“Ainsley—”

“It’s the hot barista, right?”

“I don’t see how this is important right now.”

She gripped my shoulders and spins me around. Then she reached a hand in front of me and points to a car coming to a slow stop in the parking lot a few spaces from where we stood. “Because I’m pretty sure he’s at our school right now.”

I glanced up, hoping for a second that it might be Clementine or Lavender or literally anyone else on the planet. But no—the car was the wrong color, and there was a boy in the driver’s seat. He leaned back in the seat, one hand draped across the steering wheel, looking like he belonged nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

I blinked, trying to explain away his presence here. Surely it was a hallucination. My brain was playing tricks on me.

I stared. Then frowned. Then squinted harder, tilting my head like that might somehow sharpen my vision.

There was no way.

Absolutely no way.

He didn’t go to this school. I knew that. And yet the longer I stared, the more sure I was that Ainsley was right—the dark hair, the annoyance on his face, one hand resting against the steering wheel and his head tipped back like he’d been waiting for hours instead of thirty seconds.

Cole was here. At my school. Which meant he was either very lost… or up to something.

I glared in the direction of his car. Then I adjusted the strap of my bag on my shoulder and took a step down the stairs.

“Wait, don’t forget the statistics about schools after hours!” Ainsley called after me.

“Stop watching so much true crime!” I said over my shoulder, then I veered toward the car before I could talk myself out of it. When I reached the driver’s side, I lifted my hand and tapped twice against the glass with my knuckles. He startled—actually startled—before turning his head. The annoyance was instant, written clearly across his face as he rolled the window down an inch.