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“There is no middle, Monroe. There’s no me and Rachel, not anymore. There’s nothing.”
She didn’t answer but slipped into the driver’s seat and fired up the old Crown Vic. For the first time in a long time, I realized I was looking forward to something and it was all because of the girl inside the car.
The girl with the gray/green eyes.
The girl with secrets and pain and something inside her that felt familiar. It was something that was close to what was buried inside my chest. Inside my head and heart.
And I thought that, for the first time since the accident, I didn’t feel so alone.
And that was nice for a change.
Chapter Thirteen
Monroe
There wasn’t a soul at Baker’s Landing.
Not one person or dog or even a bird flying around. There was nothing except a hot breeze, beautiful oak trees, an inviting grassy knoll near the water, and the most picturesque pond I’d ever seen. Seriously. It looked like something out of a Nicholas Sparks movie, and I half expected a bunch of white swans to float by at any minute.
Or maybe Ryan Gosling rowing his boat like he’d done in The Notebook, looking so hot and yummy and sweaty…
Kind of like Nate.
I watched him as he walked toward the water, Gram’s cooler in his hand, while the sun haloed him, giving him a surreal kind of look.
He moved like an athlete, long easy strides, and I could totally picture him on the football field, running plays and doing it really well. I thought that, if I lived around here, maybe I would go to his games. You know, if I liked football. Which I didn’t, so I don’t even know why that thought popped into my head.
He paused on the edge of the bank, set the cooler on the ground, and peeled off his shirt.
My stomach did this weird dipping thing, but then why wouldn’t it? The guy could be a model for the Abercrombie cargos he wore, and the fact that they hung so low I could see his boxers again didn’t help.
It was almost worse than being naked, because it made a girl think of the unknown, and I shouldn’t be thinking of the unknown.
I shouldn’t.
Mostly because he was way out of my league—that’s if I was interested, which I wasn’t. I hadn’t dated any guy in a long time—not since Malcolm died—and I knew that getting close to Nathan Everets wasn’t a good idea.
So why was I thinking about it? Was it because, on some level, I knew he was unattainable? Was it because I knew Nate would never be interested in someone like me? A girl who was more damaged than he was? A girl with so much baggage she needed an extra set of luggage just to get her from day to day?
But if that was true, why had he brought me here? Was he just being nice? Or was he interested in someone who was different? Someone new?
Why did I care?
God, I groaned, I’m such an idiot.
I joined him and stared out at the water, shaking my head when I spied a group of swans along the far side. Unbelievable. Totally Nicholas Sparks.
“You like it?”
He grinned down at me and I nodded, wishing he’d put his shirt back on or something. I dropped to the ground and dug through the cooler, handing him a ham sandwich when he did the same. We popped open a couple of cans of Coke and ate in silence, there beneath the biggest oak tree I’d ever seen.
For a few moments, the awkward silence between us made swallowing my food difficult. I couldn’t think of anything to say, and the tension across my shoulders was starting to burn. I’m sure he thought I was an idiot.
I was an idiot. I should have just stayed home. Who was I kidding? I hadn’t been alone with a boy in a very long time, especially a boy who made me feel things I wasn’t used to feeling.
I shook my head. My therapist would be all over this shit.
“How long are you here for, Monroe?”
