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I shake my head, voice low with regret as I tell him, “Didn’t mail them.”
“What did you say?”
“Everything I’d been doing without you. Trips. Comic books I finished. The friends I made. Skateboarding.” I pause and swallow hard. “I asked if you were kissing girls. If you brought them to our fort.”
He scoffs. “You should have sent them.”
“I know. It’s clear what happened now, but before, I thought you were living just fine without me.”
His grip tightens on me as he says with a serious expression, “I wasn’t. I’m never fine without you, Cassie.”
I frown. “Was my leaving that painful?”
He nuzzles my neck, breathing me in. “It was, especially after hearing I wouldn’t see you again.”
I caress his face. “You know, if it were up to me then, I wouldn’t have left seven years ago. I would have stayed with you.”
“I know,” he says on an exhale. “What matters is that you’re here now. Don’t leave me again.”
I scowl. “Reid, I’m starting college in the Fall. Whatever this is won’t continue. Maybe by the end of summer, the feelings will lessen.”
He snaps up from the pillow, blatant hurt twisting his face. “So you’re just experimenting with me? You’ll play around in secret for the summer and leave me behind again? Is that the plan, Cassie?”
“Reid, don’t be like that.”
“Be like what?” He pulls away and straightens from the bed, running his hand through his hair. “This is real for me, Cassie. It’s not a fucking fling. My feelings for you are intense and don’t have an expiration date.”
I sit up. “You have to know it won’t last. We’re cousins. The reality is we have to hide it from our parents. It’s silly to think we’ll have anything beyond the summer.”
He huffs. “I don’t want to fuck around just for the summer, Cassie. Don’t I matter to you at all?”
“Of course you do.”
“Then tell me,” he urges. “I want to hear the words, not just the way your body reacts when I’m making you feel good.”
He stares at me intensely as if waiting.
I swallow hard. “Reid, we’ll always have our connection and what happened this summer, but beyond that—”
“Whatever.” He throws his hand up. “Fuck it.” He storms into the bathroom and slams the door.
My eyes burn as I rise from the bed and walk out of the room. I don’t mean to upset Reid. I’m only trying to hold on to my heart because I’m afraid of the force I feel when I’m with him.
I fear it may be too late, though. The ache inside could be an indication that I might have already leaped from the edge.
