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“Parties are different. A party’s just one night. A way to blow off steam. We’re nearly seventeen, Theo. It makes sense that we’d wanna fuck around with girls and get wasted. Sorrell Voss is bad news, dude. She’s needy as fuck. She’ll eat up all of your time. Your classwork will suffer. You’ll lose your spot on the team.”
I laugh. I have to. “The sun will explode in the sky. Crops will fail across the planet. A new ice age will grip the earth, and all of humanity will die. Voss isn’t the fucking Anti-Christ, Seb.”
“Isn’t she?” he grumbles.
I choose to overlook the comment. “I’m perfectly capable of hanging out with my friend and taking care of my—”My jaw nearly hits the floor, “—shit!”
The girl standing in the classroom doorway bears a passing resemblance to my childhood friend. But it can’t be Sorrell, can it? I feel like I just got sucker punched in the gut. She’s…
Fuck.
Her thick, wavy black hair cascades all the way to her waist. Her cheekbones are razor sharp, her cheeks rosy, her color high. Her eyes, the left a verdant green, the right a startling ice blue, are brighter than ever. I’m run through and speared to my fucking seat when her gaze travels across the room and lands on me. What the fuckhappenedto her? I thoughtI’dchanged, but the girl I grew up next door to is completely unrecognizable. She’s turned into a goddamn smoke show.
“Oh, great.” Sebastian slaps his notebook down onto his desk. “Now she’s hot. That is just… fucking…great.”
His complaints go unheard. I can’t stop staring at her. I feel like I’m trying to catch my balance, teetering on the edge of a precipice. Wobbling. Fighting to keep my footing. Every single moment I’ve ever spent with this girl flickers through my mind at once, blurring and blending together. The laughter. The teasing. The arguments. The petty bickering. Watching movies on the couch together, her head resting in my lap. Throwing scrunched up pieces of paper at each other in the library. Jumping into the lake. Riding bikes around town. Every Christmas. Every birthday. Every spring, summer, winter, fall.
A lifetime I’d forgotten about.
Until now.
Sorrell heads in my direction, weaving through the desks, a small, casual smirk playing over her full lips; when she arrives in front of me, my heart gives a hard, desperate thump, as if it’ll never beat correctly again now that she’s here.
“Well, look who it is. Theodore William Merchant,” she says. Her voice is deeper than it was before. Raspier. More than that, it’s fuckingsexy. A weird panic sinks its teeth into me. What thefuckam I supposed to do with this knot of fire that’s kindled to life behind my sternum? It takes far longer than it should for me to smile back up at her and speak, and even then I can only manage two words.
“Hello, Kid”
19
SORRELL
NOW
The cadence of his breath feels familiar.
As far as I’m aware, I’ve never woken up in Theo’s bed before, but if the absolutely insane story he spun to me last night is to be believed, then I probably have. Many times. I will admit that feeling his chest pressed up against my back, his body curved around mine, his arms wound tight around me…all of that feels…fuck, it feels good. How can that be possible? And how cananythinghe told me last night be possible?
I lay in the cradle of his body, listening to the slow draw and pull of him inhaling and exhaling in his sleep, terror mounting inside me.
I remember Rachel. Her laugh. Her smile. How badly she annoyed the shit out of me whenever we fought. We shared whispered secrets in the dark. I try to recall what her hand felt like in mine, as we ran across the train tracks behind Falcon House, whooping and screaming, and it comes to me so easily that I know without a shadow of a doubt that shewasreal.
But then, there are the holes.
What color were her eyes?
Was she taller than me, or was I taller than her?
Did she haveanyfamily?
The night of the accident, where was she sitting in that car?
Where wasIsitting?
What exactly happened?
Jesus fucking Christ.
I gulp down a frightened breath, screwing my eyes shut tight. What the hell iswrongwith me?
