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When her door pops open, I slink into the shadows of the staircase, watching as her hands tremble around the keys she clumsily pushes into the lock. She glances around when she steps back, freezing with wide eyes as she realizes she has an audience.
Her shoulders slump, her face turning a beautiful blush pink as she dips it to the ground, rushing past them all and heading straight toward me. I push off the wall, taking the steps two at a time to avoid her seeing me. The last thing I’m ready to do is deal with Beatrice up close.
Sunshine bathes me as I make it through the double doors, the warmth a welcome change from the chill my body has been feeling since I heard her name.
Nash waits by my truck, disappointment heavy in his expression when I reach him.
“Coach wants to see us,” he says, pushing off the metal and stalking round to the passenger door. He hops in, brushing his hand through his dirty-blond hair before he turns to me when I slide into the driver’s seat, flicking the engine to life. “What did you do?”
“What makes you think I did anything?” I retort, reversing out of the spot and heading toward the football field.
“Really? You wanna play it like that?”
Rolling my eyes, I flip through the radio, settling on an old hip-hop station. “I left her a little message, welcoming her to college, that’s all. Nothing to get your panties twisted over.”
“Mav.” He sighs, his hands landing on his short clad legs. “Is it worth it?”
“What?”
“The risk of throwing everything away again? You’ve worked so hard. Don’t let her being here ruin that for you.”
“So what do you suggest I do? Smile and wave when I pass her in the halls? Thank her for slipping back into my life just as I got things back on track?”
“I’m not saying that.” My fingers tighten around the steering wheel, my grip punishing as I flick my gaze to his. “Just be careful, Maverick. I’m on your team, no matter what, always have been. But I won’t watch you flush all the work you’ve done down the toilet all in the name of revenge on a girl we once knew. A girl who made a mistake.”
“Was it a mistake?” I ask him—the same question that has swirled through my brain over and over as the years have passed. “A mistake is leaving milk out on the counter or handing in the wrong homework. Lying to the people around you? That’s a choice, Nash, not a mistake. She knew exactly what she was doing that day, and I’m the one who had to live with the consequences. The only mistake made was ever trusting Beatrice to have my back.”
He doesn’t answer; I doubt he knows how to. There’s a reason we don’t talk about this shit.
Because despite what he says about being on my team, he’s always played devil’s advocate where Beatrice is concerned. When everyone around us struggled with her actions, he tried to understand them. When my family cursed her name, cutting off contact with hers, he stayed silent.
To him, Beatrice was like the little sister he never had. Their friendship was purely platonic, their bond similar to mine and Willows.
To me . . . she was more.
It was never spoken aloud, the way I felt about her, but I think she knew. Just as I thought she felt similarly, not that we were ever going to act on it. The danger of losing each other was too great, ruining the friendship we’d found with one another.
So, when she started dating Sebastian at fourteen, I stepped back. Watching her from afar, knowing it was the right thing to do for all of us.
Had I known then what would happen only three years later, my choice would have been different. But, as they say, hindsight is twenty-twenty. And in the end, Beatrice and I still did the one thing I feared the most. We ruined everything.
Chapter Four
Beatrice
Thecoffeeinmyhand has long since gone cold, the liquid bitter as I force it down my throat. My feet sink into the sand, my white sneakers turning a mucky brown as I walk along the beach. The sea dips in and out as the sky darkens, the usually packed seafront bare of life despite the warmth lingering in the air.
After leaving my dorm, I headed over to the administration building to report it, only to be told there’s nothing they can do. “Freshman pranks”—the lady working the desk took great joy in telling me—“It’s to be expected.”
Maybe she’s right, but my instinct is telling me she’s not.
The writing on the wall felt too personal. This wasn’t a harmless prank. Even if it was, why me, and who would have done it? I’ve been here for all of two minutes, having met only one other person in that time.
It doesn’t make sense someone could want me gone, not enough they’d come and steal my clothes and paint my walls.
Outside of Maisie, who I only met today and who’s been with me since I left my dorm untainted earlier today, the only person who knows me is Nash. And while I haven’t been able to call him a friend for a long time, I struggle to believe he could ever do this.
He’s too kind, too soft—in the best ways.
