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“Let’s get in.” I shrug off my backpack, strip off my shirt, and run into the water. I turn to Lily, who stands on the shoreline, eyeing me apprehensively.
“Is it cold?”
“Not at all.”
Lily’s gaze narrows on me. She takes off her denim shorts and baggy T-shirt to reveal my favorite bikini, the same deep-red one she wore in Rio. The twirl of straps barely contains her body’s full, supple curves. She glows as if dropped here from heaven itself. All I want to do is reach her, help her burn brighter, and make her happy.
I’m so ridiculously in love with her.
“Come on, pretty girl, get over here.” I walk toward her, but she skips down the beach away from me. “Or I’ll have to carry you in like the goddess you are.”
“A mere mortal, carryme?” she taunts, dipping her feet into the water.
“An honor.”
Lily walks deeper before plunging her head beneath the surface and floating over to me.
We swim for a few hours as though there’s no time limit on today or the rest of summer. As her laughter bounces against the cove, I tug her underneath one of the waterfalls, where there’s a small, private nook.
Lily smiles at me. I fall apart like I always do.
“I was reading that Aphrodite lost the love of her life here.” Her voice is a bright melody.
“Okay,morbid.”
“Love’s always a little morbid.” She runs her fingers beneath the stream, and my heart aches at her words.
“Have I hurt you, Lily?”
“Never, Nico. I don’t think you’d ever be capable of hurting me, but…” Her green eyes reflect the emerald of the water. She briefly turns away from me. “But I realize now the arrangement we made was a mistake.”
“It doesn’t have to be.” My brother was right. I need to tell her how I feel. Maybe it’ll be enough to make her understand we aren’t temporary. Or maybe I should finally show her the letters and lists I’ve been writing in her journal this summer. “Lily.” I reach for the soft tilt of her jaw, bringing her face close to mine. “It would destroy me to lose you.”
She blinks, likely sifting through the planned excuses she has stored away in her mind. “I don’t want to lose you either, but summer flings aren’t permanent.”
“You were never a summer fling.” My lips try to lift slightly, but gravity forces them into a straight line.
I sigh, doing my best to figure out how to break through the walls she’s put up between us.
“I think I knew we couldn’t truly be friends since last summer,” I say. “I didn’t know how long it would take for us to get here, but I’m done standing around. I’m done pretending this isn’t real.”
The words shoot out of the deepest pit in my chest.
They’re anguished and reckless.
“It took ten days for the rules to stop mattering,” I continue. “Another couple of weeks for them to vanish altogether and—”
“You’re right.” She halts my landslide of emotions, and we stare at each other, water falling around us.
“I love you, Lily.”
“Nico, I—” The edge of her bottom lip scrambles into her teeth. “I just—”
My heart unravels in my chest.“There’s no ‘just,’ Lily.”
We stand in our private nook, watching each other. Lily’s bottom lip hangs open. Every inch of me is consumed with anticipation of what she might say next. The green of her eyes feels as cool as the basin of water we’re standing in.
A mist from the waterfall lingers around us. I helplessly reach for her, and she cups the palm of my hand to her face.
