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Our kiss deepens, tongues tangling lazily.
After a minute or so, we part with a languid sort of inevitability, cheeks dropping to our respective pillows. We stay curled on our sides, facing each other, with my arm wrapped around her, holding her to me.
She lifts a hand, grazing a fingertip down my cheek feather-light. Her amber eyes drift around my face, and she inhales deeply through her nose. “I’m gonna miss you.”
I smile softly, nodding in the heel of her hand. Turning my face, I press a kiss to her palm. “Me too.”
“I wish I could bring you with me.”
“I know.”
She smiles sadly.
“You’re going to kick ass,” I tell her.
Her lips twist, cheeks pinkening in that way they only do when it’s me complimenting her. “You’re just saying that.”
I roll my eyes. “When have I ever just said that?”
She bites her lip. “Have you heard anything back from NYU yet?”
Shaking my head, I say, “No.”
“It’s early.”
I smile thinly. “You’re just saying that.”
She gives me a playful shove, and I use the opportunity to grab her fully, rolling on top of her. Grabbing her wrists, I pin them above her head. Brown hair splayed around her, cheeks flushed, lips parted, warm eyes glittering…
It’s wild, sometimes, to think that this is the same frizzy haired girl who all but stormed into my life and made me her friend. The same girl who gave me a whole second family. The girl who gave me piano.
Eleven fucking years.
I’m not stupid—I know what people think, what they’re probably saying behind our backs.
I know even her parents worry that we jumped the gun too young—committed to something before we really ever had a chance to live. To explore. To find ourselves.
And it’s not like I don’t think about it too sometimes, especially lately…what with senior year having begun, and college on the horizon, and everything else that happened in the last six months.
Waylon’s attack.
The truth about his abuse finally coming to light, despite his insistences that it was just one time.
His dad’s arrest, and the shitstorm he left in his wake.
And I think of Jeremy…of what my life is going to look like next year, when it’s just Izzy and Waylon and me. How it’s always been…but also not.
All for one, and one for all…
“What is it?” Izzy says quietly, a frown stamped between her brows. “You look sad all of a sudden.”
“Nothing,” I murmur, and my chest squeezes with the lie. “I just…”
Her frown deepens, and she pushes me off her so she can scoot up against the headboard. Shadows dance across her skin, over the gentle swells of her bare breasts. The string lights strung about the room flicker over her skin like diamonds.
Sitting back on my ass, I tuck the comforter over my lap. “Do you ever have regrets?”
Her eyes widen. “About…”
