“No romance?” he asks. “I thought girls like that.”
“Sure, I like romance—bundled up in those worlds.”
“Space romance?”
“That’s a thing.”
“Huh. What about action stuff. The apocalypse or you know, the ones where the girl saves the world.”
“Like the Hunger Games? You’ve read that?”
“I’ve seen the movies.”
I feel like there’s something that I’m missing—he’s up there every day with a book, or different books, from what I’ve seen. What’s he hiding? Porn?
“The books are better though,” I say.
His jaw continues to tic even though he’s being nice. I want to ask what’s wrong or what I said that bothered him, but I don’t know how to navigate situations like this. Conflict. Confusion. Hurt.
I stare out over the water, watching the gray mingle with the pink and turn lavender.
“I’m not a very good reader,” he admits quietly. “I made the decision this summer to work on it by trying to read on my own, but…”
“But what?”
His blue eyes are cold sapphires when he looks at me. “I just suck at it. I get distracted or stumble over a word.”
My heart breaks for him, because admitting that has to be difficult. I recall what Charlie said, that Jake had summer school the year before. I assume it wasn’t like me—in an effort to get ahead, but probably because he was behind.
“I think it’s pretty cool you’re working on it. I know how difficult it can be to push past things that you aren’t good at.”
“Like what?” he asks, a line creasing his forehead. “What aren’t you good at?”
Pick something, I want to say. But I settle on one. “I’m not great at making friends, so this,” I gesture between us, “isn’t something I normally do.”
He laughs—the one that makes his whole face light up. “Yeah, I figured. It took you weeks to talk to me or the other guys. Even George, and he’s pretty easy.”
“None of it’s easy for me.” It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him about my past, why I’m here, but I don’t. It’s too weird. Too pathetic. I don’t want to be that girl, not if I don’t have to be.
“Do you want to talk about it? Tell me what happened?”
The hair on the back of my neck prickles and my defenses rise up. “Why do you think something happened?”
He shrugs. “I’ve met shy girls before and you’re not just shy. You’re…”
“I’m what?” I ask, genuinely curious. What did I look like to outsiders? Why had I always been a target?
“You’re timid. Scared.” He looks toward the horizon. “Damaged.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I live in a house full of broken souls, it’s not hard to identify.”
Every inch of my skin is on alert. He’s right. I’m scared—no, terrified. Always have been, and I push past the lump in my throat and say, “I wasn’t always like this. I was fine when I was younger. I had friends and did well in school. I mean, I think the anxiety was always there but I managed it. I think.” He’s no longer looking at the horizon but at me. Intently. “I was on some medication and my brain fell apart. I don’t have a lot of memories of that time, but I know I got very depressed and I withdrew and I only had one friend—a girl, and we were close—which then made the guys in my class think it was funny to call us lesbians. But I wasn’t a lesbian and neither was she, but it made our relationship awkward. Like the one person I could talk to didn’t want to be around me anymore. And the guys…they just wouldn’t shut up.”
“Middle school boys are the worst,” Jake agrees.
“One boy, he cornered me in the hallway and just kept bothering me. He said some really awful things and he…touched me.”