Boys Like You

Slowly I straightened, my stomach recoiling but strong enough that I knew I wasn’t going to puke. “Yeah?”

Monroe nodded and grabbed my hand, forcing me toward the elevators.

“Yep,” she said as she pressed the lobby button. “You’re officially the most pathetic person I know.”

“Great. Thanks for that,” I retorted sarcastically. Who the heck was she to talk like she knew what I was going through? As if she knew what it felt like to nearly die from regret and remorse and guilt?

“Just so you know, all it takes is one mistake to claim the crown, so watch out,” I snapped.

The doors slid open and we stepped inside. Once they were closed, Monroe glanced up at me, her eyes huge and glassy. Her chest rose and fell, her lips were parted, and I smelled that summer scent again.

She held my gaze until the elevator doors slid open again and then she whispered, so softly that I barely heard, “At least your mistake is still alive.”

Chapter Nine

Monroe

I couldn’t believe I’d opened my mouth and let something like that slip out. What the hell was wrong with me?

“At least your mistake is still alive.”

Was I crazy? Why the heck would I say something like that?

My heart pounded, so hard that I felt each beat pulse at the base of my neck, and I blew out a long breath as I slid into the car and waited for Nate to do the same. It was a few minutes after eight, and the sun was just starting to get real low in the sky. Red and gold streaked across the horizon, and I supposed it was pretty, but at the moment, I didn’t give a shit about pretty.

At the moment, I was afraid that Nate would ask me what I meant, and if he did, I wasn’t sure what I was going to say. I didn’t talk about Malcolm. Ever.

I squeezed my eyes shut when I heard the passenger door squeak open. In an hour, it would be dark, but the darkness couldn’t come soon enough for me because it was so much easier to hide.

I wanted to disappear. I wanted to melt into a puddle of nothing and pretend that I hadn’t just opened my mouth and said what I’d said.

Nate slid in beside me and I cranked the Foos, wincing when Dave Grohl’s voice cut through the silence.

Why you’d have to go and let it die. Pretty much perfect song right about now.

I pretended that everything was fine and normal. I pretended that I hadn’t just seen Trevor’s father rip Nate a new one. I pretended that I hadn’t felt something when I’d looked into Nate’s eyes.

But mostly I pretended that I hadn’t just opened up my mouth and shared something with a boy I barely knew. At least your mistake is still alive… Shit.

It was hard though—to act like everything was cool. To kinda sorta smile through the lump that clogged my throat. But I did it. I did it because I had to. Because I didn’t know how to be any other way.

How the hell had Nate managed t

o get that out of me when it had taken my therapist nearly five months to get me to say a single freaking word?

Maybe Nate hadn’t heard. Maybe my brain was so screwed up that I thought I said something when, in fact, it was just the ghost of a whisper in my ear.

I turned the key all the way and revved Matlock a bit as I glanced into the rearview mirror and then into the side mirror. I looked everywhere but at the guy beside me, because inside, I was counting. I was counting and trying like hell to focus.

One. Two. Three. Over and over again.

It was a good minute or so before I felt calm enough to glance his way, but when I did, my heart nearly popped out of my chest.

His dark eyes were on me. And they knew. They knew. They knew something bad had happened. Something worse than bad. Something unforgivable.

We stared at each other for a long time, so long that my eyes began to burn and I was afraid I was going to cry.

Wow. That would be epic.