Em leaned back against the headrest and let out a big breath. It felt good to be in this truck, where nothing was expected of her.
Still, she couldn’t help but continue to pry. “So, how long have you known Drea?”
Crow looked up, trying to remember. “Well, we started hanging out in middle school. You know, when things started to shake out. Cliques.” He looked at her then, as though it was her fault that junior high school was a social nightmare. “We both hated that shit. And a crew kind of just . . . came together. A clique for people who hated cliques.”
“I remember you then,” Em said. “You used to skateboard at the edge of the teachers’ parking lot.”
Crow let out a laugh. “And got in trouble for it, like, once a week.”
“I thought you were such rebels,” Em said. “If I had gotten in trouble in middle school, it would have been the complete end of the world.” She thought back to those days, when she and Gabby used to sit on the benches by the soccer field and make friendship bracelets and dream about dating boys in high school. She felt a quick spasm in her chest. Things were so simple then.
“We both were outcasts—she’s practically an orphan,” Crow continued. Em watched him, hearing the steady beat of the rain against the roof of the car. “And later, when I decided to drop out, she didn’t harass me. Neither of us ever, like, pressured the other one. To talk, or to feel a certain way. We just both understood what it was like, I guess. To have things be . . . confusing.”
Em thought about what Crow had said before—that Drea sometimes just needed to get away. “So you get it,” she said. “When Drea wants to be alone.” She wondered if Drea had ever talked to Crow about the Furies, but she didn’t know how to ask.
“Not many people know how to be by themselves,” Crow said. She thought about how alone she’d felt over the last few weeks. How she was getting used to dealing with stuff by herself.
All of a sudden she felt Crow’s fingers against her jawline, tracing the curve from her neck to her chin. His fingers rested for a moment there, and then he turned her face toward his. He was leaning over the truck’s bench seat, pulling her face gently to his. First he kissed her bottom lip, then her top, and then both together. She felt herself kissing him back, running her tongue along the soft skin of his lower lip, feeling him open his mouth slightly. They both shifted infinitesimally closer to one another, and an aching pressure filled Em’s belly. She was taken aback and swept away at the same time; she could feel her hands trembling as they reached to circle Crow’s neck. She couldn’t help getting caught up in the urgency and rawness of it all: of being in his pickup truck, of their breath steaming up the glass while the rain continued to fall outside.
Then, without warning, he pulled away. Em looked at him, unconsciously bringing her hand to her mouth, not knowing what to say or do next.
“We shouldn’t—We shouldn’t be doing this,” Crow stammered. “I’m not—you know I’m no good for you, Em.”
“What?” Em took a deep breath, confused, attempting to quell the pulsing in her body as she tried to figure out what the hell was going on.
“It’s just . . . I don’t want you to get hurt.” He looked at her imploringly as she cut him off.
“You don’t have to say any more,” Em said, grabbing for her things and noting, with great relief, that the AAA van was pulling into the lot. Even though her pride was wounded, she ached to kiss him again. Jesus. Now the Grim Creeper had rejected her. What was going on? “I have to go.” She fumbled with the door handle and leaped from his truck, ignoring his single call after her and racing to her car, dizzy with mixed emotions. She barely felt the rain.
As the technician fiddled with her lock, she watched Crow’s headlights swerve from the parking lot. What was she thinking? She was in love with JD, but here she was, letting another guy—Crow, of all people—kiss her in his pickup truck in public. JD’s accusations, and his lack of trust, suddenly made a lot more sense. Could you forgive me, if I’d done what you did? . . . You ditched me to go make out with some other guy. That’s what he’d said about following her to the Behemoth that night, about thinking that she was with another guy. It seemed now like less of a false memory and more of a prediction. Maybe JD was right—maybe she did, however unwittingly, toy with people’s emotions.
She squeezed her hands against the steering wheel. Get it together, Em. The kiss with Crow was a fluke—a one-off. It had no bearing on her feelings for JD.