He was at least eight inches taller than I was, but that didn’t stop me from trying to snatch it from his hand. I was jumping when my sequined flip-flop wedged under the edge of the rug, tripping me. I would have fallen completely on my face if his hand hadn’t snaked out and caught me at the last second.
“See? That’s what you get for wearing such girlie shoes,” he teased, settling back on the couch and flipping to the action movies on Netflix.
“Well, seeing as I’m a girl, it’s my God-given right to wear girlie shoes.”
He laughed. “Oh, please. You’re not a girl.”
“Excuse me?” I gasped, clearly offended.
It wasn’t lost on me that I was, in fact, a girl. I was actually a very girlie girl in some ways. But it was the way boys used the term girl as if it were an insult that pissed me off. But, before that moment, I had no idea that someone—especially Quarry—telling me that I wasn’t a girl could be equally as insulting.
He must have heard the hurt in my voice, because suddenly, the remote had been discarded on the coffee table and his attention was focused solely on me. His hazel eyes looked confused as he explained, “I just mean that you aren’t like other girls. You’re tough and funny. They’re all wimpy and helpless. I’ve seen you hold your own against boys double your size. Real girls cry when their pencils break.”
Wow. A compliment and an insult. How does a girl even attempt to respond to something like that?
I punched him hard on his arm. “You’re an idiot.”
“See!” He smirked as he rubbed his shoulder. “What girl punches a guy like that? Like you’re freaking Rocky Balboa, raised on the streets. Not in a cushy Chicago mansion. None of the girls at my school—that’s for sure.”
And that was the first time Quarry Page broke my heart.
There were two parts of that statement that wounded me so deeply. The first being that I’d thought Quarry liked that I was tough. I hadn’t always been raised in a cushy mansion. I’d had five years of struggle under my belt, even if I did only remember a few silent nights of those years. That was enough. I didn’t need the rest of those memories. Not when only one nearly incapacitated me on a nightly basis.
The second way was that, for the very first time ever, I felt a dose of jealousy. I wasn’t stupid. I had known that Quarry had girls at his school. I’d just never thought they were any competition for me. Or, better yet, that I would ever consider someone else competition when it came to him. Quarry wasn’t my boyfriend or anything. That’s not how our relationship worked. However, in that moment, I kinda wished it had been like that. Maybe he’d want to hold my hand while we watched a movie. He could get a ride up to Chicago and go to my middle school formal with me. We would have had so much fun together. I didn’t want him to bring me roses and mushy cards, but even thinking of him doing that with someone else suddenly burned.
I’d never thought of Quarry like that before, so as I blankly stared at him, I couldn’t figure out why my mind was trudging into such uncharted waters when, honestly, I didn’t even like to swim.
Yet my mind wanted an answer and went directly to my mouth to get it, bypassing my self-restraint altogether.
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
His eyebrows popped high in surprise. “Not really.”
“Not really” was not an answer. It was an evasion.
And it made it clear that he probably did.
It also burned so badly that I was afraid the blisters would be visible on my skin.
I focused on the TV, hoping the pain didn’t show on my face.
“Why? Do you have a boyfriend?”
Nope.
Not even close.
“Kinda,” I replied instead.
“Seriously?”
I didn’t turn to look at him. I pulled my feet under me and settled into the corner of the couch. “So, what movie are we watching?”
“Liv—”
“I’m fine with action. But it better be good. None of that sci-fi crap.”
I could feel his eyes locked on me for several beats, but I refused to look at him. He was allowed to have whatever girlfriend he wanted. We were still best friends. Nothing had changed.
Though it didn’t feel like that as I curled into the corner of the couch, fighting back irrational tears and feeling more like a girl than I ever had before.
I didn’t even make it halfway through the movie before I was lulled to sleep by the loud noises of car chases and explosions.
My body shot upright as I was awoken by the most terrifying sound in the world.
Silence.
Panic built in my chest as my eyes struggled to take in my surroundings.
The room was pitch-black—not even the light from the moon peeked in. I definitely wasn’t in my bedroom at home, and my groggy mind was too overwhelmed to remember where I’d fallen asleep. I just knew I needed to get the hell out of there. Tears built in my eyes as I pushed to my feet and darted to where I hoped there was a door. I hadn’t made it far when my leg slammed into something, and I tumbled forward in a fight to stay on my feet. I crashed into something else just before a heavy weight fell on top of me and knocked the air from my lungs. A whole new level of fear spiraled out of control within me.