He runs his fingers along my collection of paperbacks. “Which one’s your favorite?”
I move to stand next to him and pull out the dog-eared copy of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bront? then press it into his hand. “You should read it.”
His brow arches. “Maybe I already have.”
I get excited. “Really?”
He laughs. “No, sorry. Am I not as cultured as you thought now?”
“It doesn’t matter. Read it now. Take it, please, as a gift from me to you.”
He cocks his head as he thumbs through the pages, some of which I’ve highlighted and underlined. “Why? What’s it about?”
“An orphan girl who searches her whole life for love. It’s about how she finds it, finally, in the arms of a man she’s been told she can’t have.”
His chest expands as he looks from me to the book. “You have a lot of attachment to this character?”
I nod. “She’s poor and struggles with other people’s low opinion of her social class.” I pause, feeling unexpected emotion tugging at me. “I-I guess I want what Jane gets at the end of the book: happiness in spite of everything she’s been through. She deserves it. I deserve it.”
He studies me, awe in his gaze, the emotion so apparent that right then, I lose my heart.
“You’ll find it,” he says. “Someday, Rose. I promise.”
I swallow. “Perhaps I already have.”
His expression changes, becoming torn.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing.” He shakes his head.
I touch his arm, letting my hand drift down to his fingers. I’m tired of pretending. “Spider . . . there’s something here between us. You know it.”
He exhales, staring at the floor for a few ticks before raising his head to meet mine. His cheeks flush a lovely color, and I start.
Confident and cocksure Spider is shy—by his feelings for me?
The world really is tilting on its axis.
“I don’t want to rehash old shit, but I want you to know that I’m really sorry for . . . what happened on the plane with the flight attendant. It’s what I do—let people down constantly. Just ask anyone. You’re a sweet girl, Rose . . . too sweet for me.”
My heart aches. “I don’t want to talk about the flight attendant. It’s over.”
He looks up. “I hurt you.”
“We didn’t even know each other,” I say, trying to put the thoughts away. I want to box those images up, throw them into the ocean, and then pile a bunch of cement rocks on top. “Let’s forget we met that way.”
He nods, raking his hand through his hair and tugging on the ends. “Start fresh, you mean? Friends, like I said in the diner? I’d like that.”
I close my eyes. Friends is not quite right. I want . . . hard and wild and reckless.
He doesn’t wait for me to answer.
I don’t know why.
Maybe it’s what he sees on my face.
He exhales. “I’m only twenty-two, but I know a lot about losing people, Rose. I lost my sister to an early grave. I lost my mum when she ran away to be with someone else, and I lost my dad even longer ago. I don’t let people leave me anymore, and you . . . you have just a little bit of power over me. It’s enough that it messes with my head. I need calm and music and my band mates. Do you understand?” His voice is excruciatingly soft, the words chipping away at the fragile glass that is my heart.
I understand perfectly. He’s letting me down easy.
I suck in a deep inhale.
“I’m sorry about Cate.”
He leans his shoulder against the wall and crosses his legs, studying me.
“If you ever want to talk about her, I’m here for you.”
He falters and studies his hands, a tremor there. “I let go.” Pain flits across his face. “I let her go. It’s my fault she’s gone.”
I get queasy at the images his words bring up as I start to understand. I don’t know how Cate died, but my imagination is going crazy. “You let her go?”
He looks up and nods, his face a wasteland.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
He rakes his hand through his hair, his teeth chewing at his bottom lip. “We’d been warned to stay off a lake that had frozen over. I didn’t listen, of course, and partially fell in. I was fine . . . I managed to get myself out of the water, but she came out to check on me, and slipped and . . .” He trails off.
“She fell in?” Horror washes over me.
He nods, his throat working as he swallows convulsively. “The ice cracked wide open when she fell, and she went completely under. I tried to pull her out . . . but she kept slipping off. She was so cold . . . and I held on to her hand as long as I could. I tried to pull her out, but I wasn’t strong enough. I screamed and yelled for help, but there wasn’t anyone around.” His eyes close and I see wetness there. He sucks in a shuddering breath. “Our hands just . . . slipped apart.”
Cold fills me up, and I feel breathless as if I am there in the moment, watching it happen with him.
Resignation settles on his slumped shoulders. “My father blames me.”
“No,” I whisper. “He can’t. Why would he? It was an accident. You were kids.”
“You’re too nice, Rose.”
“I’m not, you know.” I pause. “I want my stepbrother.”
His eyes find mine, and I’m not sure how long we stand there, staring at the other.
A bolt of electricity shoots from me to him and my lower body is hot. I want him pressed against my skin.
His gaze lingers on my lips then slides back to my face.
I want to go to him, to wrap my arms around him, but he moves first, wrapping his arms around me and clutching my head to his shoulder. “It’s time for me to go.”
No!
I’m a mess of emotions, scared of everything he makes me feel.
Scared of how lost he is.
His chest heaves as he releases me. Warm, tattooed hands cup my cheeks. “Lock the door behind me, and if that guy even so much as looks at you, call me.” He steps back to scribble his number on a slip of paper and place it on my desk.
“Don’t go,” I whisper as he moves to the door. “Stay.”
He doesn’t respond, but his face says everything. I see torment. I see indecisiveness. It’s just as hard for him to walk away as it is for me to watch him go.
I can’t breathe.
He’s leaving me.
He opens the door, slips outside, and is gone.
Rose
THE NEXT DAY, AS RUMORS about Garrett’s black eyes begin to circulate around school, I mentally prepare myself for a possible retaliation.
It happens before my calculus class after lunch. Aria stomps up to me at my locker—as well as she can in her high heels—and lets me have it, her high-pitched, shrill voice echoing down the concrete halls as she tells me what an awful person I am for letting my stepbrother beat Garrett up.
“It was clear to everyone that you were coming on to him at the diner,” she says, her hands on her hips. “And thanks to you, the baseball coach has kicked him off the team for fighting.”
“He was wearing a beanie and hiding in the woods.” How much more does she need to know? “He’s an idiot.”