by Lexi Ryan
I shake my head and push myself up. Glass crunches under my feet. The world spins with the kind of pain I haven’t felt since I broke my collarbone in high school. I lean against the wall for support, and the world rights itself. “I don’t have a life. I’m just a fuck-up. Ask my dad. Ask Coach. Ask anyone.”
She tries to take my hand again, and when I hold it out of her reach, she steps closer until she has to crane her neck to look up at me. Her mouth is so close, so tempting. “Let me help, please.”
I blink as her words slingshot me back in time. To my car. To her fingertips brushing under my waistband. “Let me. Please.” I want to go back to that night and stay there. Never leave the lake. Never let her leave my arms. “Do you remember that night, Mia? Do you remember letting me touch you?”
Something flashes in her eyes but she closes them, locking the emotion away before I can read it. “We need to get you to the hospital.”
“Can’t,” I whisper. The world’s going fuzzy, the edges blurred with pain. “House arrest.”
“I think you broke your hand. I’m pretty sure your probation officer will forgive a trip to the ER.”
“Do you remember?” I ask again. My voice doesn’t sound like my own. “I need to know.”
She nods, and there’s so much goddamn sadness in her eyes that I should hate this, but I can’t. Because she’s close. And when she’s not, the air isn’t fit to breathe. “Of course I remember,” she says. “Do you?”
“Yes.” Every single moment.
Her gaze drifts to my mouth and her lips part. “I’m sorry.” She lifts her hand to my jaw and skims her fingers over the stubble there.
“Why would you say that?”
“Because you regret it,” she says, “and I should, too.”
I close my eyes, telling myself this is only a moment. I’m so caught up in the pain and the memory, I can allow myself this touch. This contact of her skin with mine that makes me want so much I can never have.
“I don’t regret it.” My voice breaks on the words, and I step away before I can say more. Before I can admit that memory is all I have. It’s the only thing that reminds me I’m alive. The memory of Mia’s mouth, her touch, the way she tastes—that was all that kept me from following her brother to the grave I put him in.
May, eight months before the accident
I usually avoid off-campus parties. They’re always more trouble, alcohol, and drama than they’re worth, but my teammates ganged up on me, and I agreed to come to this one.
When I pull up, the street is lined with cars, and music pours from the house. The front porch is crowded with people drinking from red cups and smoking, and I decide I’m going to make an appearance and head back to the dorm. I can already tell this party is trouble.
I head in and spot Mia in the kitchen, and I pause. Trouble.
I’m slammed with that push-pull of want and guilt deep in my gut. I shouldn’t even think of her as Mia. I should think of her as Brogan’s girl. But she’ll always be Mia to me. She’ll always be more to me than I can admit to anyone.
God, she’s beautiful. Her long, dark hair is down tonight, hanging in loose curls around her bare shoulders. Her black shirt fits snugly against her body, displaying her curves more blatantly than her typical choice of clothing.
She laughs, and Bailey hands her a shot glass. Mia shoots it back like an old pro.
Bailey throws her hands in the air. “Yes!” And promptly pours another.
What the fuck?
I head to the kitchen and wrap my hand around Mia’s wrist before she can bring the second shot to her mouth. “Slow down, champ.”
My eyes lock with Mia’s, and time skids to a halt. The room grows silent around us—or seems to—because it’s still there. At least, it is for me. She’s been with Brogan for more than six months now, and I’m still jarred by an electric current every time we touch.
I’m horrible and despicable. I’m broken. I shouldn’t be thinking about electric currents in the context of my best friend’s girl.
“I thought you didn’t drink,” I say.
“What are you, Arrow? Her dad?”
I ignore Bailey’s soft punch to my shoulder and keep my eyes on Mia. “What’s up?”
Mia avoids my gaze and traces the rim of her shot. “I just want to let loose a little.” The words come out with a tremble. Nerves? Something else?
Bailey’s loud guffaw pulls my attention from Mia. Her grin stretches across her face. “She’s trying to relax so she can rid herself of her V-card.”
“Bailey,” Mia says, her eyes going wide. Bailey throws her hand over her mouth, and Mia looks at me. “Ignore her. She’s drunk.”
Her V-card? “You’re a virgin?” Oh, hell. Somewhere there’s a list of questions you don’t ask your best friend’s girl when you secretly want her for yourself. That one’s gotta be somewhere near the top. There’s also a list of questions that you shouldn’t care how your best friend’s girl answers, and it’s probably number one on that list, too.
Mia glares at Bailey. “Why do I tell you anything? Why?”
“She’s a virgin,” Bailey says. “For now.”
And she plans to end that tonight? With Brogan? My stomach twists into knots but I manage to keep a straight face as I pull the shot glass from Mia’s hand. “If that’s the case, you probably shouldn’t get trashed tonight.”
“Where is Brogan, anyway?” Bailey says. “Didn’t he say he was here when he texted you?”
“He had to leave,” Keegan says, stumbling over to us. “His grandma’s in the hospital.”
Mia sets the shot glass on the counter and slips her hand into her purse to retrieve her phone. Her fingers tap quickly at the screen. “I had no idea. Crap.”
Bailey frowns. “I guess this means you aren’t going to give it up tonight. Bad timing, Grandma.”
Mia frowns at her. “You are the actual worst, you know that?”
“Sorry. I suck at serious conversations. Tell Brogan I’m sorry or whatever it is I’m supposed to say.” She bites her lip and cuts her gaze to me. “I’m really not a bitch, I swear. I’m just bad at life.”
Mia’s phone rings and she swipes the screen and puts it to her ear. “Where are you?” She nods, listening. “I’m so sorry, sweetie. I can get a ride and be there in . . . Oh. Okay . . . right. No, of course. Please don’t worry about it. I understand . . . yeah. Okay. Well, call when you have a chance but don’t worry about me . . . Okay. I love you.” When she hangs up the phone, all the giddy energy that buzzed around her when I first walked over here is gone. “His grandma had a stroke. She’s in the hospital.”
“Are you going to go?” Bailey asks. “I bet Chris hasn’t been drinking. He could probably drive you.”
Mia shakes her head. “No, it’s just family right now.” She forces a smile. “I’ll let you know when I hear something, but I think I’m going to go out back so I’m somewhere with less noise when he calls again.”
“Okay,” Bailey says.
Mia excuses herself, and I watch her push through the crowd and out to the backyard.
When she’s gone, Bailey turns to me. “Brogan’s mom is a fucking cunt.”
“Bailey!”
“Don’t Bailey me! I guarantee you she’s the reason Mia’s not welcome at the hospital. Family only. Mia is family, or should be, but that woman’s determined to keep her out.”
I stare at the doors to the back. “Are you going to go talk to her?”
“Nope. Because I’ll call his bigoted whore of a mother a cunt, and that will only upset Mia.” She smacks me on the back. “This is a job for you, I’m afraid.”
I frown. “Why me?” But she’s already gone, swallowed up into the mob as she makes her way to the crowd dancing on the other side of the room.
“Hey, Arrow,” Trish says. She scans the room. “Have you seen Brogan?”
“He’s not here, Trish.” And he wouldn’t want to be with you if he was. Not that I don’t sympathiz
e with her. Unrequited love is a bitch.
Shaking her off, I head toward the back, but I don’t find Mia on the deck where half a dozen people are smoking and another dozen are making out.
I head down the steps and into the yard and finally spot her sitting behind the big oak tree by the back corner of the fence. I sink to the ground and take the seat beside her. “Hey.”
She wipes her cheeks with the back of her hand. “Hey. What’s up?”
“Wanna talk about it?”
“Nope.”
“Wanna talk about something else?”
“That would be amazing.” She folds her legs under her and studies the grass, combing through it with her fingers.
I clear my throat. “Things must be pretty serious between you and Brogan, huh?” It’s a stupid question and not the full change of subject I promised, but I can’t stop thinking about her plans to give him her virginity tonight.
“Do you think I’m a hypocrite?”
“Why would I think that?”
“Because I was doing shots and hoping to hook up after a college party. Typical basic bitch, right?” She draws in a long breath. “But don’t worry. I learned my lesson.”
“I don’t think you’re a hypocrite,” I say softly. “And you couldn’t be basic if you tried.”
“Maybe I am. I tell myself I’m not like those girls who go to parties, get trashed, and hook up.” She laughs—if you can call it that. There’s no humor in the sound. “And look at me tonight. That’s exactly what I was trying to do. Big fat fail.”
“Mia, I don’t think sleeping with your boyfriend constitutes a hookup.”
She tugs on a blade of grass, then another and another, making a little pile in front of her crossed legs. “I was going to do it for him. He . . . It’s important to him.”
“Not to you?”
She shrugs. “I’m Catholic, Arrow. I was raised to believe a girl should save herself for marriage, that the purpose of sex is procreation, so if you don’t want a baby, you shouldn’t do it.”
“And do you still believe that?”
“No. I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to jump into bed with the first guy who shows any interest.”
“Obviously not,” I mutter.
She scoops up the tiny pile of grass and throws it at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Come on, Mia. If you wanted to lose your virginity, all you’d have to do is walk into that party and announce it. You’d have dozens of eager volunteers before you could finish the sentence.”
She laughs again, but this time I hear her smile in it. “I’m being delusional if I think this thing with Brogan is going anywhere—his mom hates me so much she won’t even invite me to Sunday dinner. And now she won’t let me come to the hospital to comfort him when his grandmother might die.”
“His mom is . . .” I swallow, feeling guilty about saying anything bad about the woman who often acted as my surrogate mother after Mom died. “She’s not easy to win over, but when she gets to know you, she’ll love you.”
“Arrow, I’m a Mexican from a trailer park. My father’s a drunk, and my brother is a convicted drug dealer.”
“Is that seriously the sum of how you see yourself?”
“Isn’t that what you see when you look at me?”
“No.” My heart hammers as I look at her, wishing we had more light so I could see her eyes. “I see you, Mia. Just you.” I want to say more, to tell her how bright she shines, to explain that her family is half of what leaves me in awe of her. I’m not blind to my privilege. I get how lucky I am, how much has been handed to me from the day I was born. But Mia doesn’t have any of that. Everything she is and has, she earned without help from her family. And yet she’s constantly doing everything for her dad and writing letters to her brother in prison. I’ve never met a person as selfless as her.
She shakes her head and lowers her voice. “She’ll never love me, but before tonight I was optimistic enough to believe she might accept me someday. I’ve been fooling myself. Hell, maybe I should make use of your idea and go in there and see if some kind soul would rid me of my virginity.”
“I’d tackle you before you reached the door.”
She laughs again. “Why do you care so much?”
Because I’ve thought of you as my own since the day we met.
“Right,” she whispers. “Brogan.” She groans. “I’m so disgusted with myself right now. His grandmother just had a stroke, and I’m here making it about me.”
“You have every right to be upset.”
She scoots away from the tree and leans back, stretching out on the grass and looking up at the leaves. “What would you do if you were me?”
Dangerous territory, my brain warns. Tread carefully. “That depends. Does he make you happy?”
“I hate that question. Generally, I’m opposed to the whole idea of someone being responsible for someone else’s happiness.”
“You’re dodging. How do you prefer I ask the question?”
She sighs. “I love my time with him. He’s so funny and he makes me feel . . .”
I wait for her to finish even though I want to take the nearest exit from this conversation, even though I want to show her how much I could make her feel. Not in the cards, asshole.
“I love how much he loves being with me. Does that sound self-centered? He makes me feel so precious and valued. No one’s ever made me feel like that before. No one’s ever said the things he says to me and made me believe them.”
It’s like she handed me a blade and I can’t help but cut, can’t help but slice into the wound just to watch it bleed. “Like what?”
“It will sound stupid.” She’s still staring at the leaves overhead.
“I doubt it.”
“He said I make him want to walk without a net.”
“What does that mean?”
She shakes her head and sighs, a halfway smile curving her lips. “It doesn’t matter.”
Good. I don’t know that I want to hear much more about the Great and Incomparable Brogan and the sweet nothings he whispers to Mia. “What are you looking at up there?”
“When I was a little girl, Mom would lie with me like this if I couldn’t sleep. The wind would blow, and the starlight would peek between the leaves. She told me the light was dancing fairies.” She swallows hard. “She told my brother and me that we had to be quiet or we’d scare them away. So we’d watch in complete silence, Mom lying between us, and we’d fall asleep like that.”
I swing around and lower myself to lie on the grass beside her and watch the starlight peek between the leaves. We’re the only people on the backside of the lawn, and even though I can hear everyone who’s hanging out up by the house, it feels like we’re alone. Just Mia, me, and the dancing fairy light.
“Your mom sounds amazing,” I whisper, as if speaking too loudly really will scare away the fairies.
“She was. Sometimes I miss her so much. It feels like she took a piece of my guts with her when she left, as if I’ve never functioned properly since.”
I know exactly how that feels. “What happened?”
“She left my dad and moved away. She doesn’t visit.”
“Does she call?”
“A couple of times a year, but it’s always so awkward that I hang up wishing she hadn’t.” Then she bursts into giggles. Not sardonic laughter or chuckles, but giddy, nearly maniacal giggles. It’s a sound that brings a smile to my face. I can’t imagine anyone could hear Mia laugh and not smile.
“What?” I ask. She rolls to her side to face me, and now we’re close enough that I can see her eyes. When they lock on mine, I have to swallow hard and will myself to stay put, to resist the instinct to close the distance left between us. Not mine. But the pull I feel toward her is as consistent as the gravity keeping us on the ground.
“Oh my God, Arrow. I am the biggest buzzkill of the century.”
“I wasn’t buzzed, so you couldn’t be a buz
zkill.”
“Seriously, though, you should go back to the real party. My pity party is no way to spend your Friday night.”
“I’m not going to leave you unsupervised until I’m positive you’re not going to offer up your virginity to the first fool willing to take it.” Unless that fool is me. Fuck, I don’t even know what I’m doing, but I can’t stop. I roll so we’re facing each other. A lock of dark hair has fallen across her cheek and brushes her lips. I want to smooth it away with my fingers, lean in and taste those lips for myself. “Mia . . .” Not yours, asshole.
She brushes the hair away before the impulse to do it myself can win me over. “You really think I’d do that?”
“No.” I smile. “But I do think Bailey might do it for you if she thought she could get away with it.”
“Probably! God, please don’t mention it to her. The way she goes on about Mason’s skills, she’d probably ask him to do the honors, and Bail and I are close but I don’t know that I want to share lovers with her.”
I draw in a ragged breath and feel as if I’m about to step out onto ice I know is too thin to support me. “I know we’re just joking here, but can I say something in all seriousness?”
Her face grows serious, and her gaze drops to my lips. “What?”
“Don’t throw it away on some asshole who isn’t one hundred and ten percent worthy. And that includes Brogan. If you’re not doing it because you want to, don’t do it at all.”
“You don’t think he’ll leave me if I make him wait?” Her voice is small, as if she’s afraid to speak the secret fear too loudly.
“Any guy who sees you for as special as you are will wait until you’re ready.”
October, three months before the accident
“I can’t go to the Cavern,” I tell Bailey as she drags me out of the car. “I’m not twenty-one.”
She rolls her eyes. “Look at you. No bouncer in his right mind is going to card you.” Stopping, she grins and pulls something from her back pocket and shoves it into my hands. “And there’s this.”
“You didn’t.” I study the fake ID with my picture and name.