"Hey," she says quietly. My eyes drift shut when I feel her hand on the side of my face. "Stop it," she whispers.
I work up the nerve to open them so I can see her. And when I do, my world stops. She's lifted the sunglasses off her head and her clear blue eyes pierce into mine.
"Stop what?" I croak.
She smiles softly. "This." She rubs her hand on my jaw. "Your jaw's all tense... and this..." Her thumb brushes the space between my eyebrows. "They're Lucas and Jason's friends. Don't worry." And for some stupid reason it means something. Like she knows what I'm thinking and she cares enough to ease my fears.
"Hey," I say again, because I don't know what else to say. And then I take her in, and my jaw tenses and my brows furrow again. She's in a plain white bikini, and nothing else. "Can we talk, somewhere more private?"
"Um." She looks around, like she's afraid to be alone. "Okay." She stands up and I follow, walking behind her along the length of the pool. The kids in there all stare at her with their mouths hanging open. I try to glare at them all one by one.
Lucky for me, Lucas is on my side. "Quit perving on my sister, assholes. I catch you doing it again, I'll beat the shit out of all of you."
She walks into the house and up the stairs. It takes everything in me to not touch her, but her ass is in my face and...
"Just here," she says, pulling my attention away from her ass. She opens a door and steps into a bedroom. Then she sits on the bed, her almost naked body on full display. "Lucas said you got out of a cab. Did you fly here?"
I nod, trying not to stare at her body.
"Can you afford that? How did you know I was here?"
I glance at her quickly, before looking away. "I rented out the Delorean to Minge to buy tickets, but no I didn't know you were here. I just had no—"
"You rented out your car for plane tickets and flew here on a whim?"
I nod again.
"Cameron..."
I don't know what she means by saying my name but I don't ask. I'm too fucking nervous, and anxious, and emotional. I'm way too emotional.
"You look nice," I tell her. Then roll my eyes and laugh at myself.
She tries to smile. "I've put on a bit of weight lately, but I'll hit the gym again when I get back on campus."
My eyes narrow and move to her. "So you're coming back?"
"Of course I'm going back. My life's there... well, what's left of it anyway." Her gaze falls to the floor, watching her legs kick back and forth on the edge of the high bed.
"And what do you mean you'll hit the gym again? You went to the gym?"
"Yeah." She nods. "Toward the end of the year... you were always busy and I just—I wanted something to do, so I asked Jake to take me... well not take me, but be there when I was. I knew you wouldn't like me going alone, and I didn't want to ask..."
There's a shooting pain in my heart, the same one that's been there the last two weeks, but it's sharper and hurts a fuckload more.
I lean back on the wall opposite her and shove my hands in my pockets. "I kind of hate that I didn't know what was going on in your life. We still saw each other every night, apart from the last—"
"It was different, Cameron," she says quietly.
I nod slowly.
"I mean the few days before we broke up was..."
My world stops again, but for a different reason this time. My face must show it, because she stops talking. "Are you okay?"
I slide down the wall until my ass hits the floor, unable to stay upright. "It just hurts," I tell her honestly. "I guess when you left you said maybe. You said that maybe our forever was over. I guess deep down I was keeping hope." I sniff back my emotions and look down at the floor. "It's fine. I'm sorry."
"Me too," she whispers.
Moments of silence pass before I finally speak. "How have you been?"
She shrugs. "I've been... I don't know. Thinking?"
"Yeah? What have you been thinking?"
"I think that I have questions I'd like to ask you, but I'm scared."
My eyes snap to hers. "Ask them. Please? Ask anything." I'm desperate—too desperate. But I don't care.
"Have you seen her since?"
My body tenses, and her hands rise to cover her gasp. I don't know what I was expecting her to ask, but that wasn't it.
"When?"
I drop my head between my shoulders and inhale deeply, waiting for the courage to speak. "Yesterday."
Her sob has my eyes lifting to her. She's bent over herself, one had covering her mouth, and the other on her stomach. "Why?" she says, but before I get a chance to respond she's off the bed and walking toward me—or so I think, but she brushes past me and through the door next to me. A bathroom. I stand frozen while I watch her drop to her knees in front of the toilet and lift the lid. Then sense kicks in, and the vision of her at fifteen doing the exact same thing flood my mind.