The Girl Who Fell(39)

Are we really fighting over something so ridiculous? “Because Gregg’s kiss was wrong. It only lasted for, like, two seconds before I pushed him away.”

“You can’t know something’s wrong in two seconds. It had to last longer than that.”

“Maybe, but not much. I swear.” Then, because his posture straightens, recoils from me, I draw up an enormous betrayal. “Gregg’s tongue felt awful—like kissing a brother. I had to rinse my mouth out with alcohol.” I hesitate a step closer. “You’re the only one I want to kiss. Most times I never want to stop kissing you.” There it is. All out there.

Alec sighs, softens. “This is so messed up.”

“What do you mean?”

“Now you know what an insecure mess I am. Shit, Zephyr, I’m making you explain something that happened before we were even dating. That’s nuts.”

“It’s not. Don’t you think I wonder about your old girlfriends? But I don’t ask because it will make me insane.”

“Really?”

“Duh.” I smile.

He leans in with a soft kiss but I pull him closer, my hunger for him rising. He twists me with his kiss, my back bumping against the door’s brass knocker with a dull ring. His hands quickly explore my body, the ridges of my hips, the layers under my jacket. But just when my head has emptied of all its worries and there is nothing else but Alec, his touch disappears, leaving me fevered and wanting.

He finds my ear, fills it with his words. “You’re sure it’s okay when I kiss you?”

“So sure.” My focus is singular: I want to go inside with him. Go to that place only he can take me.

He pulls away. “But don’t you worry it might be too much?”

“Too much?” My words squeak into the air between us, barely strong enough to hold themselves upright.

“This.” He moves his finger between us. “I told you this scares the shit out of me. I don’t know if I—”

“It scares me too. All the time.”

He searches my face, reads my sincerity. I watch his lips as he says, “You should go.”

Go? “Go?”

He signals toward the house. “I’ve gotta do some stuff. Just like you . . . this morning.”

My senses blink back to reality. The impervious granite block under my feet turns liquid. “I said I was sorry.” It is a frail attempt to bring him back, have him lasso me with his arms.

“I know, but I need to be careful with you, Zephyr.”

I pull breath into my lungs, but it’s labored, struggling. I search his eyes for tenderness, but all I see is hurt. So similar to Gregg’s, but the ache to heal Alec roars primal within me. The need drums desperate. “I would never hurt you.”

“But don’t you see that’s the problem? I’m scared you can hurt me without even knowing it.”

Sickness swirls my middle.

“I really do have to go.” He gestures to the door and I step aside. Alec disappears into his house, the lock bolting his only good-bye.

I scramble down the steps, into my car, holding back the tears until I’m out of his cul-de-sac. I want to make time for him now, give him everything. Make it right.

Driving away, my brain explodes with questions like How do girls do this? Handle relationships and friends and insecurities? Or do they? I think of all the drunken drama sessions at parties, all the tears in the girls’ bathroom at Sudbury High.

I am tortured by a fear that tickles up my spine:

I’m not good enough for him.

I don’t know how to do any of this.

I’m a terrible girlfriend.





Chapter 13


I almost want to vomit, bring up the sick and purge this stir of anxiety. I wasn’t even lying last night when I told Mom I wasn’t feeling well and avoided having to reconcile. I got zero sleep thinking about Alec and he’s the only thing my mind can focus on now, despite Mr. Frank’s earnest attempts to convince us that the Pythagorean theorem is education’s most significant piece of information. I crouch over my trig text. Triangles morph into a maze under my unfocused stare.

Time mocks me, slowing down on purpose, like it can sense how much I need to see Alec, make everything right with us.

When I hear a familiar laugh swelling just outside the open door, my attention darts to the hallway where Gregg’s walking by, flanked by adoring underclassmen, his arm strung around Lani. I strain in my seat searching for the particular edges of Alec’s hairline. I could get up. Get a hall pass.

But Alec isn’t with Gregg’s pack, and my body deflates against the stiff plastic seat. I bite at my already raw thumbnail, practicing my apology to Alec the way I rehearsed it in my head—and in front of my mirror—an obsessive number of times last night. I only hope my words are good enough. They have to be good enough.