The Girl Who Fell(84)

The more I think of it, the more I’m sure. She would have ripped Gregg from his half of our childhood picture. She would have had access to Gregg’s locker. She set him up. Wanted me to suspect him. So I’d back off, stop being his friend.

“I’m sorry,” I tell Gregg, because I am. For too much.

“You’re lucky I’m the forgiving type.” His smile spreads easily across his face. It’s the smile he’s always had for me, the one that sits a little deeper in his cheeks than the smile in his press photos. Even deeper than his smile for Lani. She must see that too, the way he looks at me. I stare at his features, maybe a beat too long. Our eyes catch but we don’t look away. I can’t look away.

“Hiding in the bushes?” Lizzie says as she joins us. She registers me and Gregg holding hands and our fingers release simultaneously. Lizzie offers me a keg cup and I bring the water to my lips. It is cold, cleansing. “You two good now?”

“Fine,” I tell her.

Lizzie eyes me with her need to know the details, but I’m thankful she doesn’t press. She turns to Gregg. “I heard about Boston College wanting you to play for them.”

A bashful look crawls over Gregg’s features. “Yeah, looks like everything’s going according to plan.”

A sadness plummets then. For all our plans. Before.

Lizzie darts her eyes between us, craves the story that’s not being told. My feet shift, restless and a little trapped. “I think it’s incredible. Not that I ever had any doubts. About you or Zephyr.”

Gregg raises his cup to her in a toast, but her gaze stays on me. A quiet interrogation.

When Gregg taps my cup with his, this small gesture is like a string between us, a pulley. I move to him and place my arm over his hard shoulder. His free hand rounds my waist and he draws me in for a hug. My arm wraps tight, pulling him closer as an apology. And a promise.

He knows what I am saying. Without words.

Gregg has always known.

I close my eyes as he holds me, suspended. I wish I could stop time. Let this moment between us erase all of my mistakes. I let the safety of Gregg’s hug envelope me and a tear forms. For Gregg going to Boston. Without me. For not being able to have Alec and Gregg next year. I blink away the tear because I can’t let more follow. That would be too much.

Gregg’s arm relaxes and I open my eyes. The forest folds back into existence, sound rises to my ears. And something else. A figure in the distance. Too familiar.

Gregg puts me down and my feet stumble. He rights me and I hold onto his outstretched arm. For balance. For strength. But the scene beyond pulls me and I step away from Gregg’s support, Lizzie, and the small pocket of our shared Earth.

I walk toward the figure, squint my eyes.

Lizzie’s words are far away now. “Zee, where are you going?” Or maybe this is an echo in my head. My mind focuses only on the boy who looks like Alec.

I squint in the darkness, knowing my eyes are wrong. Praying they are wrong.

The way his body leans in against the house, the easy set of his hips. The way his frame seems to hover.

Over something?

Someone.

A shiver rattles through me. A surge of panic propels me forward, even as I want to shrink back.

Lizzie pulls at my jacket. “Zephyr, are you okay?”

That someone is a girl.

He’s got one hand pressed against the house, his head tilting in.

What is he saying? What are the words he is listening to?

I snap my coat free of Lizzie’s grasp. I keep my eyes trained on the boy who looks too much like Alec. The boy who is about to kiss the girl leaning against the house.

So it can’t be Alec.

My feet tread a steady beat, the Earth pushing back hard beneath each step. I pick up speed, while the party around me slows. The logs in the fire pit squeal and then pop as loud as a firecracker. My heart skips faster.

I’m closer. He’s closer. She’s closer.

The couple swims in clearer now. He reaches an arm toward the girl, tucks a strand of blond hair behind her ear. The gesture is so familiar it spasms my gut. But wait. I don’t recognize his jacket.

That’s not Alec’s blue fleece.

The one I’ve pulled off his body.

The one that makes his eyes shine.

It’s someone else. It has to be.

This is all a mistake.

Then Gregg is in front of me, jogging backward, blocking my view. I stop. His eyes swell with a sadness I’ve never seen, not even after he saw me kiss Alec that day at the rink. This sadness is different. It’s not because of me, I realize; it’s for me. That’s when I know the boy doesn’t just look like Alec.

The boy on my horizon is Alec.

And the scene before me cuts deeper than any note Lani could write.