“Cooper!” a deep voice shouts from somewhere in the nebulous audience, shrouded in a fog of darkness, probably one of my teammates, but I can’t seem to tear my eyes from the goddess before me. Violet Hathaway has had this mesmerizing effect on me ever since I laid eyes on her years ago. She’s the only girl who’s been able to snag my attention and genuinely hold onto it for longer than five seconds. Vi could hold it for five millennia easy. But one thing that wasn’t easy was us—thus our current locale, seated across from one another, ready to spar, ready to lance open that wound for the sake of what exactly—well, I still haven’t figured that part out. Yes, the coach encouraged the guys and me to sign on for this exposé on the heart. But when I did so, I did it in the spirit of maybe just this once exploring the idea of getting over Vi. But I think that both the universe and I know that’s impossible, and that’s exactly why I’m here, seated across from the most beautiful girl in the world.

Her deep red hair glows like an amber flame as the white-hot spotlight bears down over us both. Her Irish green eyes spear right into my soul, bearing their hatred for me as if it were still fresh, and it might be. Her skin looks ghostly pale, and it does on most days from what I remember. But tonight, she glows altogether like an ethereal being, and it makes this experience all that much more of a mindfuck.

A set of cameras is set up at the front of the stage with two cameramen covering us from either end of the stage. I’m sure they’ll be using their telescopic lens on us every chance they get. I’m sure Dexter Houston, the ringleader of this carnal circus, has warned them not to miss a single shot.

“Lane, Violet, thank you for joining us this evening,” a disembodied voice booms from somewhere behind the curtain like Oz, the infamous fake wizard. Everything about this so-called social experiment feels contrived—everything but the emotions already bubbling up inside of me. I knew this would be difficult. I knew it would bring the past right into my face like a fireball, but as soon as I heard Vi was in, I knew I couldn’t back down. A box of tissues sits at the end of the table like an omen, but I won’t use them. I would rather ignore every falling tear than sop my face up with one of those like some pussy. Hell, I’ll cry it out later. I was planning to anyway.

“I’d like to remind you of the rules,” he rolls the R in rules. “Be sure to answer all questions while looking directly at one another. No foul language, no name calling, and please resist the urge to throttle one another should the need arise.”

The audience breaks out with short-lived laughter, a few whoops and hollers in the mix because I am positive they are hoping the need will arise. Face it. Every soul crammed into this place is looking forward to a bloodbath. But that’s not what I came for. Vi and I have already done that part.

“Each question will be answered by Violet first, then Lane without prompting,” he continues. Her eyes widen slightly, still bound to my own. “First question, what was your impression of one another when you first met? And how did you meet?”

Violet’s mouth opens and closes as she struggles for a moment. Violet and I have known one another for the better part of our lives. We’ve had a handful of introductions over the years, and I’m curious which one she’ll choose.

She clears her throat. “I don’t know.” She blinks my way. “How did we meet? Was it when we were in elementary school and you yanked my braid so hard I thought you snapped my spine? Or the summer I was going into ninth grade and you saw that I was melting at the beach and bought me a Popsicle?”

A tiny laugh pumps from me as the tension in me loosens. “You told me to shove it.” The audience breaks into a chuckle. Vi is speaking to me, looking at me, and neither of us is red-faced and yelling. All good signs.

Her mouth rounds out. “Only because you told me to suck it.” She tilts her head as if to silently tell me off, and I secretly love it. “But perhaps our most memorable meeting was that night at Anne Christianson’s birthday party.” Her voice grows small, and she nods my way as if passing the baton. Her lips twitch as if she’s about to lose it, but those lime green eyes are still pinned to mine, our stare unbreakable.

“Yes. That’s the one.” I tick my head, trying to escape the feeling of strangulation that this suit is invoking. In all honesty, I wanted to wear a flannel and jeans, but in the end, I wanted to look anything but myself. I wanted to look cold and impersonal, as if this were nothing more than a business transaction, with me on the losing end of it all. It felt as if I were coming to my own funeral, so I dressed for the occasion. “Anne was having a kissing contest.” A series of oohs comes from the audience. I flick a smile at Vi that lasts about three seconds, my heart drumming against my chest. Not a single part of me can believe that I’m having a conversation with Violet Hathaway, not after that last night we spent together as a couple. “I asked if you wanted to buddy up.”

A soft laugh bubbles from her. “And I said why? Do you need me to help you cross the street?” A light round of titters circles the room, followed by one explosive whoop.

I can’t hide my blooming grin. “And I said I thought that sounded like a much better idea. So we left the party.” My voice grows steadily hoarse. “Took off for the park across the street and had our own kissing contest.”

Vi shrugs, her eyes widen as if she were still amused by our horny antics. “I guess you could say it lasted for about a year and a half.”

The silence grows between us, but the magnetic pull of our gaze holds strong. If anything, this night has proven that there might still be a spark lingering between us. Then just as quick as that glimmer of hope erupted, reality crashes around me and I remember what happened.

“Next question”—the deep voice of Oz rumbles—“what is your best memory together?”

Vi swallows hard, tips back her head, and examines the cavernous ceiling for a moment, exposing her pale long neck. How I’d love to do my impersonation of a vampire right about now. I can’t help but think how those red velvet curtains behind her act as a backdrop magnifying her beauty. Vi is Mona Lisa stepping right off the canvas, and every wannabe DaVinci out there is looking for her. But she’s mine. Vi has always been mine.

She sharpens her gaze over mine once again. “The best memory we had, I think, was that first Valentine’s Day we spent together.” Her lips twitch hard as her eyes burst into red crimson tracks. Tears come instantly to the party, and it cuts off my air supply seeing her like this. Her skin splotches with color. Her entire body curls into itself as she struggles to sit still. A lump the size of this entire university grows painfully in my throat, and it hurts like hell to swallow. “You wanted to do something extra special for me and you took us to your family’s cabin in Vale.”

I give a slow nod because that could potentially go down as the best damn day of my life.

She swipes three tissues out of the box and crumples them into a ball in her fist. “You went up ahead and decorated the place with lavender roses because you knew they were my favorite.” She dabs both eyes with the wadded tissue, but the tears won’t stop coming. Her eyes seem to grow twice in size, red and glossy with tears, and my stomach grinds just witnessing it. “You put petals leading up the stairs, leading all the way to the bedroom.” The room lights up with whistles and catcalls. “And over the bed you—”

“Made the shape of a heart to show how much I loved you.” It felt like pushing through a wall just to get those words out. My voice comes out dull and rusted as if it needed a nice cold drink. And I will need something strong and lethal once this is through. “That’s my favorite memory, too.” I didn’t mean to cut her off, but a part of me didn’t want her to share our most intimate details with a crowd of thousands, millions if you count home viewers. “Should my parents stumble upon this, they’ll want to burn the cabin down,” I offer, and Vi and I share a soft laugh along with the crowd.

I cannot believe this. Vi is here with me, less than three feet away, and we are speaking, talking, laughing even. Miracle after miracle. But I know the trajectory this night is going in. I can feel it in my weary bones. It will end with me pinned to the wall, my body eviscerated, my guts spilling to the floor for all to see. The night is young, and my sins are many.

“So”—the deep voice booms agonizingly slow—“is it safe to assume you got lucky that night?”

“Yes,” we both confess, looking right at each other. “First time,” I offer. So much for holding onto the intimate details. “And I have never forgotten it.”

“Okay, cowboy.” The nebulous voice gives a dark laugh, as does the crowd. “Violet, is there another good memory you’d like to share before we move on to Lane?”

Vi claps her hands together and lands the tips of her fingers to her lips as she searches the table for answers. “Another good memory.” Her red swollen eyes shoot back to mine. A soft laugh bubbles from her. “Remember that time we thought we’d go hiking at Windy Peak? And we stumbled up Paradise Falls and thought we’d go in?”

“Skinny-dipping.” I’m grinning now, ear to ear, as the crowd loses it. I can hear the guys from the team chanting my last name. “I told you we’d probably freeze to death, and you said you didn’t care.”

“Well, yeah, because I was stupid and in love with you,” she says that last part low as if she were whispering a secret to me. “We waded in and didn’t see the drop-off.” Her lips quiver, but this time she’s holding back a laugh. “We fell in with ice water over our heads, and as soon as we hit the surface, we screamed our heads off.”

I nod into the memory, and ironically, just thinking about that day warms me from head to toe. “I had to carry you out. You screamed at the top of your lungs all the way to the car.”

She bites down on a guilty smile. “And that Girl Scout troop came out of nowhere. They thought we were injured, and once they noticed you had something swinging from your legs, I think those leaders threatened to call the cops on us.”

“Threatened nothing.” I blow out a breath at the memory. “Those sirens screaming up the mountain were no coincidence.”

Vi nods, still biting down on that wild smile, too afraid to own it. Can’t blame her. I feel the same way.

“That was a great memory,” I whisper it low as if I regretted it altogether. “We had a lot of good times.” My eyes laser into hers painfully, and my chest bucks as the emotions come from nowhere. I give a hard sniff, doing my best to deny them.

“We did have a lot of good times.” Her voice is soft, not at all the caustic version I expected to show up tonight.

“I guess my favorite memory of us was me helping you app for Leland.” That knot in my throat comes back ten times fatter, and I can’t push past it. Instead, I shrug, cover my mouth a moment, biting on my tongue just to keep myself from losing it. “I thought”—my voice breaks, and I take a moment to clear my throat—“I thought it would be great to be with you all the time.” And here we are, always apart, on a show that chooses to expose our deficiencies as a couple. Not at all what I pictured or wanted.

“Violet”—Oz purrs her name long and slow as if he were casting a spell—“if you could go back and do something over, what might that be?”

“Wow, that’s a tough one. Do something over—” She glances to the audience, and for a moment I’m convinced she’s going to say volunteering for the present effort. She could say it, but I wouldn’t. My heart, my spirit, is soaring for the first time in a year. Violet looks too somber. Gone is the warm smile, but the tears in her eyes still keep on coming.

I shake my head slightly. Don’t say it, Vi. Let’s let that last moment we existed together lie down and die like a dog in the night.

“Um”—she clears her throat while centering her attention on me—“the night of Fourth of July, summer before our breakup. I wouldn’t have had us go to Penelope Griffin’s party. When I think back, it was that night all of the ugliness really started to creep out.”

It’s true. Vi’s jealousy over anything and everything took flight that night. It was Penelope who asked me to get her a drink, and I complied. We’ve both known Pen for as long as I could remember, and I didn’t think it would be a big deal. Snow Valley is the size of a thimble. Everyone knows everyone. My mother worked as the school guidance counselor at Snow Valley High and knew Vi well. Heck, Vi’s mother, Patty, owns the Cut ’n Curl where my mother has had her hair done for the last thirty years. They are friends. My father and her father have golfed on more than one occasion. But I doubt she’ll bring up any of those facts because it might lead to the fact just prior to that Fourth of July party Patty and Robert Hathaway took steps toward a legal separation. Violet’s world crumbled and took us down with it.

Vi remains quiet after her brief answer. I didn’t think she’d want to extrapolate.

“That was a turning point.” I lean in, speaking softly to her as if trying to coax her from the edge. Her face is washed in tears, and it’s all I can do not to join her. My own lips twitch a million miles an hour as I struggle to get my bearings. “I wish I knew then what I do now. That night, and everything that was born from it, would have been handled differently.” That damn night was only the beginning of an entire string of damn nights. “We had just gotten back from the lake.” Our last solid good memory.

“The lake!” Her affect brightens, and I go with it. I never want to stop talking about the damn lake, and I mean that in the best way.

“Yes.” I give a deep nod as we hold the moment private just for ourselves “We took a picnic basket we bought at an estate sale and filled it with everything we thought a picnic should have.”

“You insisted on champagne and caviar because you’re a snob,” she scolds playfully, and the girls in the room cheer my pricy decision-making skills. “And we bought twelve different cheeses because we wanted to pretend like we were in Paris.”

I was going to surprise her and take her to Paris after graduation. My heart spears at the memory. But we broke it off before either of us had the chance to don a cap and gown.

A dull laugh rumbles in my chest. “When that old couple came by and asked what we were celebrating, I said our engagement.”

Her mouth falls open with a silent laugh. “I would have married you if you asked.” She shakes her head, those tears sparkling like the diamonds I never had the chance to give her.

“You would have married me?” My voice breaks as she nods with tears streaming down her face. My heart stops. I can’t hear anything outside of this vacuum that Vi and I suddenly belong to. Vi would have married me. She would have said yes if I had the balls to ask. And I was going to ask eventually. My insides wrench in agony.

“Yes,” I say hoarsely. “The day at the lake was something I would do over and over again.” There. I answered the question in an entirely different manner. And I think I like my version better. I’m hoping she does, too.

“Violet”—Oz snaps us out of our self-induced trance—“who ended the relationship?”

Shit. I sink a notch in my seat. Here it is. The knife in the gut.

“I did.” She gives a vigorous nod because it is most vigorously true. “It ended”—she slaps her hands over her mouth for a moment as if the past had flooded her with all of its ugly truths—“it ended this week exactly one year ago. We were already tottering on the edge of oblivion at that point.” Her right shoulder hikes to her ear as she looks to me with those eyes of hers swelling with fiery tears. “It was pretty brutal. I had suspected that you had been cheating on me, but it was the night we went to the drama party. Classes at the community college where I went to had just started up again.” She glances to the audience as if filling them in. “You knew everyone there. You knew her. You knew how to push my buttons, and you did.” She tosses her hands in the air, and you can hear the scamper of mice if you listen hard enough. Every single girl in Finley Hall tonight is holding her breath. I had gone from picnic god to junkyard dog in less than five seconds.

My face twitches as the emotions do their best to burst out of me. “I did do that.” I press my lips together as hard as I can to keep the dam from bursting.

Vi dabs her eyes with the wet tissue in her hand, and neither of us says anything else.

“Violet”—the dark voice lights up the auditorium, and for once I’m thankful, relieved, to hear it—“would you consider giving Lane another chance?”

A slow applause breaks out in the audience before turning into an outright riot of approval before Vi ever gets the chance to speak.

Vi laughs through tears, looking up while tossing her hands in the air once again. “I don’t know. I guess there would be a lot to overcome. A lot of baggage.” Her lips turn down hard. “It might be too much.” It comes out a question as she shrugs my way.

“Maybe.” I hear myself say it, even though I didn’t want to. “But it could happen.” Something in me releases, and all of the hurt and pain I’ve harbored for one long year glides right off of me like lifting a building off my chest. And if Vi says yes, I can breathe again.

“You would want to give it a second chance?” She wrinkles her nose at me. “That’s ballsy of you.” She giggles for a moment, but that somber look comes back.

“That would be ballsy of the both of us.” A part of me wants to nudge her under the table with my foot, say come on Vi, let’s do this.

“How many girls have you been with this last year?” Her eyes narrow in on mine, and I’m guessing she knows the answer.

A round of oohs circles the theater because Vi just called me out.

I shake my head, unwilling to answer. “I don’t remember.” Three. I slept with three different girls in the last year, and I was drunk that last time I tried my hardest to pretend it was Vi.

“You remember,” she accuses. “Say it.”

“Three.” My voice leaves my lips like a traitor. But in my defense, I could never deny Vi anything, not even the truth.

Her tears dry up as the air hardens between us.

“And you?” I ask as if I had the right. In truth, a part of me has been curious. Hell, the curiosity has kept me up at night.

Vi glances away a moment, as if unable to meet my gaze, but her eyes eventually settle back on mine where I’d like to believe they belong. “I’ve been with people.” She nods as if defending herself.

My heart thuds as if coming to a conclusion. I hate the dude, the dudes she’s been with, and suddenly I’m moved to kill.

“In fact”—she takes a deep breath and gives the audience a sideways glance before leaning in, her gaze dead set on mine—“I didn’t wait until we were over to do it.”

The audience reacts as if they were given a collective sock to the gut, but it’s me who’s had the wind knocked out of him.

“It’s true.” She pins me down with those evergreen eyes. “I did it. I cheated on you long before you ever cheated on me.”