Ten minutes later, I carefully parked his vehicle in student parking and arrived at the Coleman Arts Building for Lit class.

I took the stairwell to the second floor, and when I came out the door, I ran straight into Bart. We collided, and he dropped the backpack he’d been holding to put a hand out to steady me. “Whoa, Sunny. You good?”

“Yeah. Thanks for the save.” I stepped away from his hands as inconspicuously as possible. A laugh came out but it sounded off.

Tuesdays and Thursdays were my Russian Lit class with Bart. For the past two weeks I’d done my best to avoid him, and now here I was practically mowing him down. Nice.

The ride home the other night had been uncomfortable, with me just listening while he vomited out everything he’d obviously wanted to say to me since we’d broken up this summer, mostly I’m sorry I fucked up, you’re the only girl I wanted, and it will never happen again. I told him it didn’t change things. Perhaps it had been good for us to let it all out. Now we had closure and maybe we’d be able to move on and be civil to one another.

I fidgeted in the hallway.

He did a half-smile and ran a hand through his auburn hair. “So . . . you and Max, huh?” His eyes clung to mine. Gold with flecks of brown, they were hard to look away from.

“Yeah.”

He mulled that over then sent me a curt nod. “I hope he’s good to you.”

“He is. Thank you again for the ride Sunday.” I chewed on my bottom lip. “You and I . . . it’s weird being in a class together, huh?”

He nodded and sighed, his eyes roving over me and then coming back to my face. “You look gorgeous today.”

I swallowed. I didn’t. I looked crazy—mostly because I’d barely slept. Max had ended up coming over again to go over my A&P notes.

“Nice shirt, too,” he added with a little chuckle, breaking the tension between us. “You sure that’s not a sign I have another shot with you?”

I glanced down. Crap. I’d slipped on a tight, V-neck baseball shirt he’d given me. I’d loved the softness of the material and one day when I’d been experimenting, I’d cut out the neck and added a thick blue lace collar with hand-sewn pearl buttons. It was sexy with a dash of tomboy—one of my favorites.

“Funny. I just grabbed the first thing in my closet.”

He smiled, albeit a little sadly. “Well, there’s no crime against wearing a winning shirt. Come on. Let’s find our seats.”

We turned to walk in the Lit class, but I stopped when I felt eyes on me and turned back. There was Bianca. Watching us. She swept her gaze over Bart, curled her lip, and shot me a go to hell glare. I could feel the disdain dripping from her as she raked her eyes over me, sniffed, and turned her back.

She was trouble. Big time.

Ugh.

After classes, I drove to the local Wal-Mart and picked up a few things that Mimi needed for her pantry. She didn’t have a license, so if she had any errands I typically ran them for her. I drove to her apartment, unpacked her groceries, and made sure she was set for the week. I left her out by the pool flirting with Mr. Sully and some of her friends. She’d told all the residents I was dating Max Kent, and since most of them knew who he was, they’d grilled me about what it was like to date a famous football star. I’d lied to all of them, and it was getting easier.

I arrived home around five in the afternoon, and my eyes went straight to Max’s place. It looked empty. They’d never put blinds up on the big front bay window, and I could see straight to the television—which was off. I sighed. He had long days at practice, and it wasn’t hard to see that football was everything to him.

I found myself wanting to tell him about seeing Bart. About how my heart didn’t hurt nearly as much as I thought it would the night he’d driven me home.

Maybe it was better if I didn’t confide in him, though.

I settled down at my small desk in the den, opened my computer and scrolled, finding the article I’d bookmarked a long time ago. It was an online piece from the Asheville Gazette about a girl who’d wrecked her car on the bridge overlooking Casey Lake right outside of Asheville, North Carolina. Posted three years ago, it described how a passing motorist had phoned in the accident. It didn’t give the motorist’s name or any identifying information. The paramedics and police had responded, but it wasn’t until the next day they’d got the equipment out to drag the lake. Once they found evidence of the car, divers had gone in to search for survivors. The article concluded with the statement that the search was on-going and the person driving was considered missing. There was no report of a young man on the shore, no report of someone pulling a girl from the water.

I closed out the tab and clicked my laptop shut.

I’d been absolutely terrified that night, but I ran through the woods until I came to a nearly deserted truck stop on the highway, where I begged some young college kids to give me a ride to Knoxville. They had. Once there, I’d bought a bus ticket to Atlanta with the cash I still had in the back pocket of my denim shorts.

The rest is history. Here I was, living and breathing and not doing bad. If I’d stayed on that mountain—I stopped.

Don’t, Sunny.

Then Max’s face popped in my head.

But he wasn’t good to think about either.

I exhaled and went to the kitchen to make sugar cookies. That’s just what I needed—something sweet to forget all the bad.

Max