The summer I would turn fifteen, Roman’s transformation went far beyond a deeper voice, shaggy hair, and the start of a muscular body from putting in extra hours at the gym in order to avoid his dad. God, he was already undeniably beautiful in my eyes even though it would be years before the rest of the world agreed. I couldn’t get over the amazing sensation that radiated through my body when he had lifted me into his arms.

But when Melanie let it slip that Brooke had been harassing me, the flash of anger in his eyes took me by surprise. The floating, fluttering sensation from our hug earlier was replaced with a cold trickle of fear. Even though I already knew from our phone conversations that he was a little more hot-headed than the Roman I met two years ago, a lot of it having to do with his parents’ divorce, it was a little scary.

My eighth grade year hadn’t been any easier than Roman’s ninth. There were more expenses that came with middle school and Aunt Joey was struggling to keep a roof over our heads. I was growing enough that a lot of my clothes didn’t fit, but I didn’t complain because Aunt Joey insisted on hiring a retired music teacher to work on expanding my vocals, and I knew money was tight. She had picked up a second job and was gone all hours of the day.

I took as many babysitting gigs as I could, but there were still endless hours there was nothing to do other than watch one of three stations we got for free off the TV’s antenna. I was grateful that Roman started calling more because he sounded just as lonely. It was obvious that the tension between his parents had become unbearable.

The awkward transition from our broken childhoods to becoming adults fumbling through life had begun, only neither of us had a solid foundation to fall back on. Our parents were absent from our lives, leaving us to blindly feel our way through the hormonal highs and lows that would mold us, define who we would become. We may have been on our own, but at least we had each other.

For this very reason, it especially hurt when Brooke cornered me that night before we headed down for sound off, and said cruel, hurtful things. I’d never be able to un-brand her words from my memories because I knew there was truth behind everything she said—Roman and I could never really be together. We came from different worlds. Opposite sides of the country. I would never cheer for him at his games. He could never ask me to prom. Even if we lived nearby, he came from wealth and I was headed toward poverty. We were bound to nothing more than those precious months spent in Lake Tahoe, no matter how many hours we spent on the phone.

The first thing I noticed when Brooke came storming at me is that she wasn’t quite as pretty as the summer before. Her face had slimmed down, making her nose seem more hooked and her eyes narrowed.

“Do you really think you have a chance with Roman just because you hang out with him for a couple of months every year?” she asked, curling her lips in amusement. “I don’t know who you think you are, because you’re a nobody. You have no idea what Roman is really like. He wouldn’t be caught dead with you at our school, hanging out with our friends. They wouldn’t even let you in through the front door!”

Eventually Melanie came out of the bathroom and Brooke spun around, leaving me in tears. The things she said didn’t hurt as much as knowing she was right.

Still, he was my Roman. And it seemed he had written another song for me, because that first night we were back together, he crooned about the girl with brown eyes and how distance didn’t matter, we’d find a way. I don’t really remember the words or the exact melody, but I’ll never forget the way his deep voice sounded that starry night, and the intensity in his gaze whenever he stopped to look up at me.

It was too much, yet it wasn’t enough. Despite everything Brooke said, I was head over heels in love with the gangly boy from New York with beautiful eyes who would one day be a star. Well, as in love as an almost fifteen-year-old girl could be, which in my experience was pretty severe. Like the Romeo and Juliet kind of shit. Knowing we only had the summer before we’d be separated once more created an unbearably tight band across my chest. It could’ve been heartbreak or, for all I knew, the onset of a literal heart-attack.

I suppose I should’ve been embarrassed that he was essentially serenading me in front of the other campers, but I had learned to stop caring what other people thought about us at that point. We only had a precious amount of time together, and I wasn’t going to let a minute of it be wasted with regrets.

Everyone whooped and hollered once Roman was done. The bow he gave was a little cocky, but really cute at the same time. His bangs fell over his eyes and he brushed them back with a deep laugh, a shimmer in his eyes glowing in the campfire light. It wasn’t just his voice and skills with the guitar that was going to launch him into stardom, and the thought made me especially jealous. I already knew girls would go insane over him once he became a man.

He motioned for me to move so I could return to his lap. My entire body was heated for the remainder of the sound off with the feel of his rock solid thighs beneath me, his musky scent overpowering the fire, and the way his calloused fingers rubbed little circles into the small of my back. At that point I may as well have ripped my heart from my chest and handed it over to him.

* * *

The first few weeks of camp, we fell into a comfortable routine. Melanie and I gained a few more friends—one being the girl from Colorado who first beat me out at auditions before they decided to offer another scholarship—and we all hung out with Roman and his crew as much as possible. At every meal, during camp activities, swim block, whenever we had a chance and weren’t separated by our cabins at night. Eight of us even snuck out a few times after curfew, once to raid the kitchen and another time to run into the lake in our underwear, starting a fire afterwards to dry off.

It pissed Brooke off to no end because Roman was a part of the most popular crowd at camp, and I was becoming one of them. Although I never told him the things she said, Roman made it clear she wasn’t welcome to hang with us.

Pretty much everyone was already convinced we were a couple long before Roman and I started flirting with each other non-stop. He was always throwing me over his shoulder and hauling me off somewhere, or tickling me until I begged for mercy. We casually held hands sometimes, and exchanged little smiles that were just for each other. The way he looked at me, as if I was the sole reason for his existence, never failed to send my heart racing to astronomical speeds.

The camp choir director must’ve suspected something was brewing between us, because he set us up for a duet to be sung at the end of the summer concert. It gave us an excuse to be alone as we practiced, for which I was grateful, but it also made me the most uneasy I had ever felt. I had never kissed a boy. I didn’t have eyes for anyone other than Roman.

Every touch in that sound-proofed room felt more electrified, every look more dangerous. Whenever he stood behind me so we could share the sheet music, his slow breaths were like little bursts of fire on my neck. Whenever we were in that room, my stomach was in a constant state of upset with what felt like an angry swarm of butterflies. Whenever Roman gave me the kind of look that I could only decipher as longing, it seemed as if my heart would explode.

Then, the day before I turned fifteen, it finally happened.

We were halfway through a fairly good run of our duet when he said, “Whoa, stop a minute. You’re running a little flat on that break right before the chorus, Belle.”

“No I’m not!” I insisted, turning to face him. “I—”

His eyes nearly looked black when he bent in to press his lips against mine for the briefest of moments. It was more of a lingering peck than anything, not long enough to declare that he was a good kisser or worry that I wasn’t. His lips were softer than I had expected, however, and the gesture made my lungs seize. Goosebumps broke out all over my body, sending a warm shiver racing down my spine. I stared back at him with heat exploding in parts of me that I didn’t know could feel that kind of warmth.

He drew back. “Was that okay?” His voice was thick and his glossed eyes were heavily lidded. It was the first time I had seen him like that, and it was beautiful. He was beautiful.

Entangling my fingers through his, I smiled. “Yeah.”

“Belle…w-will y-you…” He suddenly withdrew his hands from mine and whirled around so his back was to me. “Fuck!”

I bit my lip, patiently waiting for him to cool off. He had stuttered once the summer before, on my birthday when we laid together in the grass, but neither of us mentioned it again. I figured he was just nervous about admitting he had written me a song.

“I have to go,” he grumbled, reaching for the door handle.

“Wait!” I grabbed him by the wrist. “What were you going to ask me?”

“Forget it,” he snapped, pulling away from me.

“Roman, please don’t go!”

He left anyway.

* * *

I didn’t see Roman for the rest of that day. He wasn’t even at sound off. When I asked one of his roommates, he said Roman was sick.

I felt sick myself. Had he changed his mind about me? Is that why he had stormed off after our first kiss? Knowing he was avoiding me coated my insides with the ickiest feeling I had ever had in my life. If becoming boyfriend and girlfriend meant things like this were bound to happen, I’d rather we stayed friends. I didn’t want anything ruining what we had.

The next morning I waited outside of his cabin while everyone else was heading to the dining hall for breakfast. All the other guys had left, and there was still no sign of Roman, so I knocked on the door before stepping inside. I found him lying on a bottom bunk with his back to me.

“Roman? Can we talk?”

He spun around, his eyes narrowed. “What do you want?” His voice was so deep and threatening that I almost walked away.

Twisting my arms together in front of me, I looked down. I was still considerably shy that summer and didn’t have the first clue how to properly express my feelings. “I can’t do this with you.”

“Do what?”

“Fight…or whatever’s going on between us.” I braved a glance his way and bit my lip when tears thickened in my throat. “I just want us to be friends.”

He swung his legs off the bed and stood. There was a storm brewing behind his eyes when he snarled, “So you lied.”

My face burned hot. “What? No! I’ve never lied to you!”

“You said it was okay when I kissed you.”

“It was!” I insisted, taking a few steps until he was close enough to touch. “I mean, I liked it!”

His scowl only relaxed slightly. “But you just said you want to be friends.”

Saying “I don’t want to lose you” felt too heavy on my tongue and a part of me worried I’d be jinxing our relationship if I said them out loud. Another part of me knew it was too deep to say to a boy who lived thousands of miles away. And I couldn’t say “I love you” even though I felt it in my heart and knew without a doubt it was true. There was no way I was messing with our future by uttering those fateful words.

Instead I reached out to wrap myself around his strong body, hugging him tight. The smell of his deodorant was strong, but the scent of the camp’s tart laundry detergent on his soft t-shirt was overpowering when I inhaled. “I don’t know what I’d do if something happened between us, and I didn’t have your phone calls to look forward to anymore.”

His chest heaved beneath me with a great sigh before his arms wrapped around my body. “Me either.” For a moment he pressed his face against the top of my head as we held onto each other, like we thought it would keep us from growing apart. “I used to…stutter when I was little.”

The admission sounded heavily calculated, like he had been waiting forever to tell me and was glad to get it off his chest. I didn’t really get why it was a big deal, but I held my breath anyway, waiting for him to continue.

“My parents were embarrassed. They yanked me out of school and took care of the problem at home. In private.” He stopped, taking another deep breath. “I always worry…I think people would judge me if they knew. I’m scared as shit that I’ll slip up one of these times and everyone will realize I’m not as cool as they think.”

“People don’t think you’re cool just because you can out-sing everyone here.” I drew away to look him in the eye. “And I could never be embarrassed by you. I don’t care if you stutter or grow a third eye. You’re still my Roman.”

A slow, beautiful smile spread across his thick lips as his eyes glistened. It was the first time I knew he loved me. I was sure he was going to kiss me again until we heard a gasp behind us.

“Roman!” a deep voice roared.

I spun around in Roman’s arms to face Jackson and an older man with gray at his temples standing in the doorway. It was glaringly obvious the man was Roman’s dad. They shared the same facial bone structure, sandy colored hair, and could have even been the same height. Their eyes were the same sea green, only his dad’s were missing the starry effect. Instead they were overflowing with cold hatred.

Roman’s arms coiled around my waist, constricting until I couldn’t breathe. “What are you doing here?”

“Is this her?” his dad snarled, glaring at me. “Is this the trailer trash you were ready to go to juvie for?”

My mouth dropped. Juvie? What had Roman done?

“Don’t talk shit about her!” Roman yelled. His body was trembling against mine, coursing with rage. “You don’t know a thing about her!”

“Maybe everyone should take a deep breath,” Jackson suggested, holding his hands out in a peaceful gesture. I felt sorry for him because he wasn’t much older than we were and clearly didn’t know what to do. He looked just as rattled over their argument as I was. “Isabelle, you know you’re not supposed to be in here. Why don’t you come with—”

The way Roman clung to me, I realized he was scared. Scared of his own dad. “She’s n-not g-going anywhere!”

“I don’t give a shit where she goes!” Roman’s dad said, stepping into the cabin. “But you’re coming home with me! I spoke with your grandmother and I know what you did for this girl!”

What did he do?

All at once it felt like Roman was using me as a shield. He shifted behind me with his arms still wrapped possessively around my body. “What? Camp isn’t even half over!” His deep voice cracked with emotion, shattering my heart. “I’m n-not leaving!”

My heart exploded with pain as tears burned my eyes. We were being robbed of our precious time together.

“You’ll do what I say as long as you’re living under my roof!” his dad roared.

Jackson ran outside, calling for someone to help.

I was terrified. Terrified for me, terrified for Roman. His stomach muscles clenched against my back, and his father’s tendons looked ready to burst from his thick neck.

Pressing myself back against Roman, I held out my arms, screaming, “Stay away from him!”

Roman jerked me out of the way before his dad’s open hand had a chance to connect with the side of my face. I stared back at the man, shocked that he had tried to hit me, but Roman went after him.

“You s-son of a b-bitch!”

I begged Roman to stop, knowing he would only get himself into deeper trouble, but he was, in reality, much bigger than his dad. I finally understood why he was so intent on lifting weights. When Roman swung his fist, he struck his dad’s jaw and sent him swaggering backwards.

Then the room erupted with both counselors and campers. Jackson and another male counselor wrestled Roman away from his dad. My counselor hurried to my side, followed closely by Melanie. They fussed over me when they saw the mark on my face. I ignored them, trying to get to Roman as they pulled him from the cabin.

“Belle!” he called over his dad’s shoulder, trying to fight his way back to me. “Let me go! Belle!”

“Roman!” I wrapped my arms around myself and sobbed, knowing his dad would take him, and there wouldn’t be time for a goodbye.

The last time I saw his beautiful starry eyes that summer, they were filled with tears.

I collapsed inside Melanie’s arms. Knowing I may never see him again, my heart was completely destroyed.