Past

I watched Camryn saunter around the Hawthorne’s expansive lawn like a lioness on the hunt. From the way she looked at Rowan, it was clear who the target was. She walked over to where he was entertaining his crew friends, squeezed in right beside him, and said something that made his friends laugh. My eyes were still on Rowan. It had only been a couple of hours since those lips, which were spread into a full-fledged grin, and been on mine—and a whole month since the first kiss at my grandma’s party. The group laughed at something again, and Rowan looked down at Camryn. He flashed her that wide and welcoming smile that had jealously bleeding through me.

I pushed off the spot I’d been standing in most of the night and walked in the opposite direction, stopping when I found Celia and Freddie talking to Sam.

“Where have you been?” Celia asked, looking up. “With Ro?”

“No. Just . . . around. What are you guys doing?”

“Wishing we were elsewhere.” Her comment had both Freddie and Sam chuckling.

“We were talking about taking the boats out tomorrow afternoon,” Sam said.

“Hm.” I glanced away, my eyes finding Rowan again. Camryn had her arms around his left arm, clinging on to him like a goddamn koala. My patience ticked. Couldn’t she just keep her hands to herself?

“Tessa.”

I blinked up at my sister. “What?”

“Why are you so distracted? Don’t tell me you like one of the guys in Rowan’s crew-crew.” Celia smiled wide.

I rolled my eyes. I hadn’t mentioned the kiss we’d shared. I almost had on two separate occasions, but held back. For some reason, it felt like something I wanted to protect and keep to myself. I also hadn’t told her about all of those times I’d snuck out of my house to meet with him, or how many other kisses we’d shared, or the way we passed notes back and forth during AP Lit.

“I’ve been in a car with all of them at four in the morning, and trust me, they’re disgusting,” I answered, not thinking about how those four in the morning voyages had gone from a truck full of friends to just me and Rowan and then Rowan and me stopping on the side of the road to have a make out session. I barely recognized this boy-crazy version of myself, though, in my defense, I wasn’t boy-crazy. I was Rowan-crazy.

“So why do you keep looking over there like you’re interested?” Freddie stood straighter, puffing out his chest.

“Why do you assume I’m looking at them?” They all just stared, waiting. “Fine. I was trying to figure out Camryn’s game.”

Sam scoffed. “Her game is ‘marry a Hawthorne,’ it doesn’t matter which one.”

Celia frowned. I felt my own face contort. “Why?” we both asked.

“Because it’s what her parents have drilled into that pretty little head of hers.”

“Yeah, but why?” Celia asked. “She has her own money.”

“And her parents only trust a few men to keep it that way.”

“Why is she not hitting on you?” Celia asked. “You’re the cuter one.”

Sam chuckled. “I’m not the outgoing one. Besides, she knows Ro is the numbers guy.”

“You can be a numbers guy,” Freddie said. “You’re smarter than he is.”

I watched the way Sam laughed off my sister’s words and frowned at my brother’s, as if he’d never in a million years thought of himself as smarter or cuter than his brother. I shook my head and wondered when they’d learn to see themselves clearly. My eyes landed on Rowan’s group of friends, but I found that he was no longer standing there. Neither was Camryn. Uneasiness prickled through me.

“I think I’m ready to go,” I said.

“I’ll come with,” Celia said, standing and following behind me. She linked her arm around mine. “You okay? You look weird.”

“I feel weird,” I admitted. “I think I’m getting sick.”

As we walked, I scanned the yard for Rowan and came up short. Maybe he went back inside. Maybe he went upstairs. As my sister and I rounded the corner of the house, we heard a giggle and then another and then a moan. We both stopped walking and met each other’s wide-eyed gazes.

“Should we go back?” she whispered.

“I don’t know.”

A part of me wanted to run, terrified to continue down the path we were on. Scared of what we’d find on the other side of it. I looked over my shoulder again. I could go back to the party, but for what? I wasn’t enjoying myself at all and now that Rowan was missing in action I really didn’t want to stick around. I swallowed down my trepidation and pushed on. Celia followed my lead, toward our ATVs, which were parked on the side. We always parked them there because it was the closest to our house. We’d been doing it so long, that it was a known thing by now. Whoever was hiding out here either wasn’t a frequent visitor or didn’t care about the fact that at one point Celia, me, or Freddie would be forced to walk by them. We held our arms a little tighter, our steps light on the grass when we really should have been stomping so the people ahead had some warning.

I heard another sound and decided to push on. If Rowan was fooling around with another girl . . . oh my god, I wasn’t sure my heart could handle that. We hadn’t spoken about being exclusive. Actually, we hadn’t spoken much at all. We’d just kissed and kissed and kissed. He hadn’t even tried to go to second base with me. Still. If I rounded the corner and discovered his mouth on Camryn’s I thought I would die. I pushed on nonetheless, my heart hammering with each step I took, preparing for the worst. I tried closing my eyes to make out the sound better, but I couldn’t. It sounded like someone was whining. It was definitely a whine, and it definitely came from Camryn. Finally, we reached the corner of the house. I was breathing heavier then, almost out of control. I looked at my sister, raised my chin as if to say please look for me. She frowned, confused, but I saw the clarity in her eyes. She understood what I wasn’t saying. She was my sister, after all.

She looked, stood there stunned for a moment, and then turned back to me. I couldn’t take it anymore. I took a step forward and looked for myself. My jaw dropped. Rowan was leaning against the wall, hands in his pockets. Camryn was standing in front of him between his legs. She wasn’t flush against him, but she might as well have been. She was standing way too close for my comfort. It took my brain a moment to compute what the rest of my senses were already feeling. A sense of disgust curled through me at the sight of them.

My sister held my arm and tugged me in the direction of the door. We made noise, our feet speeding up a touch as Celia practically dragged me in the direction of our ATVs. Rowan looked up, instantly dropping his foot from the wall and standing straight at the sight of me. I looked from him to Camryn, who smiled.

“Bye, Tessa. It was good seeing you again,” she said. Something in her eyes was telling, almost triumphant. It was as if she was winning some kind of game I wasn’t sure I’d ever wanted to play in the first place.

With one last tug from Celia, I tore my eyes from them and moved, leaving them behind. My sister straddled the ATV, and I slid on behind her, hugging her middle and pressing the side of my face to her back.

“I didn’t know you liked him like that,” she said.

I pressed my face tighter against her back and reminded myself that I didn’t like him like that. I couldn’t. The silent ride gave me a moment to try to sort out my feelings. Rowan was a friend. Sure, we’d hooked up, but it hadn’t meant anything. I repeated the words to myself, hoping they’d keep my heart from ripping apart.

We were halfway to our front door when we heard the familiar zoom of a dirt bike. We turned around at the same time and spotted Rowan expertly getting down, kicking the stand in place and taking off his helmet at the same time. He threaded his fingers into his hair in effort to fix it, but all it did was add to his disheveled sex appeal.

“We need to talk,” he said as he stomped forward. I looked over my shoulder at Celia, whose eyes were wide as she turned around and unlocked the door.

“Fill me in later,” she said quietly as she stepped inside.

I felt myself panicking, my heart throbbing a bit faster, my brain mushing over small details, like the fact that I’d just seen him standing way too close to Camryn and here he was not even two minutes later asking to speak to me. I wanted to shout it to the world. Instead, I crossed my arms as I stood on my porch, my heart thrashing with each step he took toward me.

“What are you doing here?”

“What you saw . . . what—” He exhaled when he reached me. I blinked up to his face. What I saw . . . him kissing Camryn. I swallowed my pride and hoped I would be able to summon a few words.

“We were never serious. We were never . . . anything. It’s fine.” I kept my voice as neutral as I could over the whooshing of blood in my ears.

“No.” He stepped forward, looming over me, his chest almost crashing against mine. I arched my neck to meet his gaze as he cupped the side of my face. “It isn’t fine. I don’t want you to think that after we . . .” He shook his head, looked up at the sky as if searching for answers.

“I’ve seen you with plenty of girls. You’ve never apologized before.”

“We hadn’t spent nearly every waking moment together before.” He shot me a look. “Don’t pretend that meant nothing.”

“I’m not pretending anything. I wasn’t the one doing whatever it was you were doing with Camryn. Besides, we’re just friends, aren’t we? I wasn’t expecting anything between us to change.”

“What if I want change?”

“With me or with Camryn?”

“I didn’t do anything with her,” he said. “I swear. I didn’t. Nothing happened. She was talking to me about something private, pulled me aside. We kept talking. I told her I was with someone and wasn’t interested.”

I searched his eyes, hoping for truth. I’d never known him to be a liar or a cheater, for that matter, but my heart was still unsettled, ricocheting all over the place.

“I want to believe you.”

“I would never lie to you.”

“I know how you are with Camryn, and I’m going to play second string to her.”

“You would never be second to anyone, Tess.”

“She was standing really close to you.” I swallowed, trying to keep myself together, but I felt the tears clogging my throat. I’d never felt so vulnerable because of a guy.

“She’s just . . . pushy and I’m an idiot. I should never have let her lead me away from the party.”

“You don’t even know how to have a relationship,” I whispered. “You get a new girlfriend every day.”

“I know, and I understand why you’d be hesitant, but I’ve never felt this connection with anyone.” He closed his eyes briefly and shook his head. When he opened them again, he seemed to have made up his mind about something. “I want to change for you. Only for you. And I know it’s only a matter of time before I leave for college, but you’re going to graduate early. Maybe you can come to Columbia. Maybe we can take this change with us?”

“Yale,” I said. “I’ve always wanted to go to Yale.”

“Maybe Yale, maybe Columbia.” His lips tugged. “Does that mean you want to try?”

I didn’t know the answer to that. What would change bring? I didn’t want to be the girl who followed her sort-of boyfriend to college or the girl who gave up her own dreams to follow a guy’s. I didn’t want to be the girl who fell for Rowan, and God knew he was easy to fall for with his warm blue eyes, killer body, and untamed hair.

For me, it was everything underneath that he would make me fall for, and I’d fall hard. His charm and his wit and the way his mouth moved into a secretive smile when he had a comeback he didn’t think you’d handle well would grab ahold of me and never let go. He didn’t allow me to respond. He took whatever expression was on my face as permission to bring his lips to mine. I saw my future flash before me in anticipation of his lips—the white picket fence and the kids, the dogs and the holidays around the tree. I’d never considered marriage, let alone children. The thought rocked me to my core, threatened to freak me out, but then his fingers thrust into my hair, and his tongue invaded my mouth in a sensual sweep that made my knees buckle.

I fell into the kiss, grabbing on to the front of his jacket and tugging him fully against me. This was what people spent their lives searching for. This scary, upside down feeling that made them feel as if they were on the brink, between their first and last breath. I’d always held on to the notion that I’d rather be alone than sparkless, but since I’d tasted the sparks, I had been afraid they’d be strong enough to make me implode.