“You’re drunk,” she accused.

I may have had a whiskey brain, but my dick, for all intents and purposes, was sober as a priest and admiring my best friend’s feisty nature.

“Okay, Saint Luna,” I threw Daria’s nickname for her in her face.

“Maybe you have an underdeveloped frontal lobe. That’s why you take so many risks.”

She was babbling. She hardly ever talked, let alone about fucking lobes or whatever it was.

“Thanks for the medical assessment, but I don’t think there’s one thing about me that’s underdeveloped. Of course, you would rather slap me around than find out, wouldn’t you? Anything but allowing yourself to fucking feel.”

My good-natured smile was on full display as I advanced to the door. I didn’t stop on the threshold like I’d wanted. The beer, or the joint, or whatever the fuck it was, took charge and told me Luna could use a taste of her own medicine. I breezed right back down to the party, my cheek still stinging from her slap.

Come after me, my heart begged. I need you. Mom feels like shit. I don’t know how long she’s got. I need you.

I looked behind me. Luna wasn’t there.

I grabbed Arabella’s ass as soon as I reached the kitchen, dragging her toward me and slamming my groin against hers. I was rock hard, mainly because Luna had touched me, but as I smirked down at Arabella, I realized that for tonight, she’d do.

“Someone’s ready for round two,” she hummed.

I leaned down for a pucker, showing PDA for the first time since…ever. I didn’t kiss girls in public. It was one of the many things I didn’t do in public to be considerate of a girl who couldn’t bring herself to tell me how the fuck she felt about me.

Vaughn and Hunter were right. I was possessed, and it didn’t matter that I’d grown up with her. I needed to come to terms with the fact that it was possible Luna and I weren’t going to happen.

I closed my eyes, and Arabella did the rest of the job. Our open-mouthed kiss was drowned out by the sounds of her squeaking friends, deafening music, and the squealing of Luna’s sneakers as she pushed past people on her way to the door.

I recognized the sound of her running away from me like it was my first language.

And I vowed, that night, to stop doing the chasing.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I slapped my forehead as I dashed out of Vaughn’s house, so embarrassed I wanted to throw up.

It wasn’t supposed to go down this way.

I was supposed to muster up the courage to go there and tell him I wanted to stay in California. So I could be near. Near him. And Rosie. And everyone I cared about.

I’d been waiting for him to bring it up all summer, but every time we talked about my college plans, Knight yawned his way into another what-are-we-eating question. There was an air of dismissal about his behavior that rubbed me the wrong way. Almost as if I was asking him if he thought I should become a space cowboy or unicorn vet—like the option of my going elsewhere for higher education was so farfetched, giving it thought was ridiculous.

He’d never once said anything about us. Maybe us didn’t exist anymore. Maybe he’d finally given up on the idea of us, and I had no one to blame but myself. I’d done this. I’d pushed him away.

What killed me the most was that deep down, I knew he’d been right. I hadn’t done my own thing my entire duration on this planet. I was frightened, dependent, and completely out of sorts whenever he or my parents weren’t around. I’d managed to sail through life with no friends—no human connections outside of him and our families, and minimum communication with the world. I was, for lack of better description, a glorified bubble girl. Knight was a friend, but he might as well have been my babysitter. So even though I was angry at him—for the one-night stands, for taking me for granted, for being right about my insecurities—I also couldn’t resent his dismissal.

I wanted to prove him wrong. To go to Boon, just to make a point.

We were growing apart anyway, going in completely different directions.

He was growing upward, in full bloom, while I was developing deeper roots, chaining myself in place.

Besides, what was the point of staying? We were never going to be together.

He was always surrounded by girls. Girls who were nicer than me. Who spoke with real words. Some of them even had great voices. Girls who wore makeup and trendy clothes and curled and flat-ironed their shiny hair. Girls who had sex with boys and knew how to use their bodies to seduce him.

Girls like Arabella.

Those girls were always going to be there, swarming around him, competing for his attention. I couldn’t imagine myself being with him without being eaten alive by the notion that my competition had more to offer. Problem was, not being with him hardly made any difference. Jealousy still wrapped its green claws around my neck and squeezed every time I had a front-row seat to just how enchanting he was to others.

Case in point, I’d slapped him after seeing him with Arabella. Shame and embarrassment flooded my cheeks with heat. I rushed through the Spencers’ front yard, skipping over people making out on the lush lawn. Twisting my head back to see if Knight was chasing me, I bumped into a hard chest. I stumbled backward, then looked up, and of course, it was Vaughn, propping a fresh keg on his ripped shoulder, his dirty black shirt riding up to expose his lower abs and glorious V-lines, peppered with red-lipsticked kisses.