Bad Girl Reputation (Avalon Bay #2)(30)

“You don’t say.”

“I’m not sure I ever am when it comes to you. Truth is, my head hasn’t been right for about a year now.”

“I can’t be responsible for your happiness, Evan. I can barely account for myself.”

“That’s not what I’m saying. When you left, my whole life changed. It would be like if Cooper suddenly disappeared. A huge piece of me broke off and was just gone.” I scrub a hand over my face. “So much of me was wrapped up in us. And then you came back, and it’s got me all twisted up inside. Because you’re here, but you’re not really back. Not like it was. I don’t know how to fit everything into place the way it was before, so I’m just walking around all out of sorts.”

Agony lodges in my throat. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a goner for this girl. Turning myself inside out to keep her attention. Always terrified that one day she’d realize I was a loser who wasn’t worth her time, figure out she’s always had the option to do better. Last year, I thought she’d reached that conclusion, but it turns out I was the idiot thinking her leaving had anything to do with my dumb ass.

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” she says softly.

Silence falls over us. Not strained or uncomfortable, because it’s never that way with me and Gen, even when we want to murder each other.

“I remember the first time I knew I wanted to kiss you,” I finally say, not quite sure where the sentiment even came from. But the memory is clearer than day. It was the summer before eighth grade. I’d been making a fool of myself for weeks trying to impress her, make her laugh. I didn’t know yet that’s how crushes start. When the balance tips from friendship to attraction. “A few weeks before we started eighth grade. We were all out there diving off the old pier.”

She gives a quiet laugh. “God, that thing was a death trap.”

It really was, that decrepit wooden pier half sunken into the waves and falling apart. Victim of a hurricane years prior, infested with rusty nails and splinters. At some point, high school kids had hauled a metal ladder out to the part of the pier that was still standing and tied it to a pylon with bungee cords. It was a sort of rite of passage to swim out through the crashing waves, climb the rickety thing, and leap off the top railing. Then all you had to do was not let the waves throw you back against the pylons covered in barnacles that would tear the flesh off your bones.

“There was that ninth-grader—Jared or Jackson or somebody. He’d been flirting with you all afternoon, doing flips off the pier like he was so damn cool. And being all obnoxious about it too. Like, hey, look at me, I’m such a badass. So you dared him to jump to one of the pylons from the pier. It was maybe a ten-foot leap to a one-foot target, and right below were all sorts of torn-up, jagged pieces sticking up out of the water. With the waves just absolutely thrashing below us.” I grin. “Suddenly he wasn’t so loud anymore. Starts making excuses and shit. And while everyone’s ragging on him for chickening out, you take a running start and go flying through the air. I was looking at Cooper for the split second like, oh fuck, we’re gonna have to jump in after you and drag you back to shore when you break your neck or get impaled on something. But then you nailed it. Perfect landing. Coolest thing I’d ever seen.”

She laughs to herself, remembering. “I got stung by a jellyfish after I jumped down. But I had to be chill about it, you know. Didn’t want to look like a dumbass for jumping out there in the first place.”

“Yeah, probably a good idea. You would’ve had ten pervert boys whipping their tiny dicks out to pee on your leg.” We both shudder in disgust at that dodged bullet.

“You didn’t kiss me that day, though,” she points out. “Why not?”

“Because you’re fucking scary.”

“Oh.” She laughs, elbowing my arm good-naturedly.

“I mean, I know we’d been friends for years by then, but when you figure out you have a crush on someone, it’s like you’re starting from scratch. I didn’t know how to approach you.”

“You figured it out.”

She shifts beside me, and I sense the change in the air between us. Something happens. Without her saying a word, I feel her decide to not be mad at me anymore.

“Didn’t have a choice,” I admit. “I was going to claw out of my skin if I didn’t find out what your lips felt like.”

“Maybe you should have.” The blanket drops from around her shoulders. She turns to look at me. “Eaten yourself alive. Spared us both the trouble.”

“Believe me, there’s no version of this”—I gesture between us—“where we don’t get together, Fred. One way or another. I can tell you that for certain.”

“And to hell with the collateral damage.”

“Yes.” Without hesitation.

“While it all burns around us.”

“I like it that way.” Because nothing else matters when she’s mine. Nothing. She’s everything and all of it.

“There’s something wrong with us,” she murmurs, closing the space between us until I feel her arm brush mine and her hair sweep across my shoulder in the breeze. “It shouldn’t feel like this.”

“How should it feel?” I haven’t the slightest idea what that means, but I wouldn’t change the way I feel about her for anything.