The Summer We Fell (The Summer, #1)(28)

I can’t keep being this girl who holds hands and doesn’t drink or dance and who only gets one moment to be who she is—that solo in church, singing something I didn’t choose and don’t even like. I need more. This discontentment, this dissatisfaction with him, is a barrier I can just break through if he’ll help me do it. There has to be a way I can remain with him and also… like my life.

I kiss him.

“Juliet,” he argues, but I feel him pressed between my legs, hard, and all the blood in my body seems to flow to that exact spot. I shift against him and stifle a groan. The walls at the Allens’ house are thin and the rooms are close together. Even in the dead of night, I’m too scared to touch any part of myself.

“You should probably get off my lap,” he says. Despite the dim light, I can tell he’s flushing, unable to meet my eye.

I place my hands on either side of his face. “I think that’s a natural reaction to having a girl in your lap.”

I kiss him again and he responds, giving in at last. I move against him again, nerve endings snapping to life, forgetting anyone could walk up on us and not especially caring.

He gasps, suddenly, grasping my hips. “Stop!” he yells, pushing me off him.

I hit the ground hard, my back absorbing most of the fall, and blink up at him, stunned. I can’t believe he shoved me. I want to think it was an accident but…he yelled at me. So it wasn’t, really.

I sit up gingerly, wincing at the pain in my back, while the noise of the party continues around us, unabated.

“I don’t understand what just happened,” I whisper.

His shoulders sag and he doesn’t meet my gaze. “I…came.”

“From that?”

“Yes,” he says, his voice sharper than I’m used to. “You were moving all over the place and then the kissing and…what did you think was going to happen? I told you to get off my lap.”

I can’t think of a time when he’s been mad at me before. But his anger sparks my own. “What’s the

big deal, Danny? You think you’re not getting into heaven because you came by accident?”

He rises. “It wasn’t an accident! We made bad choices and this was the result.”

He storms off toward the house and I remain where I landed—sitting on my ass in this dark corner of a backyard, hours from home, and feeling guiltier by the second.

I took something he didn’t want to give. Am I any different than Justin, cornering me, acting like all my objections were some coy game I was playing?

Tears slip down my face. I don’t know why I always want to do the bad thing, why I can’t just be happy with my easy, safe life and my wonderful boyfriend.

I’m ashamed of myself, and I’m angry at the same time. Why is it that all the people inside get to drink and grope each other and whatever else they do? Why am I the only one who has to choose between good and evil, when the rest of the world gets a little of both?

I’m too upset to stay here or to go inside to look for him, not that he seems to want me looking for him anyway. I just want to return to the safety of my room, a quiet place where I can rest my head and figure out how to fix this.

I slip through the darkness to the gate on the side of the yard. The hotel is less than five miles away. God knows if I can stand on my feet at the diner for ten hours a day, I can walk five miles in flip-flops.

The neighborhood turns rough a few blocks from campus. I’m out in the open. Vulnerable. Easy prey. I pass a group of men on the darkened main road and their faces gleam with that ugly kind of interest, which I know more about than I should. It terrifies me, so I break into a run because what else am I going to do? I can’t walk back into that party with my tear-streaked face, begging someone to help me find Danny.

My flip-flops start to curl beneath my feet, so I slip them off and carry them, heedless of the gravel digging into my soles. It hurts, but I was already hurting, and fear is currently my dominant emotion.

The air is colder, and the sweat against my skin makes it worse. My teeth chatter, and a car’s headlights loom behind me, but the car slows rather than passing.

I think of the incident last summer and run faster, slipping down a side street and then an alley, realizing fully what a terrible idea it was to take off on my own the way I did.

I shouldn’t have run away from Danny; I should have listened, and yet it feels like something inside me will die if I continue to live this way. He wants what’s best for me and he’s usually right.

Perhaps this thing in me should die, but the very thought of it makes me want to lie down in the street and give up. Without that small, hopeful flutter in my heart—the desire for things I can’t picture or name—I wouldn’t be able to go on.

“You aren’t cut out for this. ” Isn’t that what Luke said?

Except what option do I have? I can’t hurt Danny.

Footsteps pound the pavement behind me, and then hands grab my shoulders, tight as a vise.

“Juliet,” Luke snarls.

I gasp as he turns me toward him, his eyes wide and incredulous.

“What were you thinking?” he hisses. “It’s not safe out here at night. Jesus. You could have been raped.”

My shoulders sag. I tried to do something tonight to change my life. I let Danny see who I really am, and then I ran away, and it was all for nothing. I look like a fool, and now I’m being returned to him like a beaten dog, head hanging low.