The Girl in the Love Song (Lost Boys #1)(20)

Turn off the light and I’ll pretend that you said

I fell in love with you tonight



Feels so good and feels so weak

This love cuts until I bleed

Don’t touch me, baby, don’t look at my scars,

Until you want to know which ones are yours

All I’ll ever want

All I’ll ever want

Is you to fall in love with me tonight





Chapter Three





The first day of senior year. I’d have plenty of first days of classes to come—years’ worth in undergrad and med school—but this was the last year of high school. Shiloh was fond of pointing out how ridiculously excited I got about the first day of school when everyone else was bemoaning the end of summer.

“Like a rite of passage,” I murmured, as I dressed in skinny jeans and an off-the-shoulder, waist-length sweatshirt.

I studied myself in the mirror. The jeans highlighted my curves more than I was used to but otherwise seemed plain. But in choosing my outfit for the day, Evelyn had warned me not to make it look like I was trying too hard.

“You’re naturally stunning, you bitch,” she’d told me, laughing, while we shopped at the King’s Village Shopping Center the week before. “Just show off that ass of yours, and no one will give a crap what else you’re wearing.”

I turned in front of the mirror that morning in my bedroom, lips pursed. Two years ago, Evelyn Gonzalez and her crew of popular friends hadn’t paid me a second glance. But a friend from my soccer team took me to a beach party last year. Somehow, I ended up in the sandy-floored bathroom, comforting a crying Evelyn who’d just broken up with Chance Blaylock, her boyfriend of six months.

“You’re really sweet,” she’d said, dabbing her eyes. “Most girls at school would be thrilled to see me like this. Weak and pathetic.”

“You’re not either,” I said gently. “You’re human.”

Something in those words must’ve touched the Queen Bee because suddenly she was looping her arm in mine and introducing me to her friends. Which included River Whitmore. I still hadn’t the guts to talk to him, but whenever I hung out with them that summer, we exchanged smiles and once he bought me a shake at the Burger Barn. True, he’d been buying everyone a shake, but it felt nice to be included. A high school experience a bookish girl like me would never have imagined.

But then River stopped hanging out with us and now I knew why.

I grabbed the envelope that held my Patient Care Volunteer assignment from the UCSC Medical Center and tucked it into my backpack, then headed downstairs.

My parents were having breakfast in the spacious, sunlit kitchen, sitting as far apart from each other as possible—Dad at the gray marble counter, sipping coffee and reading the paper. Mom at the table, spreading jelly on a slice of wheat toast.

No fighting. No tension. Yet. I felt like I was in one of those movies where the spy has to cross a room without tripping the red lasers that crisscrossed all over. I had to move carefully, slowly, not to set them off.

“Morning,” I said brightly.

Mom didn’t look up from her toast. “Good morning, honey.”

“Morning, pumpkin,” Dad said with a tired smile.

Shiloh liked to say the universe took my parents’ best features and gave them to me. I got Mom’s thick, almost black hair and Dad’s dark blue eyes. After that, I looked nothing like them. Mom was tall, slender, with pale blue eyes, while Dad was sandy-haired and stockier.

“Are you excited for your first day of senior year?” Dad asked.

“Definitely. I’m going to be pretty busy, what with soccer, debate, and now this.” I sat next to Mom and pulled out my Patient Care Volunteer acceptance letter and placed it on the table.

“You got in?” Mom beamed and reached to give my arm a squeeze. “I knew you would.”

Dad brought his coffee over and pecked me on the top of the head. “Proud of you, pumpkin.” He sat down so that I was between him and Mom. “And do you know who your assignment is?”

“Is it that Miller?” Mom said, focusing on her toast and being careful to keep her tone casual.

Four years later and my best friend was still that Miller to her: the boy who’d lived in a car and nearly died in her backyard.

“No, not Miller,” I said tightly, clinging to my smile. “Nancy Whitmore.”

Glances were exchanged between my parents.

Dad shifted in his chair. “I visited the Whitmore Auto Body last week.”

“I know. It’s cancer, isn’t it?”

“I’m afraid so. Liver cancer. And it doesn’t look good.”

“She’s terminal,” Mom cut in, her voice stiff. “Let’s be honest with Violet, for a change.”

Dad’s lips made a thin line, but he turned to me. “You going to be okay with that, sweetheart?”

“I’m going to be a doctor. Like I told Miller, the hard stuff is part of the deal.”

Mom set down her toast. “You told Miller before you told us? When? Last night?”

“Lynn…”

“Yes,” I said. “Last night.”

Before you burst into my room like a pair of crazy people.

“I can’t understand why he’s still climbing up my trellis,” Mom said, fuming. “If you’re not trying to hide him, Violet, then he can come through the front door like everyone else.”