The Remedy (The Program 0.5)(62)

“You and I had gone to the movies the night before,” I say. “Kyle’s idea. But I hate the movies. To make matters worse, you hardly spoke a word to me. I was convinced you didn’t like me, and I told Kyle she was a jerk for embarrassing me like that.”

I smile softly, feeling the memory as if it’s my own. “Turns out you’re just shy,” I say. “Shy and sweet. You told me later that you couldn’t get me out of your head, but you didn’t call because you can’t stand talking on the phone. You decided to find me instead.”

“And what did you think about that?” he asks, able to ask the questions he thought he’d never get the answers to. “What did you think about me?”

“That I would never let you get away,” I tell him. “In that moment, seeing you sitting awkwardly as you waited for Kyle to leave, smiling madly at me, I knew that I would fall hopelessly in love with you, Isaac. I’m not sure what it was about you, but I wanted you from that moment on.”

Isaac stares at me, tears brimming in his eyes. “But you did let me go,” he says in barely a whisper. I’ve never seen anything lonelier than how Isaac looks in this moment. I can’t stand it.

“I’ll never do it again,” I say without thinking. Say to make his hurt go away. Say because I almost mean it.

So when Isaac reaches for me, clumsy and desperate as he leans over the center console, puts his hand on my cheek, and pulls me into a kiss, I don’t stop him. His mouth presses against mine, pausing for a long moment before his lips part and he kisses me again. Again. Warmth flows over my skin, and my fingers clasp the edge of his jacket. My body is electric. My lips move with his, my eyes fluttering shut.

I kiss him passionately, recklessly. And I let Isaac Perez fall in love with me all over again.

PART III

THE REMEDY

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS ONLY A KISS, I tell myself, trying not to let the guilt eat me alive. Isaac and I stopped almost immediately after we’d started, preventing ourselves from making a huge mistake. But I let him hold my hand on the drive home. We kissed once more before I snuck back into my house.

I did all of that. I knew exactly what I was doing.

Staring up at the ceiling from my bed, I can still taste Isaac on my lips. I let myself fall into the illusion, imagine a world where Isaac still loves me. Imagine this is my real life.

I’m curious then about who I used to be, this girl who seemed to have everything. I slide my hand under the pillow and find the diary pages. I click on the light and bend my legs to rest the papers against my thighs, tracing the handwriting with my index finger. I have a great family, perfect boyfriend. But yesterday my mother said I’d been withdrawn before my death, and that even Isaac had noticed. Something had changed.

I sift through the pages to where I left off in the journal. Earlier I was eager to find out about my love life, reading it like a torrid romance novel. But now, as I skim the words, a different emotion takes over.

We were at the lake house, in one of the loft bedrooms because we thought it was tacky to use the large bed in his parents’ room. Losing it on a bunk bed—there’s some comedy in that that I think we both enjoyed. Despite the cramped space on the mattress, it was exactly what I thought. We laughed and then we didn’t. Then we got really serious. It didn’t feel good—not like everyone always says it will. But that was the thing . . . it kind of hurt, but Isaac was there, in tune to every movement, watching and careful. Just like always. I think that’s what everyone likes about it—the closeness. It’s the only time you can ever share yourself so completely, be so completely vulnerable. In that moment, Isaac was mine. And there

I crumple the pages in my hand, my heart racing and sickness in my stomach. My face is hot and I want to cry. I tighten my fist into a ball, crushing the words. I shouldn’t have read that. I didn’t want to know, not really. The girl I’ve been playing loved Isaac Perez, and she’s right—he is hers. He still is.

I throw the pages across the room, abandoning the words forever. I squeeze my eyes shut, hating how I feel. I have no right, no right to feel this way. Betrayed. Heartsick. I roll over, facing the ceiling again, my mind starting to spin. This isn’t me, I think. I can’t be jealous of a dead girl.

But pain continues to gather in my chest, and I reach over to grab my phone—desperate. I stare at the blank screen and finally break down. Who can I call? Not Isaac, not on this phone. A name comes to mind, the person who’s always there for me. But thinking about Deacon leads me to a different memory. The one I try not to think about.

Deacon is the only guy I’ve been with, the only guy I’ve ever kissed until tonight. We always say that closers don’t love, that we can’t. But I thought I loved Deacon. We held each other’s identities in our hands. I gave him everything of myself, and for a while I thought he did the same. We were a tangle of passion and intensity; we were a blazing fire. But he ended it. With no explanation, he shredded my heart.

“I don’t understand,” I’d said, standing at the door of the apartment Marie had been renting for him. I’d asked if I could come in and Deacon told me it wasn’t a good idea. He’d been avoiding my calls for three days. “Deacon,” I pleaded, my skin raw from the cold, wet weather outside. “What’s going on?”

I’d always considered Deacon to be the perfect assembly of parts, his every feature my favorite thing. But he was flawed; he seemed different. He wouldn’t look at me, and finally I pushed open the door and put my hands on his cheeks, forcing him to meet my eyes.