Always You(20)

I smiled. “Sure. Get whatever you want.” I sat back, running over the night in my head. That kiss . . . I shivered as chills danced down my spine.

“Oh, I plan on it.” She reached for the menu to survey her options. “So, spill.”

“Huh?”

“Where were you, and who didn’t you want your aunt to know you were with? And don’t even try to lie to me,” she warned, her brown eyes narrowing.

I glanced around the empty diner, fighting myself on how much to tell her. I could trust Kass, and I needed to tell someone. I was desperate for someone else’s opinion, and there was nobody who would give it to me straighter than Kass.

“Promise this doesn’t go further than you and me,” I said, leaning across the booth.

She did the same. “I promise,” she said, her eyes wide.

“Okay. I was with Dalton.”

She looked confused, so I added “Reid.”

Her eyes grew even wider. “As in . . . ”

“Mr. Reid,” I agreed.

“Tell me everything! Leave nothing out!” she hissed as I giggled, relieved by her reaction.

“It’s hard to explain. We’ve had this kind of flirting thing going on for weeks now. I called him and asked him to a movie, and he said yes.”

Kass’s mouth dropped open.

“Kass, I feel so . . . I don’t even know how to explain it. And when we kissed—”

“You kissed him?” she squealed.

I blushed and shot her a look. She immediately clamped her mouth shut.

“It just kind of happened. Now I have no idea where I stand.”

“Forget dessert. Stay at my house tonight. We need to hash this out.” She grabbed my arm and steered me over to the counter. “But first, you need to pay for the five coffees I had while waiting for you.”

***

Kass’s bedroom was bigger than our living room at home. It was f*cking huge. She had her own bathroom and balcony. Her king-sized bed barely took up any of the room. A large TV hung on the ivory-colored wall above a fireplace.

“Okay, so tell me everything,” she said, wriggling out of her jeans and into a pair of gray sweatpants.

I lay down on her bed and told her everything—from the movies, to him coming over, to how I felt when I was around him. It was like a weight had been lifted off me. I’d needed to get all this out, and if not Kass, then who was I going to tell? My aunt? I snorted at the thought. I could talk to Layna about many things, but a crush on my teacher was not one of them, especially when I had just kissed said teacher.

Kass collapsed dramatically on the bed beside me.

“Wow,” she muttered, sighing loudly. “Can you promise me one thing?”

I turned to her expectantly.

“If, for whatever reason, this has to get out, can I be there when you tell Paige? Or better yet, can I tell her?” She grinned.

I burst out laughing. God, the look on Paige’s face would almost be worth it.

“I told him about the betting pool,” I said with a giggle.

“Ha! That’s awesome. What did he say?”

“That it explained a lot,” I said. “I think he was a bit bewildered with all the attention of the girls.”

“Well, he’s a delish young teacher. What did he expect?” She smirked. She shook her head. “Holy shit, Wrenn. This is so . . . rebellious of you. I never would’ve imagined you getting with a teacher.”

“I haven’t gotten with anybody. Not since Toby, anyway. And it’s not like that. I really like the guy,” I said quietly. The question was, did he like me?

“Toby?” asked Kass. “Was he your boyfriend back home?”

I nodded. I’d been convinced that I was in love with Toby, and looking back, I think I was. That made it so much worse when he broke up with me. When things get difficult, you don’t expect someone you love to abandon you. But that’s what happened. Abandoned by my family, and then by Toby.

“You never talk about your family,” Kass said slowly. She eyed me as if she were not sure how I’d react.

And there it was. The questions began. It was inevitable that it would come up sometime, but the thought of telling her still made me feel sick. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her, or I worried what she would think; it was more the way I felt when people knew that about me.

“My parents and brother were killed in an accident,” I said.

Her eyes widened and she moved closer to me, her arm wrapping around my shoulders.

“My brother and mom were killed instantly, my dad died a few hours later.”

“Oh God, Wrenn.” She hugged me. I felt relieved that she knew. “I can’t even imagine how hard that would’ve been.”

“It was. My life before was completely different from how it is now. Toby, my boyfriend, pretty much stopped seeing me because he didn’t know how to act around the girl who’d lost her family.” I laughed, thinking about how awkward everyone else had acted. “I mean, I’m the one whose family died, yet they can’t handle it?” I shook my head.

“And then you came here.”

“Yes. Layna thought I needed to be around her. At seventeen, I could’ve stayed at home, but there were way too many memories...” I swallowed as tears stung my eyes. I missed them all so much.