99 Days(65)

Day 72


Imogen and Handsome Jay seal the deal at the beginning of August at his tiny student apartment; two days later he surprises her with tickets to a sculpture park in Woodstock, a place she told him she wanted to visit on their very first date.

“Good on you, lady,” I tell her, sitting cross-legged on the carpeted floor of her bedroom as she organizes the pieces for her art show at French Roast, which is coming up two weeks from now—I offered to help her, but she’s got a complicated vision, she says. “You should be with somebody who knows you that well, you know?”

Imogen raises her eyebrows, glancing over her shoulder at me—she’s holding up two small canvases with birds on them, scrutinizing how they look side by side. “You mean like you and Patrick?” she asks distractedly.

My internal temperature drops roughly fifteen degrees. “I—what?”

“Oh my God,” Imogen says, whirling around to face me completely, dropping one of the canvases onto the carpet and clapping a hand over her mouth. She huffs out an awkward giggle, eyes wide. “I totally just meant to say you and Gabe. I legit wasn’t even trying to heckle you just then, I’m so sorry. You and Gabe, you and Gabe.”

“Jerk.” I’m blushing and laughing, relief and embarrassment washing through my body in equal measure, hot and cold. “Me and Gabe, yes. Like me and Gabe.”

“God, sorry. Let’s just be thankful Tess wasn’t here, too.” Imogen picks the second canvas back up off the floor, holding them out for my inspection. “What do you think, which way?”

“Um,” I manage, swallowing audibly, relieved at her willingness to drop it. I haven’t told a soul about what happened—what’s happening?—with Patrick. The smart thing to do is to let him alone. “Side by side.”

“I think I like them stacked,” Imogen says, and I don’t answer. My head thuds softly back against the wall.





Day 73


I’m almost asleep, that foggy in-between that’s not quite dreaming, when my phone buzzes loudly on the nightstand: You home? Patrick wants to know.

I push my hair out of my face, sit up on the mattress. Yeah, I key in, trying to ignore the dark thrill in my stomach that tells me this can’t possibly lead to anything good. Where are you?

In your driveway.

I creep downstairs and let him in the back door wordlessly, lead him up to my third-floor tower with his warm hand tucked in mine. As soon as the door’s shut, he presses me up against it. My T-shirt hits the carpet with a barely audible whoosh. I never turned a light on and it’s dark in here, nothing but a silver puddle of moonlight on the carpet and the feel of his warm mouth wandering over my collarbone and ribs.

We stumble back toward my mattress, a tangle of arms and ankles. Still neither one of us has said a single word. His weight presses me down into the sheets for half a second, mouth glancing clumsily off mine before he’s gone again, fingers hooked in the elastic of the boxers I went to bed in, pulling my bottoms down my legs.

“What are you doing?” I ask, popping up on my elbows to look at him. “Patrick.”

“I wanna try something.” His rough cheek scrapes against my inner thigh, gentle. “Will you let me try something?”

“Uh-huh,” I say, more of a gasp than anything. I reach down and scratch my short nails through his hair. It feels insane; it feels like my bones have come apart and only my skin is keeping them from flying away entirely. I make a damp fist in the sheets.

“Come up here,” I say finally, pulling at his shoulders until he listens. I’m shaking everywhere, needing something to hang on to. I think my nails are digging into his skin. “Come here.”

Patrick crawls up my body, presses his mouth against mine. “Are we doing this?” he asks me quietly, an echo of two years ago in his family room, the way it was all meant to happen before everything fell apart. “Mols. Are we—?”


“Yeah,” I say, nodding into his shoulder. He wants to, I can feel that he wants to. I want to do it, too. “Yeah, yes. We’re doing this.”

Patrick exhales in what sounds like pure relief to me, like he thought I was going to send him away. “I wanted it to be with you,” he mutters, tugging me up on top of him, my leg slung across his hips. “That’s always how I pictured it, you know? It’s corny as shit, but . . . the first time, I just, I always—me and you.”

I—what?

I freeze in his grip, this horrifying coldness running through me, like there’s lake water in my veins instead of blood.

He thinks—

He doesn’t know—

Oh, shit.

For a moment, I just stay there, rigid, wanting more than anything to get up and out of here—to run barefoot to Bristol or Boston, hair streaming behind me like a flag of retreat. How can I not tell him? I owe him the truth, after all this time. I owe him that.

“Patrick,” I tell him, sitting back awkwardly, one hand on his naked chest. I can feel his heart through the vellum skin there, and I swear it stops for a beat as he figures it out.

“It’s not the first time, is it?” he says slowly, staring at me in the darkness, his eyes like a midnight cat’s. “Not for you.”

“Patrick,” I repeat, trying to keep my voice quiet, the way you’d calm an animal or a little kid. “Listen to me. I thought—because of Driftwood, I thought you—”