Boys Like You(21)

“*,” Brent laughed. “Get your ass over here.”

He was near the fire and Monroe was two steps behind him.

For a second, my eyes rested on her perfect round ass. On the way her hair swung down her back and how cute her feet looked with her green toes.

She turned, ignoring all the curious stares, and looked directly 82

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at me. For that one moment, it felt as if she was looking into my soul and she knew how badly I wanted to play.

“I want to hear you, Nate.” Her voice was soft, so soft, like a whisper inside my head.

“Sugar, if you sweet-talked me up like that, I’d do anything you wanted,” Brent said with a laugh as he bent closer to her. “Anything.”

He turned to me and held out a beat-up Epiphone. Trevor’s beat-up Epiphone.

“He’d want you to play, man.” Gone was the laughter from Brent’s face. “You need to play.”

I stared at the guitar for so long that my eyes blurred, and when they began to sting, I knew this had been a bad idea. I should never have come here.

“No,” I said, shoving my hands deeper into my pockets before I turned away from them. “It’s not gonna happen.”

I walked back toward Monroe’s car and let the darkness slide over me.

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Chapter Eleven


Monroe


I dreamt about Malcolm, which was something I hadn’t done in months.

And sure, I should have seen it coming after my hospital visit— I didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to know it would trigger all the bad things I’d been trying to forget— but still…I wasn’t ready.

I wasn’t ready to see his wavy blond hair touching tanned skin, or that one long piece that always fell over his eyebrow. I wasn’t ready for the freckles along the bridge of his nose, so light they appeared to be sprinkles of cinnamon. Or his long lashes and the way they licked the tops of his cheeks when his eyes were closed. It hurt to see his dimple, the birthmark just under his collarbone, and the way it felt as if I was his entire world when he looked at me.

I wasn’t ready for any of it, and that’s why I woke up with screams in my throat, wiping sweat from my brow, my teeth clenched so tightly I was sure I’d ground them down another layer.

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Juliana Ston e

The ache in my heart felt like it was crushing me from the inside out, and for a few moments, I lay there shaking, sobbing quietly. I stuffed my fist into my mouth because it was late, or rather it was early in the morning, and I didn’t want to wake Gram.

She didn’t need to see me like this. Weak and broken. I knew she had hope. Hope that I’d come out of this summer ahead, maybe part-way whole.

I also knew that her hope was false, but I didn’t want to crush it.

The panic, though, was real, and I knew the drill so I counted backward, starting at twenty. I had to do it more than once or twice even, and when I was finally calm— when the breath didn’t catch in my chest and the pain had eased up a bit— sunlight was creeping into my room.

But it was hours before I left it.

? ? ?

“Monroe, have you talked to your parents today?”

We were on the porch, and I had just sat down beside Gram, sliding my feet beneath me as I curled into the white wicker chair. I stared down at my pink-and- white checker pajama shorts, noticing syrup had dripped from my morning pancakes onto the white T-shirt. I scraped it off with my finger, sucked it from the tip, and waited a few seconds to answer. Not because 86

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it was a trick question or anything, but because I hadn’t called home and I didn’t particularly want to call home, and I knew Gram was going to make me.

I focused on the honeysuckle climbing the trellis at the side of the house and the bees buzzing among them.

“I tried earlier but got Mom’s voicemail, so I left a message.”

The white lie slipped out and I kept my gaze on the honeysuckle.

Gram’s eyes rested on me for a few seconds, and I knew she wasn’t fooled. “Well, if she hasn’t returned your call in a few hours, try again. I know your mother doesn’t always check her voicemail. You’ve been here over a week now. You need to talk to them. They’ll worry.”

“I emailed Mom yesterday.”

“Bah,” Gram said. “That email will be the death of society as we know it. It’s not the same, Monroe.”

“I know,” I mumbled. “I’ll call them tonight.”

The truth of it was, talking to my parents was hard. So freaking hard. And right now, I liked not having anything hard in my day-to- day business. I hadn’t realized how difficult it was for me to breathe in New York until I’d come to Louisiana.

“So,” I said, chewing on my bottom lip, “Nate told me about Trevor.”

I didn’t volunteer that we had actually gone to the hospital— I figured that wasn’t mine to share— but I was curious to see what Gram would say.

She settled back in her wicker chair, sipped her tea, and said, 87