“I came to talk to you because I need to tell you the truth. I need to tell you.”

“What are you talking—?”

He cuts me off. “No. It’s my turn. Listen, okay? I’ve been lying. I never told you . . . I never explained.”

In the endless stretch of silence before he speaks again, the world outside take a deep breath.

“I’m in love. I fell in love.” Parker’s voice is barely a whisper. I stop breathing altogether. I’m afraid to move, afraid that if I do, everything will disappear. “Maybe I always was in love, and just too stupid to know it.”

You, I think. The only word I can reach, the only thing I can think of: You.

Maybe, on some level, he hears me. Maybe in some parallel realm, Parker knows, because just then he says it, too.

“It’s you,” he says. And his hands are touching my neck, my face, skimming through my hair. “My whole life, it’s always been you.”

Then he kisses me. And in that second I realize that all the work I’ve done to forget, to deny, to pretend I never cared about him—all the minutes, hours, days spent taking down our memories, piece by piece—has been totally and completely pointless. The second his lips touch mine—hesitantly, at first, as if he isn’t quite sure I’ll want it—the second I feel his fingers tighten in my hair, I know there’s no use in pretending and there never was.

I am in love with Parker. I have always been in love with Parker.

It’s been months since we’ve kissed, but there’s no awkwardness, no strain, like there was with any of the other guys I’ve been with. It’s as easy as breathing: push and pull; give, take, give. He tastes like sugar and something else, something deep and spicy.

At a certain point we break to catch our breath. I’m no longer holding my phone; I have no idea when I dropped it and I couldn’t care less.

Parker brushes the hair back from my face, touches my nose with a thumb, sweeps his fingers over my cheeks. I wonder whether he can feel the scar tissue, smooth and alien, and involuntarily I pull back a little.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says, and I know he means it, which makes me feel worse. It’s been so long, maybe forever, since anyone has looked at me the way he’s looking at me now.

I shake my head. “I’m all messed up now.” My throat is knotted up and the words come out high, strangled.

“You’re not.” He takes my face with both hands, forcing me to look at him. “You’re perfect.”

This time, I kiss him. The knot loosens; once again I feel warm and happy and relaxed, like I’m floating in the world’s most perfect ocean. Parker thinks I’m beautiful. Parker has been in love with me all this time.

I’ll never be unhappy again.

With one hand he eases aside the collar of my T-shirt, kissing me along my shoulder blade and then up to my neck, moving his lips across my jawline and then to my ear. My whole body is a shiver; at the same time, I’m burning hot. I want everything, all at once, and in that second I know: tonight’s the night. Right here, in my stupid mildew-smelling car: I want it all from him.

I grab his T-shirt and pull him closer, and he makes a sound halfway between a groan and a sigh.

“Nick,” he whispers.

All at once, my whole body goes ice-cold. I release him, scrabbling backward, bumping my head against the window. “What did you say?”

“What?” He reaches for me again, and I swat his hand away. “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”

“You called me by my sister’s name.” Suddenly I feel nauseous. That other thing I’ve been trying to deny—that horrible, deep-down feeling that all along I was never good enough, could never be good enough—now surges up, like a monster made to swallow up all my happiness.

He stares at me, then shakes his head, slowly at first, and then with increasing speed, as if he’s working up momentum to deny it. “No way,” he says. But for a second, I see guilt flash across his face, and I know that I’m right, that he did. “No way. I would never—that’s fucked-up—I mean, why would I—?”

“You did. I heard you.” I shove out of the car and slam the door shut so hard the whole car rattles, no longer caring whether I wake anyone up.

He doesn’t love me. He never loved me. All along, he’s loved her.

I was just the consolation prize.

“Wait. Seriously, stop. Wait.”

He’s out of the car now, trying to intercept me before I can get to the door. He grabs my wrist, and I wrench away, stumbling on the grass, turning over on my ankle so a sharp pain goes all the way up to my knee.

“Let me go.” I’ve started crying without knowing it. Parker stands there, watching me with an expression of horror and pity and even more guilt. “Leave me alone, okay? If you love me so much, if you care about me at all, just do me a favor. Leave me the hell alone.”

To Parker’s credit, he does. He doesn’t follow me to the porch. He doesn’t try to stop me again. And once I’m inside, with my face pressed to the cold glass, taking deep, heaving breaths to try and keep the sobs back, I see that he doesn’t even wait that long before disappearing again.

BEFORE

FEBRUARY 16

Nick

“Tell me again”—Aaron takes my ear between his teeth, pulling lightly—“what time your mom is coming home?”

He’s made me say it three times already. “Aaron,” I say, laughing. “Don’t.”

“Please,” he says. “It’s so sexy when you say it.”