Chapter 3

I'd hoped that once I stopped engaging, Madison would lose interest and leave me alone. But a month into our silent war, Sebastian was the one who caved first.

"Ava, don't be mad anymore. Please don't ignore me."

He looked at me the way a rain-soaked puppy looked at its owner, small and pitiful. Something in me melted.

I couldn't ice him out forever. Sebastian was my oldest friend. We'd made promises. High school together. College together. I couldn't just leave him behind.

So we made up.

On the surface, anyway.

When Sebastian had basketball practice, I still waited at the court with his jacket. When the school day ended, our two shadows still fell together under the streetlights on the walk home.

Except Madison still threw me those loaded looks, and every time she finished looking, she'd whisper something that set the boys around her off laughing.

The laughter made me small and sick in my own skin. As if I'd done something embarrassing, when all I'd done was exist.

I told Sebastian.

He frowned. "You're reading into it. They're just goofing around."

When he saw my face, he softened. "Fine, fine. I'll tell them to cool it around you."

He walked over to Madison.

Madison's lip curled. "Seriously? We can't even laugh now? What is she, a Disney princess? Does everyone have to stop breathing when she walks by?"

"Madison." Sebastian's voice was sharp.

She rolled her eyes at me.

In that high school, Madison's voice, her body language, every layer of malice hidden under every move she made, landed on me like slaps I couldn't see.

The whispers that came after her comments were like insects crawling all over me in the dark.

I was too soft back then. Too scared.

I kept telling myself three years. Three years and we'd all scatter. I could survive three years.

And then, in the middle of all that, Sebastian asked me out.

He wanted me to meet him for a swim at the country club pool by the gym.

We'd been swimming together since we were kids, plus hot-tub nights as a family. It didn't occur to me to be suspicious.

Until a few girls from class heard about it and cornered me, whispering, grinning. What was my plan for the day? What was I going to wear?

What plan? I was going to wear a standard one-piece, swim laps for an hour, then hit the library. A full, productive Saturday.

The girls looked crestfallen. "You're going out with the hottest guy in school and you're going to be this boring?"

Boring?

That was what Sebastian and I had always been. We were the kids parents pointed to. The teachers' favorites. Our grades came from actual work. I didn't think that was boring.

But watching Sebastian and Madison trade insults and laughs, it hit me. Maybe the reason he kept drifting toward her was because I was too boring.

The next day, egged on by the girls, I put on a hot-pink two-piece.

Genetics had been kind. I'd always had porcelain skin, and while the other girls were still waiting for their bodies to catch up, I already had a figure.

I caught Sebastian's eye flick over me. The pupils dilated. He scratched the back of his neck and looked away, but I could feel his gaze sliding back.

A quiet, private thrill moved through me. I wasn't sure if this was what a crush felt like.

We sat down at the lounge chairs. Sebastian finally forced the words out, halting and uncertain.

"Ava, there's something I've been sitting on for a long time. I need to say it."

My heart punched up into my ears.

"Would you be my girlfriend?"

Blood rushed to my face. It took me a beat to find my voice.

"If it's you, Sebastian. Yes."

Because when we were tiny, he had held my hand and said it like a vow.

"Ava is the prettiest girl in the whole world. When we grow up I'm going to marry her."

When I was small for my age and the boys in elementary school pushed me around, he was the one who waded into the pack of them, swinging, refusing to back down. The bloody-nosed winner who announced:

"Ava is family. Whoever messes with her messes with me."

Ten plus years of history. All those promises. There was no way one pushy new girl could cancel all of it.

Sebastian leaned in like he hadn't caught my answer. Asked again.

I made myself loud. "Yes. I like you too, Sebastian."

"HA HA HA HA HA—"