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  He grinned. “You’re on, and you can bet I’m going to kick your ass this time.”

  Four years of varsity team told me he wasn’t, but I might let him win this time.

  I stepped back from the car and blew a kiss at my girl through the window. I watched the taillights as Miles drove down the long gravel road back to the main highway. Everything was perfect. I had an amazing girlfriend. Miles had already sent in his acceptance to Duke too, so he was going with us. If I could convince Clarissa’s parents, we would be married by the time school started in August.

  I didn’t brush away the tears running down my face. There was no point; more would just follow behind them. As much as I hated it, the therapist had told me it was cathartic to just let it happen sometimes. My parents had made me go after the accident, practically dragging me to the office. I’d fought them about it, but in the end I’d gone to all the grief counseling they asked me to. You don’t come back from losing your best friend and girlfriend though.

  It took me a long time to even consider dating again. Let alone, calling someone my girlfriend.

  Hannah.

  She was the first girl I actually had feelings for since Clarissa. I’d kind of lost my head those first few years after she died, fucking every girl I could just to try to feel something. Or maybe I was avoiding feeling. I don’t know. Either way, Hannah was the first girl I’d liked enough to open up to in a long time.

  And now of course, I’d fucked it up.

  If I could go back and make myself go on that trip with Hannah, I would in a heartbeat. Things had just gotten too scary. I’d pulled away and fucking Lila started spreading lies because I wouldn’t sleep with her. How desperate did a girl have to be to say that she’d slept with someone when she hadn’t? Not that time at least.

  I leaned back and closed my eyes. I tried to let the feelings play out like the therapist told me. It was unhealthy for me to hold them in, but I needed to try to experience them. A bunch of bullshit if you asked me, but I told my parents I would try. What I wanted to do was talk to Hannah, maybe if I explained what had happened that night she would understand. I didn’t cheat on her and I never would. Maybe I would even try to tell her about Miles and Clarissa.

  I stared out at the ocean, trying to calm my nerves. At least this was a good place to try to do it. Back on campus it’s difficult to find a place where I wouldn’t be bothered, which is one of the reasons I had loved living in the frat house. There’s constantly someone around and if you leave your door open the outside noise filters in. I never thought I would be the kind of guy to join a fraternity, but it suits me perfectly and keeps me from falling into the darkness most of the time.

  A darkness I was all too familiar with. The first year after my best friends were ironically killed by a drunk driver on our prom night, I did my damnedest to try to join them. I wasn’t stupid enough to get behind the wheel of a car drunk, but I did drink until I had to have my stomach pumped. Three times. My parents worried that I wouldn’t ever make it through my grief. Some days I still wandered, but for them, I tried. My mom had pleaded with me so many times to pick up and go to Duke, the change of scenery would be good for me. Plus there was my scholarship to consider, but I didn’t care.

  Nothing mattered. There were still days that I had a hard time pulling myself out of bed almost four years later, but I did it. It took me a year, but I decided to go to SCU just to get my parents off my back, and ironically, it was the turning point in my grief. I put on a happy face and tried to be a jokester to hide the pain. No one knew about my past life. They didn’t know I was Valedictorian, or that I had a full ride to Duke on a basketball scholarship, or even that I was going to marry my high school sweetheart as soon as I could convince her parents it was the right thing. I didn’t share that my best friend and my girlfriend were killed in a car wreck a mile away from my house.

  I shook my head to try to clear away the red haze of anger that crept in any time I let it. No one had actually broken through that hard exterior I’d put up. No one until Hannah. And now my fear of getting close to someone was driving her away from me. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on me.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket, pulling me from my thoughts. Hannah’s name flashed across the screen and I almost dropped my phone in the sand.

  We need to talk when I get back.

  Oh yeah. She was breaking up with me. I doubted that even explaining about why I was so fucked up would fix things at this point. My phone vibrated again.

  I miss you.

  My eyebrows shot up as I stared at her text. I didn’t want to get my hopes up if she was just trying to let me down easy. So I typed back the only thing that I could.

  I miss you too. Be safe and have fun.

  I put my phone back in my pocket and leaned back. Nate once told me that his safe place was the beach because he felt small next to the ocean. He realized his problems weren’t as bad as they seemed. Maybe I could use a little of his psychology right now.

  ____

  I was lying on my bed reading a book when Nate and Finn came into the apartment. Nate came in and sat on my desk, while Finn hovered in the doorway. I glanced up at them, but didn’t say anything.

  “If you guys came to kick my ass you’re going to have to drag me out of bed. I’m not making it easy on you.”

  Finn raised an eyebrow. “Do we need to kick your ass?”

  “I got a text from Hannah, I just assumed.”

  Nate cleared his throat. “Actually the girls wanted us to come and check on you.”

  “What?” I asked in disbelief. “Why would they do that?”

  “Something made Hannah think that you weren’t okay,” Finn answered. “She has this idea stuck in her head you’re upset and she didn’t like that she wasn’t here to talk to you. So here we are, your fairy godfathers, here to make sure everything in Chance’s world is perfect.”

  “Hardly,” I muttered. “Seriously, I’m okay. You guys don’t have to babysit me.”

  Nate frowned. “You seem different. I’m used to your dark humor by now, but something does seem off with you.”

  I groaned. “I’m pretty sure Hannah heard the shit that Lila is spreading. That’s probably why she recruited you to check up on me. She wanted to make sure I was being a good boy.”

  Finn crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not so sure that’s it.”

  I rolled my eyes. “And why not Mr. Fairy?”

  He ignored my dig. “Call it a hunch. Let’s get out of here. The gym’s open, we can go play basketball.”

  “No,” I said quickly.

  Too quickly.

  They both gave me a funny look. “I’m reading,” I said holding up the book. “But I guess we could go grab an early dinner or something.”

  “Let’s get Japanese. Cora always gripes that I hog all the sauce, with you assholes I don’t have to worry about that.”

  Nate laughed. “Cora bitches at you for everything. Why is that any different?”

  Finn shrugged. “I like making her happy.”

  My chest tightened. I remember saying the same thing about Clarissa to Miles one day. It wasn’t a hardship for me to go out of my way to make her happy.

  I threw my book onto the bed as I sat up. “Let’s get out of here. The walls are starting to close in on me.”

  “You’re in trouble then, it’s only day two of spring break,” Nate said.

  “The girls get back tomorrow. I’ll be okay.”

  “You know they aren’t going to be around much, right?” Finn asked. “Cora and Olivia want to drag them all over South Carolina.”

  I shrugged. “I’ll stay busy one way or another. I’m taking a few summer classes during summer break, so I can always start studying early.”

  “I didn’t know you were taking summer classes.” Finn cocked his head. “I thought I was the only one doubling up around here.”

  “I deferred a year, so I’m trying to make it up I guess. Plus it keeps me bus
y,” I said absentmindedly as I gathered my wallet off the nightstand.

  “You deferred a year?” Nate asked.

  Fuck.

  “Yeah, just family shit. I started a year late.”

  Finn gave me a hard look. “How is it that I’ve known you for three years, but I feel like I don’t actually know you at all? I can’t say that I even know where you graduated high school from.”

  I winced. “Masterson. It’s a real small—”

  “I have a friend that graduated from there. They have a hell of a basketball team,” Nate said, messing with some pens lying on my desk absentmindedly. “They had a shooting guard a few years ago that got a full ride to Duke.”

  I could feel the color draining from my face.

  “It’s a shame though,” he continued. “The guy ended up pulling out. I guess his best friend and girlfriend got killed in a car wreck right before graduation.”

  “Prom night,” I mumbled, sitting back down on the bed.

  Nate glanced over at me. “Dude, are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  I waived him off, afraid that if I tried to talk I would throw up.

  “Did you know him?” he asked cautiously.

  I swallowed back the bile rising in my throat. I never thought someone would hear the story this far away. But now that I think back, Nate was from Oxford, only thirty minutes from my hometown. How had I missed that before?

  “I am him,” I whispered. Both Nate and Finn looked at me with shock expressions. All I could do was wait for the pity. It was never far behind.

  Hannah

  It was frustrating as hell that the guys wouldn’t answer their phone. All three of them had sent me to voicemail.

  Bastards.

  I was supposed to be enjoying downtown Charleston, but instead I was obsessing over why the guys weren’t answering their phones. Something was going on with Chance. Something more than some stupid girl saying he cheated on me with her. Call it a gut feeling, but I knew there was more going on with him than what he was telling everyone. He’d come clean to the guys about what happened with Lila and I was thankful that I had a good idea of what had actually happened that night. Cora and Olivia had told me as soon as they got off the phone, even though the guys had made them promise not to. I’d sent Chance a text, but I wanted to talk. I was too damn impatient to wait, but now he wasn’t answering the phone when I called and my imagination was starting to run away with me.

  “Cora, when’s the last time you talked to Finn?” I asked, reaching out and putting my hand on her arm to stop her.

  She bit down on her lip. “A few hours ago.”

  “Finn’s not answering his phone. Neither is Nate.” Her eyes shifted to where Olivia was standing behind me. I looked between them and crossed my arms over my chest. “What aren’t you guys telling me? Is Chance really cheating on me this time and you don’t want to tell me?”

  “No, no, nothing like that,” Olivia said quickly. “Nate and Finn are just hanging out with Chance right now. You know, boys’ time.”

  “Boys’ time,” I said skeptically. “Because they are all known to drop everything and do that, right?”

  “Chance is going through some stuff,” Olivia said, finally giving in.

  Cora nodded in agreement. “Yeah, he needs to be with his friends right now.”

  “What about his girlfriend?” I demanded. “Don’t you think I should be included in that?”

  Caroline and Brooke chose that second to walk up. “Is everything okay?” Caroline asked, giving me a funny look.

  “I’m not sure. Ask Cora and Olivia, they seem to know more about what’s going on with my boyfriend than I do.” I glared at my friends.

  “It’s not that we know more—”

  I cut Cora off. “Screw this. I’m going back to the hotel room.”

  “Wait.” Olivia closed her eyes. “Nate knew a guy who knew a guy from Chance’s hometown. He had some really bad stuff happen to him his senior year—don’t ask me what, I don’t know details—but it turns out that this guy is—”

  “Chance,” I finished for her.

  “He started telling a story about it earlier and Chance obviously didn’t react well. Nate feels awful.” She nodded. “But it was Chance. He needs to be the one to tell you everything. I honestly don’t know details, but I think it’s important that the story comes from him.”

  I felt my eyes start to burn. Poor Chance. What could have happened that was so awful?

  “Guys, I hate to ask, but can we go back now? Like back to SCU?”

  “Of course,” Brooke said, looping her arm through mine. “We’ve been here a million times.”

  Caroline came up and wrapped her arm around my waist. “We came all this way to see you, not the battleships.”

  I gave them a watery smile. “Thank you.”

  Cora and Olivia led the way back to the hotel. It only took us a few minutes to pack our things and get on the road back to school. The two hour drive in the car was torture. I wanted to talk to Chance, make sure we were alright, and see what was going on with him. Plus, I wanted tell him something I’d wanted to for a while now. Those three little words that changed everything. We hadn’t said them to each other yet. We both had our reasons why we hadn’t, but now it seemed more important than ever to tell him.

  As soon as the car pulled into Finn and Cora’s driveway I jumped out and went over to my car. No one tried to stop me. I think they all wanted me to fix things with Chance and help him with whatever it was he was going through. I made the five minute drive to Chance’s apartment faster than I should have. My hands shook as I pounded on the front door of the apartment. Something was wrong. Everything in me told me that something was horribly, horribly wrong. Finn opened the door and his face fell when he saw me.

  “Where’s Chance? I need to talk to him.”

  I tried to push past him, but Finn let me into the apartment and pulled me over to the couch. “We need to talk.”

  “Finn, I don’t have time to talk to you, I need to—”

  “He’s gone.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath.

  No.

  “What do you mean he’s gone?”

  “He packed his bags and he left. Nate and I tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t open up. All he kept saying was that we weren’t supposed to know. This was his fresh start and it was fucked up now.”

  I didn’t realize I was crying until Finn reached over and wiped at my cheeks. He pulled me into his chest, letting me cry into his shoulder. Finn didn’t speak; he just let me sob for as long as I needed. Who knows how long we sat there on the ugly couch, in the apartment I had no right being in. It’s not like my boyfriend was there. That thought made me cry harder.

  “This is all my fault,” I gasped. “I should have talked to him before I left for Charleston.”

  He shook his head. “Hannah, no, this was bigger than you or me. Chance has some demons that he’s running from. Some pretty bad one’s from what I gathered earlier.”

  “What happened?”

  Finn ran a hand down his face. He could probably hear the agony in my voice. “I want to tell you, I really do, but one, it’s not my story to tell, and two, I don’t even know everything. I will tell you this, Chance lost some people really close to him in an awful way. And now, I think he has a hard time opening up to anyone.”

  I sniffed a few times, trying to calm myself down. “I thought he trusted me.”

  He sighed. “I thought he trusted me too. I’ve known him for three years, but I honestly don’t know anything about the guy and I think he wanted it that way.”

  I finally pulled back from Finn. His shirt was soaked and I choked out a laugh. “Sorry about that.”

  He grinned. “No big deal. I like helping when I can.”

  I bit down on my bottom lip. “Do you think he’s coming back?”

  Finn hesitated. “I don’t know. He was really upset. I think eventually he’ll be back, but I could
n’t tell you when.”

  “I’m worried about him.”

  “Me too, Hannah. Me too.”

  ____

  I thought about trying to track down Chance, but I didn’t have any idea where he’d gone. If I’d had his parents’ number I probably would have called them to see if they’d heard from him. I felt pathetic. I was obsessed with a guy that wanted nothing to do with me. My friends tried to keep my spirits up, Caroline and Brooke’s trip couldn’t have come at a better, or worse, time, depending on how you looked at it. I was just thankful they were there with me.

  Two days after we got back from Charleston, Brooke talked me into letting her cut my hair. She’d gone to cosmetology school before deciding she wanted to go to college, but it was still scary as hell letting her chop away at my long, strawberry blonde hair. She hummed as she leaned me back into the kitchen sink to wet my hair. We discussed highlights and decided against it. My hair always got lighter in the summertime anyway.

  As she worked, she talked mindlessly about how changing her hairstyle always made her feel better. It was a stress reliever. I would believe it because Brooke was constantly changing her look. She’d gone from dark, chestnut brown hair to lavender within the past few months. I wasn’t exactly the purple type, so a cut seemed like the best remedy to me.

  Brooke jabbered about nothing, using her learned skills to put me at ease. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had short hair, but as the long locks fell to the floor, I did feel better. Freed. Maybe Brooke was right, changing my look would help me.

  “I can’t wait for you to see it,” she said as she curled my hair. Her eyes twinkled. “I’m going to do your makeup before I let you see. We need a whole new you.”

  “We don’t need a whole new me,” I griped. “The old me is just fine.”

  “I love the old you, sugar, but I want you to feel better and since he who must not be named took off, you’ve been a little morose. You deserve better than that.”