After a long, deep breath, he finally said, “I had an errand to run. Honest.”
“Close to midnight?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I remembered Riona asking me to buy her some pasta.”
For the first time in our years of friendship, Kyle lied to me point blank. It hurt more because he didn’t even try to hide it. My chest ached. He was deliberately keeping things from me, and he wasn’t even very good at it. But then my own secrets surfaced. I lived in a glass house and I was throwing stones. I saw no point in arguing when he clearly didn’t want to tell the truth. I breathed away my rising temper and let the lie go.
…
When we got to the memorial, the entire eleventh grade gathered around Mr. Sloan in the parking lot. He passed out brochures with a map and information about the monument while explaining that we had the day to explore. By two in the afternoon, everyone needed to meet back at the amphitheater to watch a program describing the construction of the site. After one last warning about staying on the Presidential Trail, Mr. Sloan allowed us to break into groups.
I called for Penny to join Kyle—the big fat liar—and me on the trail. This was right about the time Bowen—the lying, cheating ex—grabbed my arm and pulled me aside. I stumbled and glared up at him. Before I could call him out for being rough, he’d already asked his question.
“Can we talk?”
“Selena?” Kyle waited, worry in his eyes.
I debated making him stay or letting him go. Something about the earnest way Bowen looked made me want to find out what he wanted. If this got ugly, I didn’t want any witnesses. This was my problem, and I’d handle it.
“Go ahead with Penny. I’ll catch up.” I waved Kyle away.
After some hesitation, Kyle shrugged and joined Penny at the entrance. When I was sure he was out of earshot, I folded my arms and glared at Bowen. “Ouch, by the way. Handle me like meat, why don’t you?”
His brows came together as he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Sorry. I just really wanted to talk to you.”
“As far as I’m concerned, we have nothing to talk about.”
Bowen’s expression combined serious and something else—something that whispered of dark nights and scary things. I caught a malicious spark in his eyes I’d never seen before. My fingers twitched. I squeezed my arms tighter and reminded myself to keep calm.
He closed the gap between us and placed his hands on my shoulders. “I miss you. I miss the way we used to be together.” He trembled as he spoke, a fire in his eyes that turned the black coffee color into pure inky midnight. “Cheating to make you jealous was a mistake.” A frightening, obsessed stalker-like determination tinted his words. “I wish I’d shown you how I felt earlier, but I thought to take my time. That got me nowhere. Now, I’m showing you all my cards. I want you back in my life.”
Self-preservation, the type that came from years of human evolution, snapped me out of my daze. I unfolded my arms and held on to his wrists. My fingers wouldn’t even go all the way around them. I stepped out of his hold.
“Enough,” I said. “We can’t be together. Not anymore.”
“Why not?” His expression clouded over, danger in the hard set of his jaw. This was worse than that afternoon at the supermarket.
“I just can’t.”
“You have to give me a reason why.”
I scrambled for the one reason he might buy. If he thought I’d moved on then maybe he’d drop this ludicrous idea of us getting back together. I focused on his eyes and willed my rapidly beating heart to slow. I needed to sound convincing or he wouldn’t believe me.
“I like someone else,” I forced myself to say with conviction.
He cocked his head to the side. “Who?”
I scanned the last of our classmates heading for the Presidential Trail and found the guy I was searching for.
“Dillan!” I called and he turned to face me. I waved him over and he raised an eyebrow at me. Great. Now wasn’t the time for him to be a jerk, especially after insisting he’d protect me. Some lame bodyguard he was.
“Him?” Bowen scowled at Dillan over his shoulder.
Finally taking the hint, Dillan trotted to my side. And in a move I hadn’t expected, he wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. I did my best not to step away despite the rush of warmth spreading over my cheeks.
“You ready to go?” he asked me without paying attention to the fuming Bowen in front of us.
“You’d better leave before I wipe that grin off your face.” Bowen growled.
“Oh, you’d like that.” Dillan grinned wider. “But this isn’t the time or place to teach me some manners. Do you really want to get kicked off the swim team?”
His words hung in the air until Bowen said to me, “I hope you’re happy.”
A chill ran down my back as he turned around and stalked away. Not knowing what to think, I focused all my attention on the first thing I saw.
“Where’d you get that?” I reached for Dillan’s bruise.
He tilted away, dropping his arm. “I ran into something.”
“Huh. Kyle said the same thing on the bus.” For some reason my shoulders felt empty without the weight of his arm there. “You two aren’t fighting, are you?”
He gave me a half grin. He thumbed the bruise. “You know guys. We talk best with our fists.”
“You’re shitting me.” I shifted my weight, unsure which to do first: be pissed at Dillan or worry about Kyle. I settled for worry. “What did you two fight about?”
“I’m kidding.” He raised both his hands. “I don’t know what happened with Hilliard. I really did run into something.”
Something told me not to believe him, but the distraction worked to calm me down. “Thanks for the back up.”
“Yeah, what was that about?”
“Hopefully showing Bowen I’d moved on.”
“Huh.” He smiled. “Moving on wouldn’t happen to be in my direction is it?”
I rolled my eyes and walked away. “Don’t kid yourself.”
Without comment, Dillan let me lead us to the Presidential Trail. I flipped open the brochure Mr. Sloan gave out and followed the marked path. It didn’t take long until we caught up with Penny and Kyle at the Grand View Terrace.
The grandeur of the site washed over me. My encounter with Bowen became a distant memory compared to seeing the magnificent granite carvings of four influential presidents in American history. I reminded myself not to let anything else spoil my day. Every little piece of normal I could get mattered. My vision left me no other choice. If I was supposed to die then I’d live every second of my life—not that I was giving up on finding a way around the vision. Just, right now, I wanted to live in the present.
Penny excitedly bounced to my side. “There you are!”
Her voice was so loud birds flew out of their perches. She winced and had the sense to look guilty. Pushing away the last of my morbid thoughts, I listened to her upbeat explanation of the history of the memorial. From Gutzon Borglum’s planning of how the structure would look to the origins of the mountain’s name, Penny didn’t miss a thing. She even narrated the story of how Borglum’s son took over after his father died in 1941, complete with dramatic pauses and grand hand gestures.
The amount of trivia she knew didn’t surprise me. She was my information central after all. But after a while, I noticed something different about her. Penny’s eyes seemed glazed and unfocused, like she stared past me instead of at me.
Kyle called out from a few yards away, “Let’s go, ladies. We have to start the trail if we want to see the Sculptor’s Studio and Borglum’s Viewing Terrance before the amphitheater.”