“Say goodbye to Sadie and our friends,” Zach said, turning me to where she stood in the corner with Matt and Ruthie.
“They are not
Sadie exchanged a few words with Zach and then waved goodbye. Traitor. I’d remember that when she wanted to get out of one of her parents’ many attempts at finding her a husband.
Outside I gave up the fight and welcomed the cool air. At my car, Zach opened the passenger door and gently placed me in the seat. He reached across, warm chest pressed against mine, and buckled my seat belt.
I tried to hold my head up and give him a dirty look, but it felt like it weighed nine hundred pounds and I wasn’t strong enough.
Zach’s hand cupped my face, holding it up so I looked into those dark, beautiful eyes of his. Warmth spread across my cheeks, seeping into the rest of my body. He pushed my hair out of my face, tucking it behind my ears. I wanted to be mad, but I didn’t have the energy to care.
“You’re a mess.” His lips turned into the smirk I dreamed about for months after he stopped calling. “What happened to my Lizzie?”
“You left her,” I managed to get out before my eyelids became too heavy and I drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 5
The next morning I woke to what felt like an elephant on my head, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, and no recollection of how I got in bed. I opened my eyes and instantly regretted it. The morning sunshine streamed through my window like a curtain of bright torture.
A low growl rose in my throat and I threw my blanket back over my head. I didn’t have class till late and my committee meeting wasn’t for another few hours.
“Rise and shine!” Sadie yelled, flinging my curtains open, turning the stream of light into an all-consuming inferno.
“I hate you.”
“I’m not the one who told you to drink an entire bucket of beer.”
Did I? If my memory served me correctly, and granted it was a little foggy, Zach took one. Zach. A rush of moments from the previous night flooded my mind.
My head nuzzling against Zach’s chest as he carried me into my apartment. The smell of spice cookies and how I grabbed his neck and pulled him closer to get a better whiff. Oh God. If only there was mouthwash for the brain. Brain wash. They could make a fortune on that stuff.
“There’s Advil, water and a bottle of Gatorade on your nightstand. I suggest you get chugging.” Sadie sat on the edge of my bed, looking like a freaking model.
“I hate you, but love you too.”
“I didn’t do it. Honestly I’d almost prefer to let you suffer. Did you really think you were going to get behind the wheel? Seriously! You know better than that.”
“I know.” It was just seeing Zach after all that time, and having him act like seeing me didn’t bother him, made something inside of me snap.
I rubbed at the headache that was growing by the minute. It was like one of those dinosaurs you dropped in water and it expanded to quadruple its size. I reached for the Advil and downed the bottle of water.
“And you can thank Zach later tonight when we go bowling with everyone.”
“No! I am not going bowling with him. He can’t just come back to town and act like nothing changed.” He couldn’t just carry me to bed, leave me with the ultimate hangover kit and call it even.
Not even close.
“If I remember correctly, you’ve moved on. At least that’s what you said. I was ready for a battle, but you told me you didn’t need closure. You were good.”
“I did. And I am.”
“Then what’s the big deal?” Sadie said, tossing her black hair over her shoulders before walking out.
I dragged myself out of bed and showered the night off of me. If only I could shower the thoughts of snuggling Zach’s neck away. What the hell was I thinking? I wasn’t. So much time had passed, yet I still fell under his spell.
Besides, it wasn’t my fault he smelled so damn good. I swore the boy bathed in a pool of spice cookie batter.
I slipped into my skinny jeans, a black sweater and my riding boots then headed back to campus. It was going to be a long day.
Professor Mulligan and I came up with the idea for the beach clean-up committee when she helped me with a paper outlining the effects of plastic pollution on our local beaches. In a few short months we had removed 2,136 cigarette butts, 86 plastic bags, a tire, 3 flip-flops, 52 plastic bottles, 11 latex balloons and what felt like several tons of fishing wire, from the local beaches.
You’d think the shock factor would wear off. It hadn’t. How hard was it to pick up your trash? I for one wasn’t going to be responsible for killing an innocent sea turtle.
The annoying thing was that if it wasn’t for Zach, I never would’ve cared so much about our beaches and how we could ruin an entire ecosystem simply by not using a trash can. Every time we went to the beach he packed an extra bag for garbage and made sure not to leave a single piece behind.
For six months I hadn’t thought about him and now I couldn’t get him out of my head. As if he were a disease and I a hypochondriac—he was constantly on my mind.
Maybe it was because I’d just seen him for the first time in over a year and it was still fresh. But it was more than that. As much as Zach was the same, he was different. He wasn’t a boy anymore. The baby face was gone, replaced with a more chiseled one. His strong jaw was sprinkled with dark stubble. I’d always thought he was hot. But now. Damn.
Hot or not , he was the asshole who broke my heart. And I’d moved on. What I was feeling was a completely normal reaction to an old love. All I had to do was avoid him as much as possible. I couldn’t in my Monday-Wednesday writing class, but the rest of the time I was Zach-free.
When I got to the classroom I sat next to Professor Mulligan’s desk. Vicky and Tanya strolled in and took their usual seats in the corner.
Professor Mulligan’s laugh flowed into the classroom. I looked up, ready to greet her, when every ounce of patience I had left shattered.
Walking in with her, as if they were old friends, was Zach. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I wanted to scream and throw the eraser that sat on the desk beside me at his head.
“Liz, you’re here. Good. This is Zach. He’s in my Marine Science class. He’s very passionate about the ocean and our beaches.” She patted Zach on the shoulder, a little too excited, even for her.
I hoped she was kidding. Didn’t she know me well enough to notice the disapproval shining in my eyes? By the way Zach flinched away, it was obvious he could.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t kidding.
“With his passion and knowledge I think he’ll be a wonderful asset to our group. I talked him into joining. Isn’t that great?” You would think she’d just talked the president into speaking to us with the way she kept rising up and down on her toes.
“We have enough people. We don’t need any more,” I said as I shuffled through some papers, refusing to look up. One glance at him and the ache in my heart that took so long to go away came back. I didn’t want it back. I wanted him to disappear, return to where he came from and just leave me alone.
“Liz, we can always use an extra set of hands,” she said. I wanted to scream.
Instead I rolled my eyes and flipped open my notebook acting as if whatever was on the blank pages was more important than the conversation we were having. Professor Mulligan was my mentor at Farmingdale State,
