Teagan grumbles. “I know, but it’s freshman year and I figure if I can get through the next year, then I can dump him.”
Her logic is ridiculous. “You need mental help.”
“So you’ve told me…many times.”
And she never listens.
“Besides, it’s not like I have anyone else beating down my door.”
I would. I would tear the door off the hinges if I wasn’t worried about her rejecting me. Instead of taking the chance, I stay where it’s safe.
Teagan twists, pulling the blanket over her shoulders, and faces me.
“Tea!” It’s fucking freezing. “Share the blanket!”
“Tell me something real,” she says as she stares at me.
Not this game. Not now.
I can’t do it.
“Tea.” I say her name as a warning.
“I’ll give you the blanket back, but I want something real.”
I’m freezing and my head is fucked-up with thoughts of her eyes and her lips are close. “I can’t think…I’m frozen.”
She grins. “Try.”
I love you.
There, that’s my something real. I love her and I know it’s crazy and stupid, but I do. I dream about kissing her. I think about the way her lips would fit with mine. How she would feel in my arms as I held her tight. My nights are filled with fantasies of making love to her until we both can’t take any more. I love her and I will never tell her.
Because she’s not mine. She’s someone else’s.
My teeth start to chatter when the cold air hits me. “I really want that blanket back,” I say as my something real.
“No way, buddy! You can’t cheat!”
“Then you give me something real and I’ll give you one, if I don’t die of hypothermia.”
“Fine,” Teagan tosses back with a hint of anger. “I really don’t ever want to know what life is like without you in it.”
I’m stunned. I literally can’t move or speak. I have so much I want to say back to her because it’s as though she and I might actually be on the same wavelength. A few years ago, it wasn’t anything more than friendship for me.
Sure, she was gorgeous, but we were always just friends. All I wanted was for her to see that she was more than her popularity.
The joke was on me, though. I saw it. I saw how special she was. I saw her donate her time to helping others during the food drive and then again with a fisherman who needed help with his boat. She didn’t know how to fix an engine, but Teagan read every manual she could. I saw how much she wanted others to see her for who she really was but was too afraid of the way it would change her world.
Then, I saw her stop caring about her fears and embrace the woman she was, making it impossible not to fall for her.
“Derek?” Teagan says my name slowly. “You okay?”
“Yeah, sorry.”
“I was worried maybe you froze to death…like Jack and Rose.”
I roll my eyes. Only she would make that stupid movie reference at a time like this. “That fucking movie.”
“You love it. I know you cried.”
“I cried because it was three hours of my life I’ll never get back.”
Teagan steps forward and wraps the blanket around me, hugging me at the same time. “More like sixty hours, since I made you watch it every day.”
The things we do for the girl we want but can never have.
“You make me smile,” I say without thinking.
Her eyes lift, meeting mine with curiosity so deep. “What?”
“That’s my something real. You make me smile.”
To that, her lips turn into a huge grin. “I’m glad we were forced to become friends.”
“Me too.”
She snuggles into my chest and I rest my chin on the top of her head. “I miss you, Der. So much.”
I swear I hear her sniffle, but she coughs quickly after that so I’m not sure. “I miss you too, but we’re never really apart.”
“No, I guess not.”
I lean back, press my finger under her chin, and lift it. “You will never have to know what it’s like not to have me, not unless you decide I’m too much of a pain.”
She smiles softly, the moonlight shining down on us. “Never.”
She’s my something real. Hell, she’s my everything that matters.
Chapter Nine
Derek
Present
“You will not behave like this!” I tell Everly as she rolls her eyes.
“Whatever.”
“I’m serious. You don’t know these people. You show up and the first day you decide to be nasty just because?”
Everly picks at her nails and then slams her hands on her bed. “You moved me here! You! You don’t get to tell me that I have to be nice to some dork! She actually thought I would sit with her? Please. Like I want to be friends with the losers on day one? No thank you.”
When did my sweet girl with big brown eyes and a smile that could melt even the coldest of hearts turn into this?
While I would love to say her newfound nasty attitude started when Meghan died, that would be a lie. She was already becoming this creature I didn’t recognize before then; I think her mother’s death sped up the transformation. Suddenly, Everly had every excuse to be mad. I watched her go from one extreme to another, unable to help stop her anger.
“You have no idea if she was a loser, she was being nice! Besides, how do you know anything about Teagan anyway?”
She shakes her head like I’m an idiot. “Don’t be dumb, Dad. I heard Mom talk about her.”
I jerk back, confused and pissed at the same time. “When did…?”
“If she hated her, then so do I.”
I close my eyes and count to four. I need to be calm. “Your mother didn’t hate her.”
“Not what I heard.”
“You’re thirteen! What could you possibly hear anyway?”
“Mom always talked about your slutty friend from back home.”
Anger begins to fill me, but also guilt. I let this happen. I allowed Teagan to be the villain in our story. It wasn’t Teagan who did Meghan wrong, it was me.
At first,
