“I fucked up, Jonah. I fucked it all up,” she finally mutters. She blinks at the end of this faulty confession.
“You didn’t fuck anything up, Elle.” I mean it, but she winces as if I’ve lashed her anyway.
“I did. I took my eyes off my sister and ruined everything for everyone. And how shallow am I that I care about being in some stupid dance that isn’t even very good.” She shakes her head, tears finally descending along the contours of her face.
“Nobody saw her, Elle. Nobody was watching, and you are not her parent—your parents are her parent.” It’s probably cruel of me to turn the fault on her mom and dad like that, but honestly, why everyone in her house seems okay with letting her carry the blame baffles me.
My words don’t seem to matter; she’s content to fall on the sword. Maybe it’s so she can feel something other than the green poison of envy for the girl who took her place in a dance that, yes, probably isn’t even very good. I want to see her fight, though. I know there’s a warrior in there, and I feel like if she loses that, then she’ll never be the same.
“Show me,” I say.
She lifts her head and scowls, her mouth turned down.
“Show you what?” she spits back.
“The dance. The one that isn’t even very good. Show me,” I insist. I raise my arms up so they’re folded over my chest, and do my best to hold my mouth in a smug line.
She laughs out once, then looks to her right, toward the locker rooms that are now emptied. The last car is about to pull through the gates. Nobody but me here to see anything.
“Don’t be stupid,” she utters, getting to her feet and bending down to brush any remaining gravel from her legs. “Where’s my phone? Or what’s left of it.”
She approaches me with an open palm and I shift, shoving my hands in my pockets to keep her phone pieces safe and out of reach.
“I have your phone. It’s fine. Show me.” I lift my chin as if I hold some sort of authority.
She stops a few feet shy of me and shakes her head, her palms out at her sides.
“What are you doing, Jonah?” She looks to her sides again, always checking to see who is watching.
“Nobody is judging you, Eleanor. Everyone is gone. There’s nobody here to see.”
“I know!” she fires back.
There she is.
“Okay, then what are you waiting for?”
I hold her gaze, my head cocked to one side a tick, hers to the other. Her nostrils flare with the fire I lit, a different fire than the kind that gives up.
“Get in the car, Jonah. I want to go home.” She’s lying. I can read it in her eyes. Her focus wavers, darting from me to the things around me. Her hands ball into fists at her sides and rap against the sides of her thighs.
“You go. You can leave me here and I’ll walk. It’s fine.” I shrug, my gut telling me she won’t do that.
“Fine,” she utters, stomping to her driver’s side door, still open from when she threw her things inside. I step away to make room for her as she pulls the door shut and shoves her key in the ignition, over-cranking it so it makes a grinding sound while the motor roars to life.
For a moment, I think maybe my gut is wrong because in a matter of seconds Eleanor shifts into reverse and peels backward from the parking spot, fishtailing her tiny car forward at Jake-level speed. My hands still in my pockets, I shuffle my feet as I turn to watch her leave. Before she makes the turn, though, she skids to a hard stop. Her car sits idle, the tail lights indicating that she hasn’t yet shifted into park.
Don’t go, Elle.
Long seconds pass with her tailpipe spewing fog into the cold winter air. It smells like rain outside, but the chill on my neck and face makes me think it might be snow coming instead. I could freeze to death waiting her out. She’s heartbroken, scared, and stubborn. And she is every bit the girl I would die for.
Her door flies open and a few more seconds pass before she steps outside. She doesn’t move and she’s too far for me to hear anything other than serious shouting. Her breath fogs at a regular pace, and the rings of smoke in the air match the deep thumps in my chest. I start toward her, my feet picking up the pace along with my beating heart. I head to the passenger door, but stop at the back of her vehicle when she opens her mouth to speak.
“What are we doing, Jonah?”
I hang my head and stare at the toes of my shoes, the sharp edges of her broken phone pushing into the tips of my fingers in my pocket. I move back a step so there’s nothing between us.
“I don’t know, Eleanor.” My eyes shift from the bright lights at the back of her car to her face, holding the view until my sight adjusts to see her perfectly. “You tell me. What are we doing?”
In half a breath, she abandons her open door and rushes me, her hands hitting my chest hard enough to move me back a step before her fingers grasp at my shirt and pull it into her fists. My hands fly to her face, cradling it as my eyes close and lips part in anticipation. Her lips find mine just as she whimpers, her mouth fitting perfectly with mine in a kiss that is rushed and desperate and hungry. My thumbs slide along her cheeks, sweeping
