“You feel bad for breaking her arm, don’t you?”
I didn’t answer but instead twisted the combination to the lock and opened the locker. Jennifer threw my bag inside and said, “Well?”
“Well, I don’t feel good about breaking her arm, but I can’t say that in that crazy moment, I wasn’t actively trying to hurt her.”
I sighed and spun away from the locker, not ready to admit the guilt I felt, just to have Drew materialize in front of me with the biggest smile. He was really happy to see me. Looking down one side of the hall and then the other, he took a quick step in and planted a kiss right on me, tongue and all—in front of everyone. It blindsided me, and when he pulled away, I tried to voice my surprise but instead looked like a fish out of water. His grin deepened further, and I could see the amusement in his eyes as he leaned in again.
“Really dude,” Aiden said from behind him.
My insides clenched at the sound of Aiden's voice, even if it was his—sober voice. I knew that Clarissa had put him up to what he’d done last year. She’d been stringing him along to get closer to Drew before a Senior named Megan swooped in and rescued Aiden from Clarissa’s clutches. Even with knowing all that, I still detested his presence after what he’d done to me.
“What! I haven’t seen or talked to her in two damn days, what do you expect, Aiden? You couldn’t go a whole class period when you were dating Megan last year—so I don’t want to hear it.”
“At least Megan didn’t take the place of my best friend when I was dating her.” I could hear the contempt in Aiden’s voice as he pinned me with an accusatory sideways glance. “I never put Megan before Drew, but he doesn’t seem to have a problem with letting you monopolize his time.”
Drew glanced over his shoulder at a very bitter Aiden. “And that, my good man, is why you are single now—well that and Megan is off to college with no doubt a college-aged boyfriend. Besides, Aiden, I would’ve understood—because we’re best friends. This isn’t a competition between you and Eden for my time and attention—so let’s not make it one.”
Everyone in the school knew that Aiden and Drew were as tight as two guys could be without being brothers, but I wasn’t particularly thrilled with the prospect of having to be around Aiden because of that fact. Since Aiden had been one of the people who’d given me grief over my diagnosis when it had gotten leaked to the student body, he wasn’t exactly on my quality time roster.
Aiden huffed. “Whatever dude. I’ll see you at practice?”
“Yeah, the coach is all about us doing the offseason thing, so I’ll be there.”
“Hey, Aiden, you wanna go grab a donut in the cafeteria," Jennifer said jabbing her finger in mine and Drew's direction. "It's probably best if we give these two some space seeing how two days with no contact seems to be somewhat of a crisis for Drew.
Aiden left with Jennifer, and Drew turned his attention back to me. “I missed you. How come you haven’t answered my texts?” Didn’t you miss me?”
“That’s a stupid question Drew, of course, I missed you, and I happen to know that you knew I was grounded. I was in the room when my dad called your mom to tell her about it.”
“I knew you were grounded, yes, but that still doesn’t explain why you haven’t answered my texts.”
When a slow, poorly concealed smirk started playing across his lips, I knew he was messing with me. Being trapped between him and the locker while breathing in his scent made me forget all about the loud hustle and bustle of the other kids around us. I'd really missed him over the last, couple days. His eyes locked me in; I loved the shade of green they were, like peat moss. Something with him and I had changed. Being around him before had always given me butterflies—but now? It was like being pulled by some unseen magnetic force. I wanted to be as close to him as possible. We stood there for a long moment and said nothing, just staring, but the slamming of a metal door from a few lockers down had us snapping out of it. What we’d just been talking about came back to me.
“Grounded usually involves having your phone rights revoked, Drew.”
He arched his eyebrow in that way that drove me crazy. “Oh—so you don’t have the latest status update for the box then? Well, I brought you a little present.” He pulled a little brass hinge out of his pocket. “There were three of these that connected the lid to the body of the box.”
“You got it open!”
“Yep, and I didn’t go through it, but based on what I could see of the contents, I think you will be very happy. You might find the answers you need in there.”
It was the best news I could have hoped for on the first day back to school, and I flung my arms around Drew’s neck and squeezed a little too hard because a shooting pain coursed through my wrist. When I flinched, Drew stepped away and looked down at me.
“Yeah, I heard about that.” He nodded in the direction of my casted wrist and hand. “Mom said your dad had problems keeping up the angry façade after the doctor told him you’d broken your wrist and hand. You could have probably gotten out of being grounded.” He shut my locker door. “So I am
