Chapter 33

Kristen’s POV

“I was thinking…” 

“Yeah?” I asked, looking up at Jake. 

There was something different about him today. 

He seemed more open somehow. As though the beach and the walk and the conversation had permitted him to be excited about his future. 

I realized that this was possibly the first time he was looking toward the future with any kind of optimism. 

“Maybe we could go away sometime, the three of us?” he suggested.

 I wondered if he was a little nervous asking me in the first place. If it hadn’t been for the secret I was keeping, I would have been thrilled. 

As it stood though, I had this huge weight on my chest.

 I had been trying to work up the courage to tell him, but my fear of losing him and Noah was preventing me from leaping. I wanted to be braver, but my fear was crippling. 

“I was thinking we could do a road trip of sorts,” Jake continued. 

“We could