Chapter 4

Marie’s POV

I'm sitting on the edge of the guest bed in Frank Harrison's house, trying not to cry.

It's not working.

The tears come anyway—quiet, humiliating, impossible to explain. I press the heels of my hands into my eyes and wait for it to pass.

Today was too much.

Mom humming in the U-Haul like this is the beginning of something instead of the end of everything I've known. Frank kissing her temple when he thinks nobody's looking. Luke almost knocking me over in the kitchen. Tristan asking me out like it was easy.

Dean sitting across from me all night and barely saying a word.

Dean watching me say yes.

I wipe my face hard.

Enough.

Mom is happy. That's what matters.

I repeat it until my breathing settles.

Then I reach for my jacket and remember my cigarettes are still in the purse I left downstairs.

Great.

The house is quiet when I open my bedroom door. Mom and Frank went to bed half an hour ago. The lights downstairs are mostly off, just a lamp somewhere near the living room throwing a low glow across the hallway.

I make it halfway to the kitchen before I stop.

Dean is in the living room.

Shirtless.

That's the first thing that registers, embarrassingly enough.

He's crouched in front of the little gallery wall by the stairs, bare-backed in the dim light. He's not the lanky boy I remember. His shoulders have filled out, muscle shifting beneath his skin as he moves, dark ink curling over one shoulder blade and down his arm.

I don't know what any of it means.

I don't know when he got it.

I don't know anything about the person he became while I wasn't here.

The thought hurts more than it should.

Then I notice what he's holding.

A picture.

I know it before I'm close enough to see it properly.

The two of us at thirteen, sunburnt and grinning at the camera, his arm slung around my neck. I remember that day. Frank had taken the photo outside the garage after we'd spent half the afternoon washing his truck and most of it spraying each other with the hose.

I didn't know anyone still had a copy.

Dean's thumb moves over the glass.

Right over my face.

Once.

Then again, slower.

I stop breathing.

There's nobody here for him to perform for. Nobody he's trying to convince of anything.

He doesn't even know I'm watching.

And somehow that makes it worse.

Because I know that picture.

I know the girl in it.

And I remember exactly how badly she'd wanted him to ask her.

***

2013

"You're not seriously going to the dance with him."

Dean's voice cracked on seriously, and I laughed at exactly the wrong moment.

His ears went red.

"Sorry."

"You're not sorry."

"I'm a little sorry."

He glared at me.

We were sitting on the hood of Frank's truck in the garage after school, my legs swinging over the bumper while Dean picked at a loose thread on his jeans.

"What's wrong with Kyle?"

"Everything."

"Very specific."

"He's an idiot."

"He's nice."

"He's still an idiot."

I smiled. "You sound jealous."

His head snapped toward me.

"I don't."

"You kind of do."

"I don't care who you go with."

"Okay."

"I don't."

"Dean, I said okay."

He looked away.

I let him sit in it for a few seconds before bumping my shoulder against his.

"You could've asked me."

He went still.

I don't know what possessed me to say it. Maybe I'd been waiting for him to ask. Maybe I wanted to see what he'd do if I made it easy.

"What?"

"To the dance." I tried to make it sound like a joke. "You could've asked me yourself."

He looked at me then. For a second, I thought he might. My stomach did something strange. Then his mouth twisted into a crooked smile.

"We're friends, Ree."

The strange feeling dropped straight through me.

"Obviously."

"Would've been weird."

"Super weird."

I said it too quickly.

He looked down at his hands.

I looked out through the open garage door.

Neither of us spoke for a while.

I went with Kyle Matthews.

He was, in fact, an idiot.

And I spent half the dance looking for Dean across the room.

Every time I found him, he was already looking at me.

***

Dean shifts in front of the photographs.

I blink, and I'm back in Frank's living room.

He's still holding the picture. His thumb is still resting over my face.

I can't stand there anymore.

I turn before he catches me, grabbing my purse on my way past, and head outside.

The cold hits hard enough to clear my head.

I stand on the porch steps and light a cigarette with hands that aren't quite steady.

This is stupid.

It's an old picture.

That's all.

Maybe Frank put it up. Maybe Dean noticed it tonight. Maybe he was about to take it down.

Maybe people casually stroke the faces of girls they haven't thought about in years.

I take another drag.

I hate that I'm even trying to explain it.

The back door opens behind me.

"Didn't know you still smoked."

I take another drag without turning around. "There's a lot you don't know."

The door closes, and a moment later Dean stands beside me.

I can feel him looking at me.

"What?"

"You've been crying."

My stomach tightens. "I'm fine."

"Didn't say you weren't."

I glance at him. He's watching my face, his expression quieter than it was at dinner.

"It's been a long day," I say.

"Yeah."

His eyes stay on mine. Then he reaches up.

I don't realize what he's doing until his thumb brushes beneath my eye, catching whatever trace of mascara I missed upstairs.

I go still.

"So you were crying."

His voice is low now.

"A little."

His thumb lingers against my cheek, and all I can think about is that same hand moving over my face in the photograph.

Dean's gaze drops to my mouth.

My breath catches.

His fingers shift slightly against my cheek, sliding into my hair, and I tilt my face into his palm before I realize I'm doing it.

His eyes come back to mine.

That tiny movement changes something.

He leans closer.

Slow enough that I could move.

I don't.

His nose nearly brushes mine. I can feel his breath against my lips, and suddenly I'm thirteen again on the hood of his father's truck, waiting for him to do something neither of us was brave enough to do.

Except we're not thirteen now.

And his father is inside.

With my mom.

"Your dad seems happy."

Dean doesn't move his hand. His thumb is still resting beneath my eye.

"That's what you're going with?"

"What?"

"Right now. That's what you want to talk about."

My pulse jumps.

"My mom is too," I say, because apparently I'm committed to this.

His jaw ticks. Then his hand drops.

"Yeah. I heard you."