Page 231 of Heart So Hollow

As soon as Evie turns around, Bowen’s car skids to a stop in front of her. When she turns to run around the side to the passenger door, she sees me. Her eyes dart across the lot at the flashing lights and then back at me. I clench my jaw, knowing that, even now, she’s paralyzed with indecision. She’s too loyal for her own good, and she doesn’t want to break her promise.

“Just go!” I wave my arm and start backing away.

Evie spins around and as soon as she dives through the passenger door, Bowen speeds out onto the road and disappears. I turn and jump into my car, Mason cursing me the whole way for wasting time.

She should’ve just gotten into Jay’s car.

But all of us got out of there in one piece, and not in handcuffs, which is all that matters. A minute later and Bowen’s face would be broken and I’d be in custody, taken off to jail to be booked by Pappy Garrison.

About two hours later, I’m back in Dire Ridge at Mason’s house and I finally hear from Evie again.

EVIE (8:02PM): Don’t be mad…now you don’t have to drive me to Hildy’s house!

ME (8:03PM): nice save. R u there now?

EVIE (8:03PM): Yes

ME (8:04PM): text me if you need a ride tomorrow

EVIE (8:04PM): OK, love youuuuuuuuuuu!

ME (8:04PM): love you too

I drop my phone in my lap, and then pause before reaching down and deciding to shoot one last text off to her. Mason sits down next to me and tosses a beer into my lap as I snicker to myself.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” I shake my head, dropping my phone again and trading it for the beer.

ME (8:06PM): don’t feel bad. I bet your jeans were too wet for you to make it back to my car fast enough

EVIE (8:07PM): If you tell anyone about that, I’ll red card you like you did Bo.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

Evie

High School

I thought Bo would ice me out for what Colson did to him during the soccer game. Because that’s what Bo does—death by association. Not that it would matter that much, because Bo and I aren’t close. He’s Hildy’s twin brother and we’re around each other a lot, but it’s different.

It’s not like me and Colson.

Col and I are the same age—born only one day apart—and from the first day we met in 5th grade, when my dad introduced me to his new girlfriend and her kids, I just clicked with him. Sometimes we even pretended to be twins because we both have red hair and blue eyes. His hair is much darker, but it was enough to trick Hildy when we ended up on the same softball team in middle school and she freaked out when she thought we both had twin brothers.

All my friends know him because he comes to my softball games and he brings his friends down from Dire Ridge to go to parties and we dress up together for Halloween as things like the twins from The Shining, creepy doll versions of Raggedy Ann and Andy, and, of course—red-headed step-children. I never had to go to homecoming or prom alone because if I didn’t have a date, Col always went with me.

Bo doesn’t do things like that. He might come tow Hildy and I out of the creek when we’d get her quad stuck in the mud, but a minute later he’d be tossing firecrackers at our feet and hiding in Hildy’s closet to jump out and scare the hell out of us after we went to bed.

He holds grudges for much less. And even though Col knocked the shit out of him and made him look like an idiot in front of everyone, Bo didn’t ice me out. Oddly enough, that’s when he seems to suddenly notice I exist. And it starts with my hair.

At lunch, in calculus, in the hallway, in the parking lot after school—I’ll feel a tug on the back of my head and, every single time when I turn around, it’s Bo. Now he suddenly wants to talk to me. And I like talking to him, because he’s actually pretty interesting.

He does this every day, until the last day before winter break when he does something different. My elbow is propped up on the lunch table with my chin in my hand, and I’m staring across the cafeteria, spacing out. Bo sits next to me, talking to Jay, and when I look down, I realize that he’s combing his fingers through the tips of my hair. He does it absently as he talks, twisting the ends around his fingers, just below the edge of the table, like he needs to keep his hands busy. And when it’s time to go back to class, he stops, gets up, and never says a word. After a couple weeks, I finally ask him about it, to which he only responds with another question.

“Do you want me to stop?”

I brush it off. Bo likes to fuck with people. I’ve known that about him since the first day we met. But by the time softball starts in March, it dawns on me that something has fundamentally changed.

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