Page 40 of You Belong With Me

When Wyn doesn’t say anything, I brave a glance at her. I’m so fucking afraid of what I’m going to see when I look at her. Fear? Disgust? Curiosity?

She looks back at me with no expression whatsoever, and I don’t know why that’s worse, but it is.

“Well,” she says finally, pulling her knees back up, so she can cover her legs with my hoodie again. “If you don’t tell me, then I guess we’ll never know…”

Exactly. “That’s the idea,” I say.

I expect her to push me on the subject, and beg me to tell her, but instead, she releases a breath and rests her head on her knees, looking at me. “I have a question.”

“Okay.”

“Promise you’ll be honest with me?” she asks casually.

I smirk at that. “No chance.”

She scrunches her nose in feigned annoyance. It’s playful and flirty. “Well, I’m asking anyway.” She lifts her head. “Why me?”

I shake my head slightly, confused by her question. “What do you mean? Why you what?”

“I’ve seen you with a parade of different girls over the past year, and most of them were smart, beautiful, loyal. Catching the attention of justoneof them would be like winning the lottery for any other guy…And yet you’ve chosenme.Why?”

I look at her from the side of my eye, suspicious. This feels like a trick question.

“Are you trying to say you’renotsmart, beautiful, or loyal?” I ask.

I know chicks are generally pretty hard on themselves, but she can’t be that delusional.

“Just answer the question. What makes me special? What makes me different? I swear I’m not fishing for a compliment. I’m just curious.”

She asks the question casually, but it feels like she’s trying to crack my chest open and inspect the contents. And that’s terrifying because I already know what she’s going to find—a dark, empty cavity where a beating heart should be.

I shrug, deciding to be honest, because, fuck, why not? “We connect in a way I’ve never had with anyone else…” I confess. “You’ve seen parts of me that would send other people running for the hills. But you’re still here.”

She has her arms wrapped around her legs, and she shrugs. “And yet, according to you, thereissomething about you that would make me run. So how special can I really be?”

Everyone has their limits. Even a fucking saint.

Instead of answering, I shake my head. Untangling my feelings and analyzing them has never really been my thing. All I know for sure is that I’m losing my already tenuous gripon sanity, and Wyn is the reason for that. She’s the reason for everything. More than she even knows.

Her gaze collides with mine. “If Ididrun, would you chase after me?”

Fuck, I told myself I’d be as honest as I could with her, didn’t I? “Yes.”

She smiles faintly. “Then what good would running do me?”

The tip of her nose is red from the cold, and I reach over to brush a few strands of hair away from her face. “It’s cold out here,” I say. “I should get you back inside.”

She pulls her legs out of the hoodie, shoves me, then with a laugh, gets up and runs toward the ocean, screaming playfully. When she gets to the edge of the water, she spins around to face me, arms stretched up over her head.

I stand up, and brush the sand off my pants, watching her. What’s she doing?

Wind whips through her long, blond hair, making her look a little wild. Then she just takes off running down the beach.

Oh, fuck, I know what this is.

She’s trying to bait me.

I watch her for a second to see if she’ll come back. When she doesn’t, my instinct to chase her kicks in. It’s pitch black out here, except for the sliver of moonlight, and she’s alone. I can’t allow her to just run off into the darkness.

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