Page 10 of Between Now and Forever

I nodded, desperate to get into the shower and then get into bed.

When I walked into James’s house, hungover and sore in places I didn’t know you could be sore in, my brother had been up waiting. I told him I’d been with Duke, but just that I fell asleep and that nothing happened. He gave me hell, and read me the riot act before he let me go sleep it off.

When I walked into the kitchen for breakfast the next morning, he said by way of greeting, “I’ll kick your ass if I ever catch you out with Duke again.”

I promised he wouldn’t have to worry about it and in the weeks that have passed without any word from Duke, he seems to have calmed down.

I, on the other hand, have been on an emotional yo-yo.

Some mornings, I wake up feeling likeheusedme, hurt me, shared me, and I’m glad he hasn’t called.

But most days, I long for him to call me. Like in the books where the guy was terrible to the girl in the beginning but only because he was really fucked up inside, but by the end, he loved her, and I’d pray that maybe, by some miracle, that’s what would happen between him and me.

I ordered this wig and waterproof foundation that promised to not rub off and waited for him to call.

I saw Duke twice in the weeks that passed. He spoke to me like nothing happened. So, I’d resigned myself to reality of that night being a one off.

Until his text from a couple of hours ago gave rise to my hope again.

Party at the lake. Want to come?

My initial response, the one straight from my gut, surprised me. I had a flashback to our night together, and for a second, I thought I would have to be stupid to say yes.

But that thought was gone as quickly as it came.

There’s not a girl in Winsome that wouldn’t kill to get a text like this.

It would be stupid to sayno.

I haven’t ever been invited to a party at the lake. With the end of the school year approaching and everyone home from college, there would be a lot of people there.

Including the girls who only talk to me when their mothers make them. They all idolize Duke.

They’re going to see that, despite them treating me like I was defective and strange, and after they’ve laughed at me for most of my life,Iachieved what they could only dream.

I’mon his arm.

I look down at my phone and read his message again. It doesn’t say anything about sex. A phantom pain between my thighs and a horrified thought that he may want to anyway, gives me the chills.

Maybe I should stay home.

I shake my head, expelling those thoughts.

I’m being silly.

It’s the lake.

A hundred people will be there.

We’ll be out in the open.

There’s nowhere for him to do more than kiss me—which he has yet to do. Suddenly giddy at the thought of my first kiss, I wonder if it will be like my favorite fictional couple, Grip and Bristol.

Maybe not a wonderous revelation at the top of a Ferris wheel, with Neruda as its muse, but the touch of his lips to mine, in any way at all would be amazing.

My phone buzzes with another text from Duke.

Be there in ten.

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