Page 4 of No More Spies

“Kala?”

She stood, her heart a dull thing in her chest. “What yousaid before, was it about Julia Ennis or me?”

He looked a bit shocked. “What?”

“You said sometimes it doesn’t work and you have to saveyourself,” she parroted back, the words bitter on her tongue. “Is this yousaving yourself, Coop? You weren’t ever going to take me to the homecomingdance, were you?”

“Why do you care?” Cooper asked, a surprised look on hisface. “You don’t even like dances. You call them stupid. Like you calleverything fun about high school stupid. Like you call all my friends stupid.”

His friends were stupid. “Your friends all hate me.”

“You don’t do anything to make them like you.” He seemed tobe warming to the argument. “You meet someone and immediately pull some crap.”

“It’s called being myself.”

“This isn’t you. This is some phase you’re going through. Ineed you to get through it faster because I don’t want to spend my entire highschool experience apologizing for my girlfriend,” he shot back.

“A phase? I’m in a phase? What was I before? Sweet anddocile?” Where the hell was this coming from? “This is who I am, Coop. You’veknown me since we were in diapers. Did you think I would turn into some sweetthing who decorates your locker before the big game? Who sits around and waitsfor you to notice me?”

“Maybe it would be better if you did sit around and waitbecause what you do now is start freaking fights,” he said, throwing up hishands. “I knew we couldn’t have this talk. I told her…”

And she was afraid she knew who “her” was. It might beeasier if she thought he’d had this talk with some other girl. Some other girlwould give him advice so she would have a better shot at him. Some other girlhadn’t been around all of her life. This was worse. “Did you talk to your momabout me?”

He went still, and for a moment she thought he might notanswer her. Then he sat back down, his hands threaded together like he didn’tquite trust himself. “We were talking about what Kyle’s going through. Itworries me.”

Oh, this was bad. “We’re not Kyle and Mae in this scenario.”

“I didn’t say that. I just think you’re intense andsometimes we need to…”

He said a bunch more stuff, but she didn’t hear it. It was alot of word salad, and it didn’t mean anything. She’d heard the importantstuff. Intense. How often had she heard the word? She wasn’t the Mae in hismetaphor. Or was it a simile? She should have paid more attention in English,but she spent all her time thinking about a boy. Who thought she was like JuliaEnnis. Which meant he thought she was a monster.

He was still talking, complaining about how often she gotgrounded.

“She told you to save yourself? Your mom?” At one point intime she’d called Eve McKay Auntie Eve, though they didn’t share any blood. Afew years before she’d dropped the honorific since she needed there to be nofamily ties between them. The fact that Cooper had been adopted meant nothing.He was a McKay and not her cousin.

“She said I can’t control what other people do and sometimeswhen a person is drowning, they end up dragging the person trying to save themdown, too,” he admitted.

He was trying to save her? From being herself? She didn’tknow how to be anyone else. Sometimes she pretended to be Kenzie to fooleveryone—because no matter what Coop thought, they were perfectly identical—butshe wouldn’t want to live like Kenzie.

He wasn’t saving her life. He was saving what he valued.

The tears were there. He was choosing. His friends. Hisplace at Johnson High School. A hole opened up inside her. A hole she hadn’trealized he filled. Well, there was one thing she could give him. The lastthing she would give him. Starting this moment, she would cut him out of herheart. She wouldn’t hate him. Wouldn’t love him. Her goal was to look at himand feel nothing. “I won’t drag you down, Coop.”

He took a long breath, and there was an odd relief in hisexpression. “Good. My mom was right. This was a hard conversation but anecessary one. I know you don’t want to drag me down. I know you don’t want tocause trouble.”

Oh, but she did. It was there. The need to push whateverbutton was in front of her simply to see what it did. The impulse to sometimesburn the world down because it pissed her off. Trouble was fun. Trouble mightbe her true native language. “I won’t cause you anything at all. Good-bye,Coop. Next time you see me, pretend you don’t know me.”

She turned and started walking across the backyard with farless care than she had entered. One of the motion-activated lights came on, butshe simply moved through. If her shadow was the last thing he saw, it was okaywith her.

How could she be doing this?

How could she walk away from him?

He was the best part of her day. He was supposed to be herdad. Not gross-like. He was supposed to be Ian to her Charlotte. She wassupposed to get what her parents had, and there was no way it would be likethat with anyone but Cooper. No way. She wouldn’t ever feel this way again. Shewouldn’t ever love again. He’d been her shot.

She’d never actually had a shot.

“Hey.” Cooper was suddenly behind her. “What is thatsupposed to mean? Pretend I don’t know you?”

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