Page 12 of Reckless Roses
Iwantto be like other girls. I don’t know how, and nobody will teach me.
I don’t want my only friends to be my fucking brothers, but I can’t make myself try to connect with anyone else. Somehow, rejection from female friendships hurts worse than rejection from boys. It’s like…I’m supposed to fit in with girls. I’m supposed to find solidarity and compatibility and support in them, but I’m too awkward and too dark and too…whatever the hell makes me so strange. Being unable to find my place in those spaces is a sharper sting than accusing a boy of being too stupid to keep up with me.
I’m too stubborn to conform, and despite it all, I like who I am. I know there are other girls out there who feel the way I do—I can even see it in some of the ones I go to school with— but trying to express that feels like an obstacle I’m not willing to overcome.
So, I stick to myself, to my brothers, because they’ll always accept me. I let myself pine after Zach because I think he accepts me too, and August is my best friend because he accepts me most of all. He sees me deeper than the rest of them. He reads the pages of my soul that seem to be written in a language no one else understands.
Nobody else would ever ask me to dance because they can’t imagine me wanting to, but Augustus Hayes hears the words I can never seem to say.
So I take his hand. “I do want to dance.”
He smiles, pulling his phone out of his pocket with his free arm and, because he truly knows me better than anyone, he plays a Lana Del Rey song before dropping it onto the ground behind us. With the hand holding mine, he tugs me against him, snaking the other around my waist and resting it on my lower back. He opens his palm, and I let my fingers fall into the spaces between his.
August leads, moving us in circles as the slow, deep sounds of a harp and piano float around us. “You do look beautiful, Elena.All the time, but I’m sorry the whole world didn’t get to see you tonight.”
Something erupts in my chest at that, at the intense focus of his gaze clashing against my own. His eyes are so green, it feels like I’m staring directly into the depths of a gemstone. Stars dot the sky above his head, but they’re nowhere near as bright as his eyes.
My heart rate drums in my chest, like it’s part of the song playing around us.
I don’t know what it means.
“I guess you’re just the lucky one.” I sigh, dropping my head against his chest, unable to face him any longer. His heart is thundering too, but the steady sound of it calms me.
August is warm and solid. He feels like safety, like the grass beneath my bare feet, soft and grounding. His hand at my back is comfort, like being wrapped in a blanket on a cold night, the peaceful heaviness of it. I could stay right here forever and I’d be okay.
It’s different from when Zach touches me in the same place. Zach’s touch is scorching. It’s heat and thrill. It feels like something that doesn’t belong to me, but I took it anyway—stolen and fleeting and desperate.
Zach feels like staring into the sun, but August feels like gazing at the stars.
“Why’d you come find me, Augustus? Why’d you ask me to dance?” I’m terrified of his response, but fluttering with anticipation for it too. This moment feels deeper than anything we’ve ever experienced, and I don’t know what it means. I don’t know if I want to, but I do know I don’t want it to end.
He’s quiet for far too long, so I lift my head and find him staring down at me. Something wars within his eyes, and just as I find myself lost inside them again, he whispers, “Because you’re my best friend.”
I smile, nodding before falling back into his chest. Besides the music playing, we’re quiet. I match my breathing to the rhythm of his heart as we sway atop the coastal knoll, the moon and stars our audience.
August is the only real friend I’ve ever had, and I have nothing to compare this kind of connection to, so I tell myself that’s the reason this moment—his touch—feels the way it does.
Friendship. That’s all it is.
5
ELENA
“AUGUST” - TAYLOR SWIFT
AGE SIXTEEN - AUGUST
Two knocks clangagainst my bedroom door, and I spin in my desk chair just in time—Zach leans against the hinges, my favorite smile on his face, his arms crossed with a massive bouquet of red roses tucked between them. “Happy Birthday,” he drawls.
“Are those for me?” My voice comes out at least an octave higher than it should.
He only laughs, stepping into my bedroom and shutting the door behind him. “I wanted a second alone with you before the party.” He strolls over to my bed, sitting on the edge as he tugs the leg of my chair and wheels me toward him. “I have a gift for you.”
“You didn’t have to get me anything,” I murmur, hardly able to speak through the butterflies clogging up my windpipes.
My body feels like Jell-O when Zach grabs my chin and lifts my head, tucking a wild curl behind my ear. He flashes me his megawatt smile, and his chocolate eyes crinkle in the corners, causing my heart to hammer against my chest, begging to be letfree and held by him. “Of course I had to get somethin’ for my girl.”
My girl.
