Page 1 of When We Were Reckless
Chapter One
Quinn
My brothers boughtme metallic gold Nikes to coordinate with my blue cap and gown and the gold Honor Society sash around my neck. Ilivedin Nikes. It was literally like walking on air. My collection was huge. A couple of years ago, Mason and Holden, my two oldest brothers, built shelves for me with cubbies to display them all. Whenever I thought about packing for college in the fall, I wondered how I’d cull my collection to fit into my dorm room closet. I wouldn’t have the kind of space I did now.
Which ones would I leave behind?
As I was debating this, the guy next to me—Jackson Carter—nudged my shoulder. I blinked up at him. He was huge, a baller. “You’re up.”
“Oh. Thanks.” Typical. I’d missed my name being called. I grinned, excitement bubbling inside me as I climbed the steps to the stage to accept my high school diploma—one of four hundred and five seniors graduating tonight.
The ceremony was at Maverick stadium, the football field and stands lit up by floodlights. I was the fourth and last Cavanaugh to step onto this stage and receive a diploma. Last time, we were here for Declan. Earlier this evening, Mom had cried that her baby was ‘flying the nest.’ My family still wasn’t sold on the idea of me leaving home or being so far away, but they’d come around. Eventually.
Principal Bradley handed me my diploma and clasped my hand in his. “I do not doubt that you will go on to do amazing things,” he said, and I wondered if he repeated those exact words to every student that walked onto this stage. “Good luck, Quinn. You’ve been an inspiration. Go out and make the world a better place.”
No pressure there. My brothers would be laughing at how cheesy this was, but I just smiled and bit my tongue to stop myself from cracking one of my stupid jokes. “Thank you. I’ll do my best.”
I turned and waved my diploma in the air, my eyes searching the stands for my family. They weren’t hard to find. My three brothers and mom held a gigantic banner that said: YOU’RE THE TOP BANANA, CHIQUITA. Someone had painted a fruit bowl with a bunch of bananas. The top banana had a blown-up photo of my face on it. It was so huge they could probably see it from Mars.
I should have known my family would make a stupid fruit joke. It was a tradition. It went with the territory of owning a chain of organic food stores.
They were shouting my name. In a sea of thousands, the Cavanaughs always managed to be the loudest. They were so annoying.
I loved their guts.
I brushed off the disappointment that my dad hadn’t made an effort to be here tonight and blew my family kisses as I danced across the stage on sneakers made of air. When I stepped off the stage, I searched for the other family that matched mine in spirit and volume—the McCallisters.
My gaze zeroed in on Jesse McCallister.He was here. I’d heard he was coming back. And now, here he was, looking all cool and casual.
It was no exaggeration to say that I have been in love with Jesse my entire life. Too bad he only thought of me as his best friend’s little sister. I had one summer to turn things around. One summer to make him see that I was the woman of his dreams.
I’d just have to make sure to keep my plan a secret from my brothers,especiallyMason.
Jesse’s eyes locked on mine. Then he raised his arm, made a fist, and thumped it against his heart. The smile that used to be so quick to form, the brilliant smile that could rival the floodlights for its brightness, wasn’t there but the gesture—the fist to his heart—that was for me.
And I died just a little. I was liquid gold, my limbs, and muscles, and bones melting into my sneakers and leaving a puddle on the grass. The only thing left of me was my thrashing heart lying on the ground at my feet.
Unrequited love. Was there anything more painful?
When I was five years old, I asked Jesse to marry me. He said yes. He even went along with the fake wedding ceremony I set up under the giant oak in my backyard. I made him wear a daisy chain around his neck that matched mine. We celebrated our nuptials with pink lemonade and pink-frosted sugar cookies.
After that, I told everyone he was my husband—even the guys at the motocross track where Jesse and my brothers practiced. I was only five at the time, but he was fourteen. A lot of boys that age would have been embarrassed or told me to get lost. But not Jesse. By the time I was twelve, he was already a hotshot in motocross and Supercross with sponsorships and endorsements, his pretty face and cut abs plastered on posters that girls hung on their walls and drooled over. They probably licked them too. Or maybe that was just me.
I filled my journal with stories and poetry and confessions, his name doodled in the margins. At the time, he was busy training and competing, traveling all over the country for races, but he dropped everything for me.
Eighteen months ago, he came home from California to be by my side again.
I’d never told him that his stories about California were one of the reasons I’d set my sights on UCLA. I wanted to live near the ocean. Dance in the sunshine. Learn to surf. Take creative writing classes and psychology classes, and film classes and live every day like it was my last.
Most of all, I wanted to be near him.
At the time, he was living and training in Temecula in Southern California. My overactive imagination had run wild with possibilities. I’d be his ride or die. My arms wound tightly around him on the back of his motorcycle as we zipped up the Pacific Coast Highway. The wind in my hair, sun on my face, his sunshine citrus scent washing over me. Out from under the watchful eye of my overprotective brothers. Not defined by my medical history.
As if a change of location would free me from the ties that bind.
But oh, the absolute irony of my best-laid plans.
In a few short months, I’d be heading to California, and where would he be? Still in Texas?
