Page 26 of Where the Mountains Meet the Sea

She backs up, sliding her hands down my arms until she hits my palms. I don't realize I have the stupid note from Cindy still clutched in my palm until I hear the crinkling of paper as her fingers run over it.

"What's this?"

I squeeze the paper tight, but she still manages to pull the damn thing from my grasp.

"What is this?" she asks again. Straightening out the sheet, she reads the girly phone number, staring at it a moment too long. The only sound I can hear are the cicadas in the cornfield behind me, and her perfect scent is replaced by cow manure from the dairy farm down the road.

Her eyes roll up to mine, fury radiating from her form. "Who's is this?"

The words choke in my throat, and I feel like a fucking idiot for not throwing the damn note in Cindy's face like I wanted to in the first place.

"Cindy gave it to me." I sigh, tipping my head toward the clear sky and running a hand down my face. Fucking idiot.

"Cindy… Cindy Paulson?" She seethes. "Why the heck do you have Cindy Paulson's phone number in your hand?"

"She gave it to me…" I see the look on her face, and I put my hands up. "But it's not what you think. I was waiting for you when she came up to me and gave it to me. That's all it was."

Her hands fist at her sides, the crumpling paper losing its life between her fingers. She slaps her palm against my chest, mushing the paper into my shirt. Then she drops her palm to her side, leaving the paper against my chest. I don't grab it, though, and it falls to the ground between our feet.

"Call her," she says, the hurt in her voice palpable. Raw. She sounds utterly wrecked.

"I was never going to call her!" I shout, kicking at the stupid piece of paper on the ground. "I saw you and I forgot all about it."

She shakes her head, taking a step back from me. "It doesn't matter. I knew this would happen. You'll be in high school. I'm still in middle school."

"What the fuck does that mean?" I take a step toward her, and she takes another step back.

"It means that our lives were bound to go their separate ways eventually." Her voice is empty, withdrawn from the entire situation.

From me.

No, fuck that.

"No! Hell no, Luna." I snap my hands out and wrap them around her, pulling her against me. "Go our separate ways? We've done this before, when I went to middle school and you had one more year of elementary. How is this any different?"

"We were just children then."

"We're barely any older!" I shout in her face.

She shakes her head. "You don't get it."

"So, explain it to me!" My hands squeeze her bare arms, goosebumps raising on them even in the humid summer heat.

She squirms until she's out of my arms. Then she unwraps and rewraps her slippers around her arms.

"You don't understand. I've had to watch for years—years—as girls looked at you. Doesn't matter where we go. Doesn't matter who we're with. Guys want to be your friends. Girls want to be with you. I won't be there in high school, and you'll meet someone you want to be with. And what we have… what we've always had, will be over. I know it will." Her groaning words rip from her throat and bleed all over the ground in front of me.

"It's not going to change. We will never fucking change."

She shakes her head, a sad smile on her face. "You say that now." Turning around, she walks away, toward her house, leaving me in the street.

I don't follow her this time, too shocked and sad to fight with her on this.

She thinks what we have will change. She thinks I'm going to change.

Doesn't she know?

I've loved her my entire life.

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