Page 80 of The Autumn We Fell in Love

I chance a glance at her. All I can see from this angle is the pink tip of her nose and the delicate curving of her brows, eyelashes darting down to brush her cheeks and then reaching skyward again.

Everything in me aches to kiss those cheeks, to feel her lashes brush my face.

A root catches at my foot and I stumble, cursing under my breath. Isla cries out, but it’s more from alarm than hurt.

“Are you okay?” she gasps.

“Yeah,” I growl, the back of my neck hot with anger — anger at myself. Because what the hell am I doing mooning over Isla Ingersole? I’d made peace with the fact that she was off limits years ago. Doing anything other than sticking with my resolve will get us both hurt, in more ways than one.

It’s best to keep on pretending that she’s like nothing more than a sister to me.

Except that she’s looking up at me with those wide eyes that make me want to crush her body to mine and forget every silent vow I’ve made about her.

There’s nothing I can do but turn away and lead her onward.

The forest seems to grow dense around us as we walk, the growing darkness and deepening chill of nighttime more and more apparent. We’ll make it back to the house before it’s truly night, but not with much margin. There’s no time to squander on my own damn sentimentality.

As if she senses the urgency in my thoughts, Isla widens the swing of her good leg, quickening her pace. I’m right there with her with barely a thought. It should be an awkward journey, each of us constantly jostling the other without meaning to, but our movement is smooth and well-matched.

The question is alive in my mind before I can catch it — in what other ways might we be well-matched?

I try to shove the thought away. But Isla’s fingers squeeze mine as her ankle forces her to lean more into my support. The pressure summons a memory I didn’t know I still had, from back when we were in high school.

She’d been about halfway along with Guin. Nobody knew, and Isla had become skilled in the art of hiding her bump under flowing dresses and draping scarves and tunics. I knew, though, because Tristan had told me — and told me to keep it quiet. Which I’d doubted he’d be able to, since he’d also promised he’d fucking kill Gunner, the guy who had gotten Isla pregnant and then dropped her.

I didn’t blame Tristan. But it did cause me to start keeping my distance from Isla more than I had, knowing how I felt about her, how I’d be unable to stop trying to win her heart if I stayed so close. We’d already lost one friend in Gunner, I didn’t want to lose Tristan, too.

One evening, though, I hadn’t stayed away. It was the night of the annual formal, and every student was turning up at the decorated high school gym dressed to the nines.

I’d been hanging around outside the gym doors, other teenagers streaming from the parking lot into the building as I waited for Tristan and Isla to show up. I’d considered asking her to go with me, as a friend, but had chickened out. That didn’t stop me from wanting to be there when she arrived though. I knew she’d look beautiful. She always did.

The laughter reached me first. I mistook it at first for a tittering flock of sparrows, but I quickly realized my mistake.

The flood of students moving from the parking lot had turned, and the excited chatter became barely hushed giggles and gasps.

I’d stood, eyes searching the crowd, praying it wasn’t what I feared.

But I was wrong — it was exactly that. My classmates were jeering at Isla as she and Tristan strode from his car toward the school building.

I was, however, right about Isla. She looked ravishing. Hell, even now, I don’t have words to describe how she looked walking head held high in that formfitting strapless black gown that glittered with sequins and hugged her body in all the right places — including her sweet baby belly. The belly that every kid in our school had mocked as Isla bravely revealed the fact of her pregnancy on her terms.

I’d been unable to do anything but stand straight as a rod and stare as she and Tristan walked toward me.

“Wow,” I breathed when they were within earshot. “You look —“

I hadn’t gotten the chance to finish my compliment. The crowd had closed around us, the girls whispering to each other and pointing, the guys’ eyes raking up and down Isla’s body. Instinctively, I’d flanked Isla, wrapping an arm lightly around her shoulders as if I could protect her from their awful stares, guiding her into the building. Tristan was glaring as if he could knock everyone out with looks alone, but Isla’s hand on his arm kept him silent.

“Slut.”

I’d felt the first hurled insult rather than heard it as Isla flinched beneath my arm. Her cheeks paled beneath her makeup, jaw clenching and flexing. But still, she kept moving forward.

Tristan, though, had whirled around and faced the crowd, eyes on fire. “Who said that?” he yelled. The whispering stopped, all eyes wide. “Who the hell said that? Come out and say it straight to my face, you coward.”

He paced the circle of students like a caged lion. Every set of eyes he tried to meet shied away from his gaze.

“Tristan,” Isla had said, voice quiet but firm. “Please.”

Her brother had turned at the sound of her voice, arms dropping helplessly to his sides. “But —" he’d protested.

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