Page 76 of Your Fault

Honestly, I wasn’t that crazy about Noah being on the beach with the people from her graduating class either. I’d promised to leave her alone, but what was going on between Jenna and Lion gave me an excuse to go make sure everything was okay…that we were okay, to be more precise. We hadn’t seen each other again since our fight, and I wasn’t sure where things stood with us. I needed to see her and talk to her.

They’d started the day at the home of one of Noah’s friends, Elena something-or-other, who had a place right on the beach…not like that was special for those kids, of course.

I parked outside, noticing there were a lot of cars here for what Noah had told me would be a small gathering. When we went inside, there were more than a hundred people there, almosteveryone in a bathing suit. The music was blasting in all the rooms. Lion looked so out of place among those people that I walked him to the back of the house.

There, overlooking the shore, I saw two bonfires and big groups seated around them roasting marshmallows and drinking straight from the bottle.

“I thought she’d be crying, but look,” Lion said, pointing at two girls walking along the shore with their arms around each other, holding what looked like a bottle of tequila.

Jenna and Noah. Great.

We walked over. When they saw us, they turned to stone for a second. Then they burst out laughing.

“Look who we have here, Noah, Dickhead One and Dickhead Two,” Jenna said, bringing the bottle to her lips and frowning. They were both wearing swimsuits and tiny shorts.

Lion walked over to her cautiously. “Hey, Jenna, can we talk?” he asked her, clearly nervous.

Jenna looked at him like an insect under a microscope. “Sorry, Dickhead Two, but I’m not in the mood,” she said, stumbling.

“So that means I’m Dickhead One?” I asked.

Noah shrugged. “Sometimes,” she said, but she didn’t stop me from putting an arm around her waist.

“Can I at least take you home, Jenna? You’re drunk,” Lion said, holding her up when she nearly tripped.

“Let me go,” she shouted, jerking away and falling on her butt in the sand.

Noah twisted free from my grasp. “Leave her alone, Lion.”

I watched the scene attentively. I knew Lion almost better than I knew myself, and I wasn’t surprised to see him trying to get Jenna back. I would have done the same—in a way, Iwasdoing the same.

He leaned down and grabbed her by the shoulder.

“Let go of me, you Neanderthal!” she screamed, dropping the bottle on the sand but not managing to break free of him.

“You can call me all the big names you want, but you’re coming with me.”

Noah turned to me, flushed. “Do something!” she said, and I held her back when I thought she might go over there.

“She called him a Neanderthal. I can’t get involved after that. A guy’s gotta have his pride, right?”

Noah grimaced and I laughed, hoisting her over my shoulder and walking to the less crowded of the two bonfires.

“You need to let them talk it out, Freckles. Otherwise, nothing will ever get solved.”

Noah was shivering from the cold and drunk enough to forget how angry she was. When I sat her down on top of me, she curled up in my arms and let the fire warm her.

“I’m tanked,” she said.

“You don’t say! I’d have never guessed.”

“I’m still pissed at you, though.”

I rubbed her back softly. “I imagined… Anything I can do about it?”

“You can keep touching me like that,” she answered, making me shiver. I leaned back and took off my sweatshirt, carefully guided her arms inside it, then zipped her up. She leaned her head on my shoulder, and I felt her breathing on my neck.

“Tomorrow, it’ll be a year…” she said sadly, and her lip trembled.

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