He stood up, taking a step toward me, bracketing my face with his big, warm palms. For some reason, I couldn’t find the gesture reassuring. I was pretty sure he was going to crush me with his next words. He was going to show me exactly what happened when you made the legendary Knight Cole look like a fool, or worse—feel like one.

“Poppy and I did a charity thing for cystic fibrosis. For my mom. The parents at All Saints High were to donate a dollar for every Like she got on Instagram. We were chosen at random by the student body. I didn’t even know her until two weeks ago, and I’m definitely, definitely not dating her.”

I wanted to fall down to my knees and beg for his forgiveness, tell him Josh was great, but he wasn’t him. That he was the one. That he’d brought his point home. And, for the first time in seventeen years, I could tell him all those things. I could speak to Knight, even if to no one else. If I was being honest with myself, there was no one else I’d rather speak to than him. He was the center of my world.

“Do you love him?” Knight asked.

I shook my head. “No. I don’t love Josh. He is sweet, but—”

“Save me the superlatives on Josh, Little Miss Clueless. Give me your phone.” He reached his open palm to me.

“Why?” My voice was a little husky, a lot feminine.

I wondered what Knight thought about it. I looked down and saw the goosebumps on his arms when I talked, and it gave me a foolish hope that maybe things were still salvageable between us.

“I’m tired of feeling like the safe option you never want to take.”

You were never the safe option. You are so risky, the idea of you makes my heart squeeze in my chest.

I started to give him my phone and stopped when I realized Josh must’ve answered the text message I’d sent him earlier, in the kitchen. And that Knight wasn’t interested in my explanation at all, just to be proven right. The whole reason for this fight was because we weren’t honest with each other, so him going through my phone would be more of the same bullshit. Him not trusting me. No, thank you.

Knight’s face morphed into the sad triumph of a man who’d predicted the apocalypse, and now watched the fire of the sun blazing through forests and oceans and cities.

“No.” My voice was barely a breath. “I’m so sorry, Knight. You either hear me out or you walk away empty-handed.”

His lips curled with content disgust, something I never thought possible. “The first words she ever speaks to me in her life, and she decides to break my heart with them. For the longest time, I wished I could unthink you. Unlove you. Unbreathe you. I think I finally can.”

He reached toward me, pressing his lips against my forehead. He didn’t seem mad anymore, and that scared me. When he was breaking things around the room, at least I knew he was coping. Hurting. Working through whatever it was we were up against.

Now, with a clarity so piercing it burned my skin like a fresh cut, I realized the gravity of what had happened in the last few months. I’d lost my best friend and gained something worse than an enemy—an indifferent acquaintance.

We stared at each other with eyes full of tears. Only he was smiling, and I felt on the verge of dying.

“Please,” I whispered. “Please, Knight.”

“You have a beautiful voice.” His hand slipped from my cheek to graze my jawline. He slanted my chin up so I could see the full tilt of his smile.

“Please,” I repeated, begging. More wasted words. They felt like diamonds scattered on the floor after a burglary. With no one to claim them.

He pressed his lips to my hair. “Remember when I told you I always get even?”

I blinked. When had he said that? The treehouse. Yes.

I nodded, defeated.

“Well, Moonshine, it’s payback time.”

“Hurry up, we’re going to be late!” April tugged at the sleeve of my pea coat as she pulled me out the door—just as I hung up on Knight’s voicemail without leaving a message.

We were running through the crowded hallway, shouldering past students on our way to a Drum Kithead show.

Normally, I didn’t do partying of any kind, but what were the odds of this band showing up at this shitty North Carolinian college again? Plus, it had been a miserable three weeks since I’d gotten back to Boon, and I’d spent the vast majority of them either texting, calling, or writing to Knight. Why I bothered was beyond me. He never answered, even the phone calls, passing on the chance to hear my voice.

Why had I been able to speak to Knight? I asked myself that question over and over again, and I always came to the same conclusion: it had felt like survival. A plea to my lifeline. And still, he’d walked away, just like Val. I was dying to reconnect with Knight…and also dying to know if I’d actually be able to speak to him again. Had it been a fluke?