Page 96 of Falling Like Leaves
“Maybe we should keep walking,” I say, desperate for a distraction. “It’s freezing out here.”
He taps my foot with his. “Nope. This is a good plan, even if it’s notyourplan.”
I sigh and lie back. If I close my eyes, I can’t stare at him.
The ground is hard and cold, but it doesn’t even matter when he lies back next to me and lifts my arm. I open my eyes and draw my eyebrows together, confused, as he pushes my sleeve up.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
He touches a freckle on my arm, then runs his finger along my skin to the one next to it. Then to the next. “Do you remember when you were here that summer and we figured out we had a matching constellation of freckles?”
I grin at the memory. “I didn’t,” I say, reaching over and tracing the pattern of freckles on his arm. “But now I do, yeah. I remember thinking it was freaking weird.”
He turns his head. “I probably should have, but I didn’t. Ithought it meant we were, like, meant to be or something. Like I’d somehow met the love of my life in middle school.”
“Love, huh?” I whisper.
He grins. “I was fourteen with a lot of feelings.”
“And now?”
His smile falters. He stares at me a moment. “Now I’m almost eighteen with a lot of feelings.”
I sincerely wish a coyote would jump out of the cornstalks and put me out of my misery.
I clear my throat and turn away from him. I can’t do this.
“I hate that you’re going to the Pumpkin Prom with Jake.” His voice is quiet and yet it rattles everything in me awake.
“Well, it’s not like you were going to ask me.”
He pushes my sleeve back down. “I should have.”
I turn away and close my eyes. “You can’t say stuff like that, Cooper. Youcan’t.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Especially when you have Chloe,” I say, looking at him again and growing frustrated.
“I told you Chloe and I aren’t anything,” he says. “I wouldn’t have kissed you if we were.”
“Then what’s going on there? Because it’s not nothing.”
I say it as if I want to know.
I really,reallydon’t. But I need to.
He sighs. “Chloe and I dated sophomore year for like two weeks. But then she dumped me for Slug.”
I can’t help it—I bark out a laugh. “Shut up. She did not.” I shake my head. “That never happened.”
Slug’s nice and all, but no way.
“It did,” he says with a smile. “But he told her he wouldn’t date her because friends don’t do that to friends. The following week, she wanted to get back together. She said breaking up with me was a lapse in judgment. But I told her no.”
“Why? She obviously really likes you. Maybe it really was just a lapse in judgment.”
The gravity of his gaze nearly paralyzes me. “Because she wasn’t you,” he says. “Because I felt nothing when she broke up with me. Because I figured if she couldn’t destroy me the way you did, what was the point?”
