4. Sophomore Year
Sophomore Year
LANEY
AGE SIXTEEN
T he crunch of gravel beneath tires fills the silence as London navigates the winding road away from the lake house.
I reach for the hem of my sopping-wet shirt and squeeze my eyes shut.
Just a few seconds…that's all I need to wallow in my regrets.
I told myself no drama tonight, yet here I am, drenched and trembling in the backseat of his truck.
There are many reasons I've been a ghost for the past few months, and not all of them orbit around the man behind the wheel; however, right now, he eclipses the rest. London Hale is an enigma wrapped in contradiction.
One minute, he was the phantom at the edges of the party, sight unseen, and the next, he was plunging into the dark water, his hands finding me in its murky depths.
I know it's stupid, and the last thing I should be worried about right now is what feelings London does or doesn't possess when it comes to me.
I nearly drowned tonight. My lungs still ache with the memory of water rushing in.
Death brushed past me with cold fingers.
Yet all I can fixate on is whether saving me was merely an inconvenience to him and if choosing me over Riley has already turned into regret.
The silence stretching between us feels like both might be true, or maybe it's my insecurity from the judgment I felt from everyone who watched me spectacularly fall tonight.
I peel my shirt away from my skin, hoping that removing it will help me escape the humiliation threatening to consume me. At the very least, I won't be cold.
I toss the wet shirt on the floorboards, a crumpled testament to tonight's disaster.
Sitting in nothing more than my wet bra and panties, my eyes catch a flash of movement in the rearview mirror.
London's eyes, dark and unreadable, are locked on mine.
Something electric crackles between us, my pulse quickens, and I nervously tear my gaze away first. Allowing him to watch me through my bedroom window is one thing; sharing the small space of his dad's old truck is another.
He's close enough that I could touch him.
Just as the thought that he could touch me too flits across my mind, so does my desire to chance another look.
This time, when our eyes collide, something shifts in his expression.
His jaw clenches tight enough to see the muscle twitch beneath the stubble now lining his jaw.
He wrenches his attention back to the road, knuckles blanching against the steering wheel.
But that stolen moment of intensity felt like a spark of desire mirroring my own.
Maybe it's the near-death experience loosening my grip on self-preservation, or I'm simply tired of the tightrope walk of pretending I don't feel what I feel.
But I don't believe his lingering gaze was rejection.
I think it was restraint. Tonight feels like free-falling through a reel of my worst impulses—what's one more reckless decision to add to the collection?
If I'm destined to make a fool of myself again, I might as well dive headlong into the humiliation.
I reach for his hoodie and pull it over my head.
The soft fabric slides against my bare skin, enveloping me in the warmth that carries his scent.
It's both refuge and torment. I push my arms through the sleeves and grip the headrests, determined to propel myself into the front seat in one fluid motion without bending my knee.
The second I'm in the passenger seat beside him, the space between us collapses to inches, and with it, all my careful defenses.
"Christ, Laney, you're going to hurt yourself," he scolds, eyes wide, as I settle into my seat. His harrowed look softens as his eyes rake over my body, and I can't help but wonder if it's because he likes how I look wearing his things.
"You have the heat on up here," I say, holding my hands against the vents. "I was cold." I have a list of other things I want to say, but sitting this close, I feel pieces of my bravery slipping, so I start with an apology. "I'm sorry about what happened with your girlfriend tonight."
"Are you?" he asks flatly. "You wouldn't have shown up to a party wearing nothing but my shirt if that were true."
I'm unsure what I expected him to say, but going straight for my wardrobe selection wasn't it.
I roll my lips when I feel his accusatory gaze boring into the side of my head.
"I didn't start anything with her tonight.
She came after me. It's not like I approached her, tapped her shoulder, and announced I was wearing her boyfriend's t-shirt. "
Anger coils tightly within me as the cruel irony of my words registers, and my mind floods with the vivid memory of her approaching me on the dock.
"The only heart up for grabs is the one standing next to you," Sydney's boyfriend lightheartedly joked, with Noah pulling me into his side and kissing my forehead.
"No, actually, it's not. Everyone knows her selfish little heart already covets my boyfriend." I cringed when I heard the voice that belonged to maybe the only person I've ever hated. Riley Heron.
I knew she'd be at the party, but I didn't think she'd be wasting her time on me, especially when London was nowhere to be seen. The second I turned around, my rational thought betrayed me.
"Riley, what the hell are you talking about? I haven't seen London all night, though I'm sure if I did, his face would be attached to yours."
I could have chosen better words. The ones that came out definitely sounded like fighting words .
"You might think I'm stupid, but I'm not, especially when it comes to men," Riley defended, showing up unprovoked, set on making a scene for the small crowd that had gathered on the dock to escape the bonfire.
"You TPed his house last year, you never close your window even though you know his looks directly into yours, and tonight you wore that.
The fact that your outfit is a tired trend is beside the point.
Everyone knows Lyndsey Hart doesn't dress provocatively.
" Her eyes dragged down my body with disgust, and she waved her hand. "You wore that to get attention."
My right eye twitched. She knew my name and deliberately called me the wrong one out of spite.
"Newsflash, biatch. If Laney wanted to steal your man, she could," Sydney snapped in my defense.
"Please…" Riley rolled her eyes as though the statement was preposterous. "There's no competition, I'm the captain of the cheerleading team, and London is the quarterback ? —"
Noah cut her off, his hand finding my arm. "Is what she's saying true? You want Hale?"
That was the last straw. I had promised myself no drama, and everything about her confrontation was the very definition, so I tried to bow out.
"You know what? I'm not doing this," I said, raising my white flag.
I had no energy to fight over someone who didn't belong to me.
It only would have taken me three long strides to pass Riley and escape the drama I was determined to avoid, but before I passed, I couldn't bite my tongue.
"You came here to warn everyone about my heart, but it's yours you should be worried about.
You can judge mine all you want, but it's yours I feel sorry for.
Not because it's cruel, but because it doesn't know its worth. "
Pining for London was different than being his and knowing his heart wasn't all in.
Her eyebrows rose, and for a second, I thought she heard my underhanded jab for the truth it was, but then her snobbish superiority returned, and I knew there was no way she'd let me have the last word, which was fine; she could say them to my back.
I only made it one step before hands were on my back, and I was sailing forward to my knees.
"We're not done here, Hart."
Those were the last words I heard before searing pain ripped through my right knee as I landed on a nail. My heart palpitated as my body fought the desire to pass out. I rolled to my side, clutching my leg, and plunged off the ramp into the lake.
"I know," London says on a long exhale, snapping my thoughts back to the truck cab.
"You know?" I ask, trying to blink away the anger the memory brought to the surface. "That's all you have to say? Your girlfriend is an evil witch. I can't believe you'd even?—"
"She was never my girlfriend."
"Okay…" I say sarcastically. "Fuck buddy, whatever you want to call it. It's all the same."
"It's not at all the same." He grips the wheel hard, my words clearly touching a nerve.
"How is it not? You shared yourself with her intimately, gave her your free time, and?—"
"No, Laney. I spent most of my time hiding from her.
I was never home because I took every opportunity to stay late after practice and help the coach.
When I wasn't training, I was tutoring in the library, and the few nights you did see me with her, it was so I could stomach being in my room after I asked you to close the window. "
"Ouch." I turn my gaze back out the window. That stings.
"That's not what I meant." He releases a frustrated breath. "You don't get to put this on me. You're the heartbreaker, Laney Hart, not me."
"What's that supposed to mean?" I snap back.
"Last summer, when I came home, I caught you TPing my house, and I asked you…" His eyes flash over to mine for a split second. "I asked you if you still wanted to marry me, and you said no."
My mouth drops open. "You can't be serious. That was your way of asking if I was still into you?" I feel like I'm in a twilight zone.
"Yes, and I didn't get the response I expected.
Instead, you went into an overexplanation about being contextually correct with the team's use of the word 'liked' being past tense and not present, and how I was out of town, so my house made perfect sense.
You had a million reasons about how I wasn't your guy. "