Chapter 3
THREE
TWELVE YEARS OLD
Someone had invaded my fishing spot.
No, not anyone. She had invaded it.
All I wanted was to go down to the ice and try to catch a fish before the sun melted it too much, but nope. That wasn’t going to happen today, not when my favorite secret spot had been invaded yet again.
I toyed with the small rod in my hand, looking over my shoulder. There had to be other places to go. There was that one spot over by Guardian’s Beach. But then again, someone had fallen in last week after a thin patch gave out. I shuddered, not willing to take that risk. No, if I wanted to get the practice in, it had to be here. After all, there were only a couple more weeks until Dad started going up north with his friends. I have to show him I could handle it—that I had the patience to sit and wait for the fish if I wanted to tag along this year. And let’s be honest—I really did need the practice.
But from the moment I saw her sitting there, any plans of fishing left my mind .
Devyn Winters.
My mortal enemy.
Okay, so maybe that was a little harsh. It wasn’t like she stole my toys or kicked my dog. There was just something about Devyn that irritated me. We’d known each other almost all our lives–an unfortunate side effect of our dads being best friends. It was no secret they hoped their friendship would pass down to us.
Good luck with that.
Devyn and I never got along, barely able to spend more than ten minutes in a room together without arguing. My parents had sat me down a ton of times, reminding me to be nice to Devyn, but nothing seemed to work. We were too different. Eventually, we’d learned to co-exist. Between weekly dinners and spending all our vacations and holidays together, we weren’t given much of a choice.
Until her dad died, and then, everything changed.
Immediately after the funeral, her mother boarded up their rooms at the Isadora and traded them in for a ritzy apartment in the city. Devyn and her family still visited in the summer and on school breaks, but they stayed close to her grandfather.
But even though she was rarely in town, it seemed like our paths always managed to cross.
Standing at the tree line, I watched her pencil glide across the page. She briefly looked up, squinting to monitor a pair of birds that had landed on the ice. Most of the wildlife had fled before the snow started to fall, but these birds were stubborn, I’d give them that. Wisps of her ice blonde hair untucked from her braids, and she lifted a bare hand to swat them away, unwilling to break her concentration .
I smirked, an evil plan forming in the back of my mind. I crept closer, waiting until she was concentrating on her drawing again to sneak up behind her. But as I took another tiny step closer, my boot pressed into a stick buried in the snow. The resounding crack echoed across the space between us, and Devyn lifted her head ever so slightly. “I know you’re there, Grayson. You might as well come out.”
My head dropped down to my feet, hating Devyn had managed to beat me. Again. I rolled my eyes as I stepped out. “I thought I told you this was my beach?”
“Oh, you were serious about that?” she said, still tracking the movement of the birds. “Guess you’ll have to provide some evidence, and then I’ll move along.” She looked up at me with one of her smug smiles. “Until then, I think I’ll stay. Besides, I was here first, and you know what they say about possession being nine-tenths of the law.”
I ground my teeth, trying to hold back the words on the tip of my tongue. This was the exact reason why Devyn Winters and I could never be friends. Most people assumed it was because she was a girl, but I didn’t give a crap about that. My best friend Wade said it was weird to be friends with girls, but I didn’t see it like that.
No, I couldn’t stand Devyn because she always needed to be right, always needed to prove she was the smartest person in the room. I swear, the girl was born with the ability to win an argument. No matter the topic, every time our paths crossed, she left me feeling dumb, which wasn’t an unusual feeling for me.
I spent most of my days wondering what was wrong with my brain and why it was so hard to focus on anything, especially in school. For the most part, I was able to ignore that internal voice telling me I was stupid. But when I was around Devyn, a girl who was too smart for her own good, that whisper turned into a roar, sure she’d make fun of me if she knew the truth.
The sounds of the birds taking off pulled me back into the moment, watching as she muttered something under her breath. She turned, and her brown eyes cut into me. “Can you just go, Grayson? Please?” A hitch caught in her throat. “I…I can’t do this, not today.”
I stared at Devyn, unsure what the hell was happening. This girl, seemingly made of Teflon, was breaking down in front of me, and I didn’t have a single clue why.
But for the first time in my life, instead of taking the opportunity to get as far away from Devyn as possible, I plopped down next to her. We sat in silence for a while, not knowing how to even really talk to each other without trying to hurt the other’s feelings.
I glanced over at her bare hands, her fingers still clutched around the pencil. “You should have gloves on. The wind on the lake gets really cold.”
“I know that.”
I sighed, dropping my elbows onto my knees. “I wasn’t trying to be a jerk. We have some extra pairs at home if you need some.”
Devyn turned toward me, studying my profile. I forced myself to keep my eyes forward, not sure if I’d like what I found if I looked back at her.
Eventually, she let out a dry laugh. “I can’t believe you’re still trying to scare me.”
“Gonna get you one of these days,” I said, letting go of some of my annoyance toward Devyn. Maybe it was because I knew how it felt to feel raw, or it was because I hated the idea of kicking her while she was down, but either way, teasing Devyn didn’t seem right.
She chuckled and reached out to push me off the rock. Instead, I grabbed her wrist and pulled her in a little closer. Her deep, brown eyes widened when I held her, and for the first time, I noticed the different shades that made up the color. For as long as I could remember, I teased her that her eyes were like mud—nothing special at all about them. But now, I realized I was wrong. There was nothing flat or boring about the color. it was more like the mountains on clear summer mornings.
As soon as Devyn balanced herself on the rock, I dropped her hand, giving us some much-needed space. What the hell was in the air today? Why did I notice all these things about Devyn so suddenly?
“Why are you being nice to me, Grayson?”
“Told you not to call me that.” I smirked to avoid her question. “How do you like it when I call you Devy?”
She shuddered, returning to the sketchpad draped across her lap. “That’s not my name, but Grayson is yours. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t make it any less true.”
“Still don’t like it,” I grumbled, messing with the ends of my hair.
She scowled up at my movements, tapping the brim of my hat with her fingers. “Are you going to keep growing it out?”
“Yeah. Gonna see how long it takes my mom to snap.” I smirked, shoving my long hair away from my eyes. A couple of months ago, Mom declared I was old enough to decide how I wanted to style my hair, a choice she was starting to regret more and more each day. Now that it was almost past my shoulders, she liked to make comments at the dinner table, asking if I thought it was time to try something new.
Devyn pursed her lips then nodded, more to herself than to me. As her thumb danced through the last lines she’d drawn, I couldn’t help but watch, mesmerized by each swipe. “Why’re you doing that?”
Devyn frowned to herself, “I’m trying to make the shadows, but I can’t get them right.” Her voice cracked a little again, and she exhaled, as if trying to push all those emotions away. “David, my mom’s new boyfriend, says my sketches lack depth, and I need to play more with dimension if I want to get taken seriously.”
I laughed, but Devyn’s face only tightened. “Wait…you’re not kidding?”
She slammed the lid of the book closed, crossing her arms around her chest. Her eyes narrowed at me. “No, I wasn’t. Why would I joke about my weakness?”
“Because you’re in, what? Sixth grade?”
“Yup, same as you.”
“Exactly,” I chuckled, taking the pad from her hands. I thumbed through the pages, hoping she couldn’t read the amazement in my eyes. Because hell, this girl was talented, more than I’d ever want to admit. But when I looked up at her, gone was the know-it-all-all who usually bugged me to no end. Instead, her lips rolled together, watching as I looked at each sketch. I closed the book and held it out to her. “He’s an idiot.”
Devyn barked out a laugh, and her face transformed. She looked nicer, softer. Prettier. She shook her head as she clutched her book against her chest. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. David knows art. He is an–”
“Idiot,” I finished for her. I shifted the book so the front cover was visible. She’d sketched a woman crying, but her tears had transformed into a river, life growing out of her pain. “And probably jealous. You’re just a kid, and he hates that you’re already so talented. ”
“You think?” she asked, her puffy pink lips turning up at the sides.
“Hell yeah, Devy.” I knocked her on the shoulder. “Gonna see your name up in lights one day. Get to tell everyone I knew you before you were famous.”
“Yeah, right,” Devyn chuckled as she settled on the rock next to me again, her leg bumping into mine. Despite the shivering temperature, heat rushed through me at the gentle touch. She nudged me with her elbow. “And what about you, Grayson? Where will you be?”
“Don’t know,” I said. “But I’m going to be somewhere far away from here, playing baseball, that’s for sure.” I laughed as I looked at her. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll even be friends when we’re old.”
“Yeah, right,” Devyn snorted. “Like you’d ever want to be friends with the ‘most annoying girl on the planet’?”
I blushed, running my hand through of my hair. “You heard that, huh?”
“Yup,” she said. I expected her to hurl more insults at me, to take off and run away, breaking this weird truce we had going on. Instead, she just rolled her eyes. “It’s fine. I’ve called you worse before.”
“Oh, yeah?” I smiled at her. “Like what?”
“Not gonna tell.”
“C’mon, Devy. I promise not to laugh too hard.”
She coughed a laugh then turned to look down at her feet, “I might have implied you think I’m a know-it-all because I use multisyllabic words, making it impossible for you to comprehend what I’m saying.”
My cheeks flushed at her implication, and I hated that she’d picked up on one of my biggest insecurities without even trying. No one but my parents and teachers knew the extent of my failings. Even though they tried to help, it didn’t make my brain work any better—it didn’t make it any easier for me to concentrate.
Hating how raw I felt with her words, I hopped off the rock, trying to get as much distance from her as possible. “Gotta go.”
“Wait,” Devyn said as she rushed after me, taking my hand in hers. I almost jumped at her touch, and not only because her hands were like ice. Something pulsed between our fingers, something I’d never felt with anyone else. It was weird, almost uncomfortable. Without thinking, I pulled my gloves off, placing them around her hands before she could say anything. She looked down at her now-gloved hands and frowned, as if no one had ever done something like that for her before. Maybe it was weird, but I went with it. Her wide brown eyes looked up at me. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything like that. Truthfully…” She sighed. “Truthfully, I’ve always been a little jealous of you.”
“Of me?” I laughed.
“Is that so hard to believe?” Devyn spit out. “You’re so… nice . Everyone likes you! No one thinks you’re mean or rude.”
“I don’t think you’re those things.” Devyn narrowed her eyes. “Anymore.”
“It’s fine.” She shook her head. “I know I can be abrasive at times. It’s not like I try to be that way, but I just hate being talked down to. If I don’t make people see me, then they treat me like a kid.”
“You are a kid,” I smiled, stepping closer to her.
“Semantics,” she grinned back at me.
I shook my head. “Look, I know we’ve never gotten along before, but maybe we could try something new. Maybe try not hating each other?”
“Like a truce? ”
“Yeah, something like that.”
She paused, searching my expression for any clues of deception. Finally, after a long, tense moment, she nodded. “Fine.” She held out her hand. “But only if I get to call you Grayson.”
I placed my palm in hers. “Never gonna happen, Devy.”