Chapter One
Chapter
One
Six years later
“Are you here yet?”
I’m standing in a stranger’s bathroom, yell-whispering into my phone.
“Your location shows you’re in an alleyway.” My sister, Ramona, squeaks into my ear, her voice high-pitched and stressed. “He didn’t actually ditch you in an alleyway, did he, Reagan?”
“Jesus, Mona, no.” I try to peek through the tiny window in the shower, but the glass is frosted and opaque.
I scowl. “It’s a black apartment building…
I think.” I squint, trying to recall the details.
Through the fog of my memories, I remember only a shining neon sign piercing the cloudy sky: a donut illuminated like a halo.
“There’s a donut place across the street!
” Last night, I considered going there instead of following Tyler—Taylor? Trevor?—up to his apartment.
“Oh! Yes! Okay, I see it. I’m here.”
“I’ll be right down.”
Three naked bulbs poke out from the wall above the mirror, though only two of them light up when I flip the switch.
The stark white light is unforgiving, highlighting the eyeliner and mascara smeared under my eyes.
My outfit, at least, still kills: black sports bra, faux-leather miniskirt, chunky boots, and mesh crop top that shows off the black floral tattoos that spiral up my left arm.
It’s a great look, but perhaps not suitable for a Sunday morning.
My grown-out curtain bangs bend in awkward swoops toward my ears, and my dark hair poofs out in a cloud around my head and shoulders.
On my best days, Ramona tells me it looks like a cool, artsy shag.
On days like today, well—the layers just make it look like a huge mess, and the dark maroon dye is half faded.
I lick the tips of my middle fingers, swipe them under my eyes, and twist my hair into a knot at the back of my neck.
I wrinkle my nose at an old toothbrush lying near the faucet, but after some digging under Tyler-Taylor-Trevor’s sink, I find half a bottle of mouthwash behind a basket of razors and Q-tips.
It’ll do. I take a mouthful, spit, then march out of his bathroom and down the hallway to his bedroom.
As I lean in the doorway and stare at how his bare ass and one leg poke out from under his navy comforter, I feel the familiar urge to simply walk out. Why wake him? He probably needs his sleep.
My phone buzzes in my hand.
Mona:
hello???
does he have you trapped? do i need to call the police???
Time to go. I refuse to sneak out—I’ve got no reason to be embarrassed.
I rap my knuckles twice, hard, against his bedroom door.
He wakes immediately, his shaved head popping up from under the covers.
I’m pleasantly surprised to see that he’s just as handsome in the weak morning sunshine as he was in the flashing blue lights of the club.
“I’m heading out,” I announce.
He squints blearily at me. “Okay?” He’s barely awake. “Do you…want some coffee or anything?”
Admittedly, I’d kill for coffee, but not here.
“I’m good,” I say, propping one hand against my hip. “Thanks for last night. I really enjoyed it.” And I had, for the most part. If nothing else, he’d made up for a lack of skill with stubborn enthusiasm, and I always admire that quality in people. Stubborn enthusiasm has gotten me far.
He pulls the comforter back from the other side of the bed in an invitation, his white teeth flashing against his olive skin. “Doesn’t have to end so soon, sweetheart.”
“My ride’s here.”
He shrugs easily. “Fair enough. What was your name again?”
I offer him a sweet smile and a small, fluttering wave. “See you around.”
I hear a huff of a laugh behind me as I stride back through the narrow hallway and into the living room, passing his mounted TV and a sad little bookshelf with a few scattered pristine-looking paperbacks.
Untouched. Still, the ghost of a smile passes over my lips as a piece of Mona’s advice regarding one-night stands comes to mind: If they don’t own a bookshelf, don’t sleep with them.
Not that Mona’s one for having one-night stands, happily partnered as she is.
But I’ve got rules for these things, and she helped me create at least half of them.
I text Mona their address, because I never bring them to my apartment.
Ideally, I leave right after, but failing that, I leave at least before 10 a.m. If they don’t have a bookshelf, I run home.
I always say goodbye, but I don’t get friendly.
Never mind that the hookups have happened only a handful of times since the Cataclysm—I never break the rules.
During the elevator ride down, I stand in silence next to an elderly woman and her panting pug, and I let her shuffle out ahead of me before following her into the sun.
The crisp early autumn air is a shock to my bare legs and stomach, motivating me to stride quickly to where Mona leans halfway out the window of her ladybug-red Kia Soul, crooning to the woman’s dog.
“Hi, sweetie pie! Good morning, little pumpkin!” Twin golden braids hang past her shoulders, and her headscarf is patterned with bright green flowers.
I share a cringe with the elderly woman as she looks back and forth between me and Mona, trying to connect the dots between my ray-of-sunshine sister and me.
I flash her a smile she doesn’t return and climb into the Soul’s passenger seat.
An upbeat song I don’t recognize bubbles cheerfully through the speakers, but Mona’s already talking a mile a minute over the music as she pulls out into the street.
“Well, how was it? His apartment tower looks nice! It’s got to be new, right?
Maybe he just moved here over the summer. Does he go to Yale?”
It’s always this way with her, but at this hour, I can barely string a sentence together to keep up. “Don’t think so. It was fun.”
Mona gives me a knowing look. “Coffee?”
I sag into the seat. “Please.”
“You got it.”
Now that fall semester is in full swing, downtown New Haven is usually bustling with students—once the city wakes up, that is. This early, the streets are still wonderfully sleepy.
It’s not always worth the parking hassle to come downtown, but Mona and I love finding excuses to visit.
On one side of the street, glossy new apartment towers like Tyler-Taylor-Trevor’s stretch toward the pink sky.
On the other, Yale’s pale castle-like walls peek between the lush leaves that have only just begun to change with the season.
Any other day—when I’m not wearing a wrinkled miniskirt at 9 a.m.—Mona would just park in the first space we found, and we’d spend the morning wandering the streets, window-shopping and slurping down coffee.
But thankfully, she pulls into the tiny parking lot of one of our favorite cafés—tucked in between a yarn shop and a new gaming store—and tosses me a cardigan from her back seat.
I laugh and throw it on. The chunky blue-and-green-striped knit doesn’t quite go with the rest of my outfit, but it’s the best I’ve got.
We walk in, and I hover behind Mona like a ghost as she orders our favorites before finding us a table in the corner of the shop.
My sister knows me well and gives me grace as my latte slowly brings me back to life.
She chirps through a dozen conversation topics—the new instructor at the yoga studio where she teaches, the cute beekeeper who’s started vending at the farmers market, Mom’s latest kitchen disaster—and takes all of my hmms, mms, and ahhs as the signs of encouragement and interest that I intend them to be.
Once I’ve downed at least half of my coffee, she draws me back in. “Well, would you see him again?”
“Who?”
Her eyes bug a little. “The guy from last night, Rea.”
He was perfectly cute, sure, but—“I don’t want to see him again,” I say before taking another sip. “I never see them again. ‘Don’t get friendly,’ remember?”
Mona wrinkles her nose. That rule was one of my ideas, not hers. “You could see them again without getting friendly, though,” she argues. “I’m sure plenty of people would jump at the chance to keep things casual.”
I hum noncommittally. “Maybe. But I’m not there yet.”
She gives me a soft look. “Reagan, it’s been almost a year since you two broke up.” She curls her fingers around my wrist. “Not every guy will be like Owen.”
I’m suddenly very focused on picking at where the saucer under my coffee mug is chipped. “I know.”
“And not every guy will be like Wes—”
“I know,” I snap.
Nope, I haven’t consumed nearly enough coffee for one of Mona’s pitches to get back out there and date again—and it’s too early for a stiff drink. But not even a hundred drinks would make me want to talk about my ex, or…him.
Even after all these months, the reminder of Owen’s betrayal still stings. In college, he had seemed so sweet and steady, and when we both moved to New Haven after graduation, it just made sense that our friendship would develop into something more. I still don’t know where I went wrong.
Regardless, it’s the last thing I want to discuss. I need to change the subject.
“Hey, do you want to stop in there?” I bounce my head to the right, where the craft store is. “You need more yarn for Mom’s Christmas scarf, don’t you?” Mona always plans these things early.
She purses her lips, but I watch as the corner of her mouth twitches. Twice. I’ve almost distracted her, but then I notice her foot bouncing under the table. Has it been doing that this whole time?
Something’s on her mind.
“Actually…” She draws the word out in a harmonic singsong as she rocks forward.
“I do need more yarn, but—No. No, I want to talk to you about something else.” Her mouth bends down in a frown.
“It has been a year, Rea. And sure, you don’t have to date until you’re ready, but…
” Her head tilts to the left. “Can we go into Game Knight?”
I don’t know what she’s talking about, or how these two things are connected. “Where?”
“Game Knight. The game store next door,” she clarifies.