Page 44 of Room to Breathe

I shook my head. “It’ll be freezing.”

“And?”

“And I’m too smart for freezing.” I’d already forgotten a sweatshirt. I wasn’t going to jump into the ocean.

“What does that make me?” he asked, dropping his pants. He wore a long pair of underwear that pretty much looked like a swimsuit.

I glanced over my shoulder, suddenly wondering if the whole beach was watching us. Nobody seemed to care. They were either sitting on large blankets or standing around the fire.

I turned my attention back to Cody, who was walking backward toward the water.

“I hope you can swim, because I’m not rescuing you,” I said.

“But what if I need rescuing?”

“You’ll be out of luck,” I said.

He laughed, a short barking laugh. And then he walked straight into the ocean. When he was knee-deep, he held his arms out to the sides and fell backward. He came up with a holler and then was on his feet and running straight for me.

I wasn’t sure why I didn’t back away.

When he stood in front of me, he shook his head and water sprayed all over me. I squeezed my eyes shut and yelped, a smile on my face. Then there were wet arms around me, pulling me against him and soaking my shirt. I gasped, my eyes flying open. I took a step backward.

“You looked ready for that,” he said.

“I wasn’t,” I said.

“Are you now?” he asked.

I swallowed. I wanted to feel something. Anything besides this churning anger that had been rumbling through my body for the past week. My heart thudded heavily in my chest. The wet body print he’d left on me moments ago made me shiver. I nodded. He leaned forward and kissed me with ice-cold lips.

Chapter 19

Now

My entire chest went warmwith Beau’s words, my heart picking up speed. I missed him too. I could admit that out loud. He just did. I took a breath in through my nose and then opened my mouth to speak. But then a lump of sadness formed in my throat, and my eyes dropped from his to the floor. He missed the old me. The person I was before my life imploded. I was different now. He wouldn’t like the new version.

“You don’t know me anymore,” I said.

The door handle was pressing into my back. I pushed against his chest and he took a step backward, his hand dropping from the wet paper towel on my neck. I freed it from beneath my hair and threw it into the garbage. My toes on the floor felt cold and prickly.

“Are you saying that the person who fails tests and skips school and breaks rules is the real you?” He crossed his arms, letting me know exactly how he felt about the person he’d just described.

Me. The person he’d just described was me. Maybe? I hardlyknew myself before all this, and I definitely didn’t know myself now. If this was the person I’d become under intense pressure, then maybe it was who I’d been all along. Maybe pressure revealed truth. “Maybe it is.”

“Indy,” he said on a sigh.

“Who was I before, then?” I asked. “The girl who only cared about seeing a letter on a paper? Her name rise in the ranks?”

“You were always more than your grades,” he said.

“Was I? How? That’s the only thing I ever did. That I ever had.” I picked a mint off the counter and turned it over in my hand several times before unwrapping it and putting it in my mouth.

“You’re funny and smart and kind and everyone liked you.”

I laughed a little. “Liked. That’s the key word, isn’t it?”

He pressed his eyes closed for several beats and then turned and marched into the back stall.