Page 71 of Room to Breathe

I actually didn’t know that, and that made me sad. What else didn’t I know? “And Caroline and Ava?” I asked. “What are they doing? Anything new?” I missed them too. I thought it sucked that I was the one who’d lost all my friendships in our falling-out, not him. But I was the one who had become the bad friend, the delinquent, so it made sense.

“Ava is taking a clothing design course online.” He passed me half of the protein bar.

“She’d be good at that,” I said, taking it.

“It’s hit-or-miss. She’s designed some pretty wild things, and then some of her stuff is amazing.” He spent the next little while describing some of her most outrageous designs while I asked questions about them, and we finished off our minuscule breakfast.

“If I could draw, I would sketch some out for you,” he finally said.

I took a deep breath. “I bet they’re all really cool. I’m glad she’s found a way to show off her talent. And Caroline?”

“Caroline has been hanging out with Luca a lot.”

“What’s Luca like?” I asked. Caroline had been talking to him since that Thanksgiving week bonfire, but I’d only met him once. I’d seen them around campus a lot lately.

“Perfect for her,” Beau said, inspecting his hands.

“In what way?” I asked.

“He likes to run. They do miles after school on the beach. He gets her offbeat humor and shyness. He makes goofy jokes too. But he also balances her out. You know how she obsesses about certain things. He’s more relaxed. You’d like him.”

“Do you like him?”

“I do.” He stood up to wash the chocolate off his fingers.

I just licked the chocolate off of mine. “That’s good. You never liked Cody.”

“You never liked Harper.”

“I liked Harper a lot. I just didn’t think she was right for you. She didn’t get you.”

“Well, I feel the same about Cody.” He dried his hands on a paper towel.

“That’s not true. Youneverliked Cody. With or without me.”

He turned around and leaned back against the countertop. My chest ached as I stared at him. He looked so beautiful standing there, a curl flopping over his forehead; his blue eyes weren’t looking at me in anger like they had for several months. But that didn’t matter—I knew everything would change as soon as we said the things we needed to say. The change in his demeanor was already starting.

He rubbed at the back of his neck. “That’s because Cody is not a nice person. He…”

“Fails tests, skips school, and breaks rules?” I finished for him.

“No, those things wouldn’t make him a bad person. He’s mean, Indy.”

“He wasn’t mean. He was fun.”

“He picks on the underclassmen. He runs over people’s things with his skateboard. Thinks it’s funny. He spray-painted the windows of Tyler’s parents’ business. That little sandwich shop by the bay.”

I hugged a knee to my chest, looking up at him. “How do you know it was him?”

“Because he wrote his name. Except instead of anohe used au.”

I scrunched my nose. That wasmyinside joke. He didn’t evenknow what that meant. “I don’t think he’s intentionally mean. He’s laid-back. He made me happy for a little while. Got my mind off everything. Made me forget things.”

“He yelled at Brady in the parking lot.”

“He did?” I asked.

He nodded. “He’s intentionally mean, Indy. And he dragged you into his stupid antics.”