“I’m not sure if there ever was a relationship,” I admitted, letting my head fall back against the wall, “and if there was, there isn’t anymore.”

It should be because he’d stolen a car, or he’d been arrested more times than I could count on two hands, or because he personified everything we girls were taught to stay away from since we were grade schoolers. But it wasn’t any of these reasons. I knew Jude and I had no relationship because if he had indeed turned himself in, he hadn’t bothered to call me first. Not to check to make sure I’d made it home safe or to explain what the hell had happened Saturday night. If we had anything of a relationship, Jude would have cared enough to contact me, but he hadn’t.

“I’m sorry, Lucy,” Sawyer said, turning his head and looking at me.

“No, you’re not,” I said, laughing about the fact that Sawyer was the one I’d open up to about Jude, but I knew it had something to do with the way his face was always warm and his eyes never judgmental.

“I’m sorry for you and the pain this has caused you,” he said. “But I don’t feel sorry for Ryder. He can kiss my ass the next time I see him.”

Another dagger right through the left ventricle. “I’d like to see that.”

“Stay tuned,” he said, looking off into the distance, “you just might. Jude Ryder might finally get a dose of his own medicine before we all head off to college and he stays behind as a waste of space lifer.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The second week of school passed by ten times less dramatically as the first week. In fact, I felt like I was settling into a pattern of normal when I worked my way through the metal detectors Friday morning. I was getting As in all my classes—kind of hard not to when it was one times one equals one and spelling words like question and mystery were as hard as my senior year got.

I’d also joined the dance team, ignoring Taylor’s warnings that my popularity would drop by at least fifty percent, and joined the Environmental club, which she said would drop my popularity by the other fifty percent.

I was now zero percent popular.

I’d also managed to put up some boundaries between Miss Taylor and friends—which they, on most days, tried to respect—and mom and I had even had a couple other mostly amiable talks.

Life hadn’t felt this normal in years, and while I’d mourned normal for so long I should have been reveling in it, I wasn’t. I knew that had something to do with a certain someone I still hadn’t heard from, and a certain someone I should avoid from here until the grave, but as I’d learned the hard way, the heart wants what the heart wants. And it wanted Jude.

But I wouldn’t let it have him, much like a parent who wouldn’t let a child have a second piece of cake because they know it’s not what’s best for their sweet-tooth loving, impulsive child. I couldn’t let my heart have what it wanted most because I knew it would lead to the destruction of it.

“Good morning, beautiful.”

I elbowed Sawyer as we settled into our morning routine. “Go away, ugly, and don’t come back until you come up with a better line.”

“Just you wait, I’ve been working on a few and I think you’re going to be rather impressed come next Monday,” he replied, handing me my morning mocha he’d started bringing a few days ago.

“Unlikely,” I said.

“You calling me ugly every morning might actually bruise my delicate ego if I wasn’t sure you were only teasing,” he said, nodding his head at a couple of his football teammates as they passed by.

“Or if you weren’t positively certain you weren’t ugly.”

“Are you saying you think I’m hot?” he asked, grinning a wicked one over at me.

“If that’s what you heard, you need a couple of hearing aids,” I said, taking a sip of coffee. “I was merely confirming you are not, in fact, ugly.”

“I think that’s the worst compliment I’ve ever been given,” he said, slinging an arm around me and pulling me in.

And the whole easy relationship Sawyer and I navigated most of the time just ended, like it always did, when he tried pulling me into some awkward embrace or touched me with a certain look in his eyes.

“How’s the ankle, Diamond?” a voice called out from behind us. A voice that froze my feet to the ground, but melted me in every other place.

Coming around us, Jude crossed his arms, glaring at Sawyer’s arm hung around me before looking at me. I’d never been stared at with such a mix of emotions. I’d never been stared at in a way that made my breathing irregular and painful all at once.

Lifting a shoulder, Sawyer glanced down at his wrapped ankle. “It’ll heal up all right.”

Jude’s eyes didn’t leave mine. “I was talking about your other ankle.”

Sawyer paused, clearly thrown off guard. “It’s fine,” he answered.

“Do you want it to remain that way?” Jude asked, stepping forward, still watching me. Other than a bruise shadowing his cheekbone, he looked the same. I don’t know what I expected, but it just seemed like a person who’d spent almost a week in prison would come out looking different, and maybe they did, but for someone who’d been to jail a grand total of thirteen times now, it was just another day in the park.

“You’ve got your arm on something of mine,” Jude said, his eyes flashing when he looked at Sawyer.