Click to Subscribe - By L. M. Augustine Page 0,34

each other very much they eat pizza together. It’s very romantic.”

“Knew it all along,” Cat says proudly. I shoot her a look that reads, “You are so weird.” She responds by ever-so-eloquently sticking her tongue out at me.

There’s a pause. Something crashes in the house behind us, a falling lamp or a giant textbook knocked off a table or something. Out here, I feel nothing but calmness, though, and even with the racing of my heart, I know I can’t feel anything but it when I’m around Cat.

“So,” I say, holding out my hand. “Friends?”

For an instant, Cat just stares at my outstretched hand, and I feel more coolness rush all around me. I can even taste the dew in the air, feel the softness to the night sky. “Okay. Friends,” Cat says after a while, and she shakes my hands.

She starts to turn away after that, whether to go to sleep or return to working on the car I do not know. I start to turn back, too, shoving my freezing hands into my pockets, but before I can move Cat spins back around. Without a moment’s hesitation she leans into me, her lips hovering a millimeter from my ear, whispering, “We can be friends for now. But West Ryder, if you think this means I won’t fight for you with every last breath I have, you’re in for a hell of a surprise.”

Then she lets her hand slip from my arm, spins back around, and heads inside.

I stand there for the longest time, just staring at the spot where she was standing. Her touch sends a tingling sensation up my arm, her words making my heart pound harder and harder. I feel it all, but I don’t know what to do.

Then, through the darkness, I smile.

Chapter 10

The next few days roll by quickly, and I find myself more focused on school and my vlog than anything else. I post another video, this one about relationships and euphemisms (I even include “having chocolate” as a potential euphemism, no thanks to Cat.) Cat and I talk here and there, mostly short conversations in the hallway or during lunch about why Albert Einstein must love ice cream or her lecturing me on the origin of lettuce, but even so, everything still feels weird between us. Friendlier, yes, but not quite… normal.

When I lay eyes on her now, it’s like I’m looking at her for the first time. I no longer see her as just my amazing and hilarious best friend who I can’t possibly go without, but also as a normal girl with a great smile and an air about her that draws me in. I notice things, too. How her hair cascades down the back of her neck. The way her lips move when she talks. The light in her eyes, so gorgeous, like a sea of deep blue. How pretty she looks when she laughs.

I’ve never noticed that before. But now? Now it’s as clear as low tide at a tropical ocean.

On top of it all, I’ve been worrying. Worrying that this whole “go back to being normal” thing won’t work out, worrying that the mega awkwardness will blow up in our faces, worrying that Cat and I will only have another setback that sets us further and further apart.

But worse, I worry that I’m getting in too deep, that maybe, just maybe, I will fall for her—and that will be the end of everything else we have.

I hope like hell it doesn’t happen.

Soon the days grow colder, shorter, and the perfect season of autumn slowly melts into winter.

Things with my dad aren’t getting any better any time soon, but at least we still aren’t arguing. I still feel the need to do something to fix our relationship, though, to not just sit on my hands and wait. But what else is there? Therapy? He would probably kick me out if I so much as bring it up.

I don’t talk to Cat as much as I used to during these early winter days, either, but we do at least talk. We can even be completely normal on occasion, forgetting the awkward between us, and at this point, that’s all I can ask for. Her. Her comfort. Her warmth.

Still, I miss her. I do. I really really do. I wish I could go back in time, before all this happened, before love screwed me over once again. I want to go back when everything was so safe, when I still