his hair looks bronze, as though he’s the bust I teased him about earlier today. I can’t quite believe that was only hours ago.
“I… don’t know if you realize how much you’ve helped me.” He says it to the frayed knees of his jeans instead of to me. “All of these years. I couldn’t afford not to step up my game. It wasn’t just that you kept me on my toes or made me better. Competing with you, you in general… You helped me stay focused. Helped keep me from letting everything with my dad get too overwhelming. I just… I could have so easily drowned in that. And you did it without even trying.”
It breaks my heart all over again.
“Neil,” I say quietly. “I don’t even know what to say to that.”
“You’re welcome?” he suggests, and I laugh, nudging him with my elbow. There’s barely any space between us now, and when he tilts his head to look at me, his eyes pull me into something thrilling, something intense. I don’t know how I missed it before.
“You’re welcome. And thank you. Again,” I say, then charge forward with the secret I’ve been keeping since his house. “So I’ve been thinking. If we win, you should keep the money.”
“Rowan—”
I knew he’d protest, so I cut him off immediately. “And you should one hundred percent not use it for your dad. He did something horrible not just to that kid, but to your whole family. To you.” The words tumble out smoothly now. “You should use it for yourself. For some nice things. Change your last name, and maybe you could study abroad, or you could get a suit at… wherever they sell nice suits.”
He’s quiet for a few moments. I’d be positive I said completely the wrong thing if he weren’t still nearly touching me, a whisper of space between his hip and mine.
“Now I don’t know what to say,” he says, and forces a laugh. “Which, as you know, is unusual for me. I don’t know if I could accept all of it, but thank you. That… sounds really wonderful.” He heaves a sigh, and then speaks again. “I’m scared,” he says, and the words are so soft. I could tuck myself in with a blanket made of I’m scared. “I’ve never said that to anyone before, but I’m really fucking scared of what happens when I leave. I want to leave so badly, and yet… I get worried that I’m not as independent as I think I am. I’ll get to school and I won’t know how to work the laundry machine, even though I’ve been doing my own laundry for years. Or I won’t know how to get around the city, and I’ll get lost. My mom seems happy with Christopher, but I’m worried she’ll overwork herself. I’m worried my sister won’t be able to outrun it all. Or that wherever I am, I won’t be able to get away from my father.
“Sometimes I worry I’ll turn out like him. I wonder if that kind of thing is genetic. If I’m doomed to fuck up as much as he did, if there’s this violent streak inside me.”
“That’s fucking terrifying,” I say, tapping his shoe with mine, letting him know he’s wrong, that he’s not doomed. “And you are nothing like that.”
This boy is gentle to his core. He spars with his words, not his fists. He is so close that I could use the tip of my nose to connect each freckle on his cheeks. Forget counting. His mouth looks soft, and I wonder how he’d kiss—slow and deliberate or hard and desperate, if he’d grip my waist or my hips. Would he be measured, each motion of his lips plotted out beforehand? Or would he turn off his mind, let his body take over?
The thought of him losing control like that is almost too much for my poor brain to handle.
“You don’t have to talk about it,” I say. “If you don’t want to.”
“That’s the thing. I think I do. I’ve not talked about it for so long, and with you… for some reason, it’s not as hard as I thought it would be.”
“I want to make a dirty joke right now, but I don’t want to embarrass you.”
He nudges my shoulder with his. It’s a friendly teasing kind of gesture that makes me think thoroughly unfriendly thoughts. And our legs—still almost touching. It feels somehow more intimate than our dance in the library. I have