On The Rebound (Steinbeck U #1) - L.A. Cotton Page 0,19
with his family.
With me.
I all but ran from the house, spilling out into the bright Californian sun, the way the tears flowed freely down my cheeks.
Callum’s car was already gone.
Asshole.
Kicking off my sneakers, I made my way down the beach, letting my toes sink into the warm sand. I pulled out my cell phone and dialed Madison’s number.
“Hey, girl! How’s SU treating you?”
“It’s... okay.” I sniffled, rubbing my eyes with the back of my hand.
“Oh no.” She sighed. “What happened?”
“My brother and dad, they’re just the same...” Anguish twisted my insides. “I don’t know why I thought... God, I’m such a fool.”
“Calli, you are not a fool. They’re your family.”
“Unlucky for me,” I grumbled.
“Want to talk about it?”
Dropping to the sand, I wrapped an arm around my knee and rested my chin there. “Zach’s here.”
“Excuse me?” she shrieked over the line and I moved the cell away from my ear. “Zach as in Zachary Messiah?”
“The one and only.” My chest squeezed at his name. It always did.
It probably always would.
I figured first love was supposed to leave that kind of mark. An everlasting stain on your soul. But I’d underestimated just how much it would affect me still every time I heard his name.
“What... But how... I don’t understand.”
“Something happened to Declan,” I whispered.
“What, like an accident?”
“Yeah, he’s in a coma. How did we not know this?” Steinbeck was only three towns over from Bay View. Zach and Declan still had family there.
But as soon as high school was over, I’d been checked out from life and Madison had been off cruising the tropics with her parents. And Zach and his family hadn’t lived in Bay View for almost two years by then.
“I can’t believe Callum never said anything,” she said.
“Tell me about it.”
When I’d cornered him on campus and confronted him about everything, he’d acted like I was the one with the problem. I didn’t know what I hated more: that he kept it from me because he thought I didn’t need to know or that he was right.
I didn’t need to know.
I wasn’t friends with Zach anymore. As far as Callum was concerned, we were no one to each other. Old childhood friends who grew apart and went our separate ways.
Except, we didn’t grow apart.
“So what are you going to do?”
“Honestly?” I curled my feet into the sand, reveling in how the tiny grains felt against my skin. “I don’t know. I was prepared to handle Callum being here... but Zach?”
“Have you spoken to him?”
“We’ve shared a few words.” It came out clipped.
“Ouch, that bad?”
“It wasn’t good.” I let out a heavy sigh, remembering how angry he’d been at Muds. “I just wish I knew...” I swallowed the words.
“Maybe this is your chance.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah, maybe this is the universe’s way of finally giving you some closure.”
“Really?” I balked. “Because it sure doesn’t feel like it. It feels like the universe’s way of fucking with me a little more.”
Madison gasped. “Calliope James, you kiss your mother with that mouth? Shit, I didn’t mean... God, I’m an idiot. Sorry.”
Soft laughter fell from my lips. “It’s okay, I’m okay.”
“Phew,” she breathed. “But I think I have a point. What are the chances that you and Zach would end up at the same college?”
Pretty slim considering he wasn’t supposed to be there.
I smoothed my fingers over my temples and down my face. “He hates me, Madison.”
“Well, maybe this your chance to find out why... or in the very least, it’s a chance to show him you’ve moved on. Go out, meet boys… hell, get laid. It’s college.” Her voice turned somber. “She’d want you to have all those rite-of-passage experiences, Calli.”
“I know, I just...”
“You’re scared.”
“I was going to say out of practice.”
“Hey, it could be worse. You could be a virgin.” She chuckled. “You went through something huge this year, something like that is bound to leave scars. But life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, Calli, it’s about learning to dance in the rain.”
“You know I don’t dance.” Strangled laughter bubbled in my chest.
“Maybe you should start. It’s college, babe. College. You don’t owe anyone anything. Your dad, Callum, even Zach. This is your fresh start. I know it’s complicated and I know you’re probably planning all the ways you can avoid them all,”—I was, but she didn’t need to know that—“but this is your life. Don’t waste it by sitting on the sidelines and watching everyone else live theirs.”