“I’m the reason Brogan was in the middle of the street in the middle of the night. Arrow should hate me for that. How could being around him be good for me?”
She tilts her head and squeezes my shoulder. “I thought maybe he’d help you live your life instead of hiding from it.”
“I’m not hiding.” The words come out sharper than I intend.
“Don’t be mad. I’m being selfish. I never see you anymore. I miss you.”
“You’re not selfish.” I drop my gaze to my hands. I hoped the fresh air would do me good, but the night is hot and I can’t breathe much better out here than I could in there. “And you’re not the first person to say I’m not really living. Arrow has said the same thing.” If I’ve been avoiding my life it isn’t a conscious choice, but I understand why they see it that way. I didn’t think it mattered. Who cares if I just go through the motions? Who cares if I never feel sincerely happy again?
I know Bailey cares. And I guess Arrow does, too. I’m not sure what to make of that.
“Do you ever wish you’d picked Arrow?” she asks softly.
Lifting my head, I study the wispy clouds floating across the starry night sky. “I don’t know. All I know is that I wish we hadn’t been out there that night. I wish Brogan could still laugh and Nic could still be my overprotective big brother. I don’t think of what would have happened if I’d picked Arrow.” I swallow hard, pushing down tears before they surge too high. “I think, what would things be like if I’d stayed away from both of them like I said I would when I met them? Brogan would be himself. We wouldn’t have been out there that night. And Nicholas would still be alive.”
“Are you okay, Mee? I mean, do you need to talk to someone?”
“I’m talking to you.”
“You’ve been through a lot. No one expects you to be Wonder Woman. I’m just saying . . .” She finds my hand and squeezes. “If you ever think not living would be easier than living, call me first, okay?”
“Okay,” I say. I swallow hard. I remember talking to her about Romeo and Juliet the night I met Arrow. We laughed, remembering what an idiot Juliet was. I never understood her before. Not really. But now I can imagine what it was like to wake up in that tomb and see Romeo dead beside her. The guilt. The grief. I’m not looking for a dagger, and I don’t want to die. But there are days—maybe more than I want to admit—when I don’t want to live either. “I’m not Juliet,” I whisper. “Don’t worry about that.”
“Damn straight you’re not,” she says, “because you’ve got me. You wake up from the poison and instead of grabbing the dagger to stab into your heart when you see Romeo is dead, I drag your ass out of there and point out that the friar is pretty fucking fly, too.”
“The friar?” That is so Bailey it makes me laugh, only it’s not the forced laugh I’ve been pushing through my lips for months. It’s real, and something brightens inside the darkness in my chest. “If only Shakespeare had given Juliet someone like you.”
“Would have been a better play.”
We grin at each other and settle into silence. It’s so pretty out here with the stars and the lights reflecting off the pool.
“Dinner was great,” someone says behind us, and just like that the moment of tranquility fizzles into thin air. Sebastian closes the doors behind him and takes the steps down to the patio. “But I have to admit, you were the last person I expected to see here tonight.”
I shrug. “Now you know how I feel. Why did you let me think you were a mechanic?”
He unbuttons his shirt sleeves and rolls them to his elbows. “Because I am a mechanic, Mia. Dad’s owned the shop all my life, and I practically grew up there.”
“You made me believe—”
“You assumed,” he says, his voice gentler than the truth. “Not all of us are like Woodison and get to play our way through college and have everything we need handed to us.”
I tense. “He’s not like that.”
“And how much do you know about what Woodison is and isn’t like?” He turns his head and scans the brick façade of the backside of the house. “You two must be pretty cozy living here together.”