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She exhales with a huge grin. The next song on my playlist starts up, and she holds her hand out for mine. “Friends can dance, right?”

“If so, then I’ll be the best damn friend you’ve ever had.” I grab her hand and pull her back to me. She bites her lower lip, looking up at me through those long lashes. I swear, the girl turns me to goo every time. And that’s why I can’t resist saying, “Happy Valentine’s Day, Marisa.”

That smile of hers returns as she rocks to the music. Her cheeks flush again, making her skin nearly as red as her shirt. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

It’s a little terrifying, how one person can knock you clean off your feet before you even saw her coming. It’s also pretty freakin’ awesome.

chapter ten

Momma and I went to church this morning, like we do every Sunday. I took her home and drove off to meet the guys at The Strike Zone, also like I do every Sunday. When I came home, I found Momma locked in her room. Through her closed door, she told me that she needed some time alone. So without another word, I grabbed my keys and walked right back out of the house. I wasn’t touching that with a ten-foot pole.

See, today would’ve been my parents’ anniversary.

I wish there was something I could do to help. I wish I could suck it up and talk to her about what happened because I’m sure she
does
need to talk. Dad was her best friend. He was mine, too, for a long time. But that doesn’t mean I can forget what he did. He left us here alone.

The worst part of it all is that I didn’t see it coming. Neither did Momma. It literally came out of nowhere. Maybe it’d be easier if something had led up to it or if something catastrophic had happened right before. Then maybe,
maybe
it would have made sense. But things were perfect.
He
was perfect. And then he was gone.

The sun’s already disappeared for the day when I turn onto the main road leading through town.
George Strait croons through my truck’s speakers as I stop at a red light and flop back against the headrest, squeezing my eyes closed. The green light brightens my windshield, and I hit the gas, speeding through the intersection. But the second I see
her
walking in my direction, I slam on the brakes.

Even with my headlights shining right on her, Marisa doesn’t seem to notice that a truck just skidded to a stop in front of her. She continues down the sidewalk, with her head down and hood pulled up. What the hell is she doing out here? I honk the horn, and she jumps, finally looking at the truck. I release the brake and inch forward a little, pulling up right next to her. She crosses her arms as I hit the passenger window button.

“What’s a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this all by yourself?” I call, leaning across the center console. All I get is a blank stare. ’Kay, so she’s possessed. Awesome. “Seriously, you shouldn’t be walkin’ out here alone. You need a ride?”

She shakes her head. All she’s wearing is her Braves jacket, so she’s got to be freezing, unless she’s got an industrial-strength wool sweater on under it.

“I feel like walking,” she calls back. “No big deal. You go ahead.”

“Where’s your car?”

She jerks her thumb over her shoulder. “I left it at the grill.”

And she’s been walking ever since? We’re a solid mile from the grill. A chill shoots through me. I crank the heat up a notch. “Come on. I’ll drive you back there, or I can just give you a ride home if you want. Aren’t your parents freaking out?”

“I don’t want to go home right now. I’m fine. My parents are cool as long as I text them every half hour.” She sighs. “We have an understanding tonight.”

What, is she planning on staying out all night or something? I put the truck in park. “Do they know you left your car in a parking lot and you’re
walking
?” Her silence is the only answer I need. “Marisa, I can’t leave knowing you’re out here alone. As in, my conscience will eat me alive for the rest of the night. It’s thirty degrees outside. Please get in the truck.”

And I won’t even tell her that drunk assholes still wander the streets in small towns like this. If anything, they’re worse here.

She levels me with a glare I didn’t even know she was capable of. Yikes. “I don’t want to go home,” she repeats, pointing a finger at me as she inches toward the truck. “Got it? Promise you won’t try and trick me.”

I hold up my left hand, placing the right over my chest. “Swear it. If it makes you feel better, I don’t want to go home right now, either. We can be homeless together for a few hours.”

Her face tightens. I understand wanting alone time, but walking by herself in below-freezing weather isn’t the way to get it. Finally, she sighs again and opens the door, climbing inside. She stares straight ahead, silent.

Okay, then. At least I won that battle.

I shift the truck into gear and continue down the road, unsure of where to go next. I know where I
wanted
to go a few minutes ago, but now I have unexpected cargo. I don’t want her thinking about being the topic of some creeper Lifetime movie.

Momma watches them. Shut up.

We drive for a solid ten minutes before Marisa finally says, “Where’re we going?”

“Where were you heading?” I ask with a quick glance over.

She shrugs, still staring out the windshield. “No idea. I just wanted to be alone for a while.”

Everyone wants to be alone tonight. I stop at the caution light, which casts a yellow glow across her
face. There are streaks of missing makeup on her cheeks, and with the black smudges beneath her eyes, it’s clear where they came from. What I wish I knew was why, and how I can make it better. My fingers twitch with the urge to wipe the tear stains away, but I grip the steering wheel instead.
Friends. She wants to be friends. Rein it in
.

“Austin.” She looks at me, one corner of her mouth turned up in the tiniest hint of a smile. “Are you going to stare at me all night, or take me somewhere?”

My heart leaps into my throat. I’d be perfectly happy with staring at her all night, if she’s giving me her permission. “Are you okay?” I ask.

She inhales deeply, looking back to the windshield. “Honestly? I’m kind of a mess tonight.”

Yeah, I can’t resist anymore. Using my thumb, I wipe her cheek, clearing it of a tear that slipped from her eye. “You say you want some quiet time?” I ask. Head still down, she nods. “Then I know the perfect place. But you have to trust me.”

She buckles her seatbelt, finally seeming a little more relaxed. “I do.”

Those two words sound better than anything I’ve heard in a long time. Trust is something that’s earned. I’ll take trust any day.

I hit the gas and drive through the caution light, taking us past the county line. It only takes a few minutes for us to leave civilization behind, surrounded by nothing but trees and the open road ahead of us.

“You’re not kidnapping me, are you?” she asks. “Taking me out to the woods to slice and dice me?”

Called it. I flash her a grin. “Told you that you’d have to trust me. But if you want peace and quiet, this is probably the best place in a twenty-mile radius to get it.”

“I feel like we’ve already driven twenty miles.”

I chuckle. “Not even close. Lean back, kick up your feet, and relax. You’re not used to backwoods drivin’, are you?”

With a smile, she rests her head against the window and closes her eyes. “No. This is a first for me.”

It takes everything in me not to stare at her, but I’d rather not drive this truck into a tree. By the time the road turns into the familiar dirt path, the moon shines brightly ahead of us. I slow down. The sound of rocks crunching beneath my tires takes my nerves down a notch, same as always. There’s not much that beats that.

“Austin?”

Except for her voice. Marisa looks around as I park by the pond’s edge, beneath the massive oak tree. And immediately, I regret coming out here. This place holds a lot of memories, memories that have no business attacking me while she’s in my truck.

“Wow,” she breathes, leaning forward to look out the windshield. “The stars are amazing tonight. They’re like little diamonds. There have to be millions of them.”

For the first time tonight, her face is peaceful. Maybe coming here wasn’t such a bad idea, after all. Sometimes the best remedy is a few minutes out in the middle of nowhere, away from everything. Being alone with an old dirt road is better than therapy. It’s one of the few things I’ll miss about this place in the fall. I have a feeling there aren’t too many dirt roads in Columbia.

“Do you come out here a lot?” she asks. “Since it’s so far out?”

And the lump’s back in my throat. I
used
to come a lot. Jamie and I would drive here when we wanted privacy for certain things, but I’m not about to tell Marisa that. “Not really,” is my answer, and at least it’s
mostly the truth. It has been a while. Crap on a freakin’ cracker, I really shouldn’t have come out here.

“Crap on a cracker?” Marisa says. “That’s new.” Wide-eyed, I turn to her slowly. She shrugs with a small smile. “And you can tell me that you used to bring your ex out here. It’s okay.”

“Sorry,
what
?”

She kicks her feet up on the dashboard. “Don’t worry, I’m not psychic. A little psycho once in a while, but not psychic. I just don’t think you realize you’re saying stuff out loud sometimes.”

I shake my head. There’s no way. Jay would’ve called me out on that a long,
long
time ago. “I think you’re full of it. I think you’re hiding some psychic mumbo-jumbo up your sleeve.”

“I’m tellin’ you, you do it all the time.”

My jaw drops. “You just dropped a ‘g.’”

She narrows her eyes. “Huh? No, I didn’t.”

“You definitely just dropped a ‘g.’”

“Maybe you should focus on the fact that you talk without even realizing it.”

I can’t even be embarrassed because that was one of the most adorable things I’ve ever heard come out of her mouth. I toss my arm across the back of her seat and lean toward her. “Are you turnin’ into a Southern girl already, Marisa?”

Her mouth opens, and I can’t hold back my grin as she fights her own smile and fails. “I hate to break it to you, Floral Prince, but a month in the South doesn’t create a Southerner. Besides, it wouldn’t work for me. The accent sounds so much cuter coming from you.”

I’m pretty sure my cheeks just caught on fire. “I highly doubt that.”

“See?
Highly
. I’m telling you, I’m kind of melting over here.” She looks down at her hands, tugging on her sleeves as she adds, “I bet it makes all the other girls melt, too.”

My heartbeat stutters to an almost-complete stop. I don’t know what gave her that impression, but it sucks that she thinks I’m some kind of girl-hopping a-hole. “There aren’t any other girls. You’re the first girl in a long, long time.”

She plays with the ends of her sleeves, fidgeting in her seat, but stays quiet.

“The other night, at the shop,” I continue, “with the kiss? I asked because I wanted to. Because I like you. And I know plenty of other dudes who make out with one girl after another, but that’s not me. I thought you knew that.”

Her eyes fill with tears.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Shit
. She sniffles loudly as she hides her face in her hands. “God, I’m such a mess,” she whispers. She sniffles again and looks at me, all wet cheeks and gut-punching frown and tears that just won’t stop falling. “I’m sorry. I screw everything up. Even nights like tonight, when I’m supposed to be grateful and happy and—” Shaking her head, she presses her lips together. “I can’t do this.”

I grab her hand, which is cold as ice. “What’s goin’ on? Talk to me.”

More tears. Lord have mercy, if she doesn’t stop crying, my heart might explode. She looks down at the hand I’m still holding because, to be honest, I really, really don’t want to let it go. Not only that, but I have a feeling that she needs it.

“What’s going on,” she says, her voice thick, “is that I’m a crazy, psychotic, certifiable mess. I shouldn’t have come out tonight, and I definitely shouldn’t have dragged you into this.”

My pulse races. The last time I saw someone cry like this, it was when we found out about Dad and my momma was inconsolable. “Did someone die?”

She coughs out a laugh and wipes her nose with her other sleeve. “You don’t want to know, Austin. Trust me.”

“I do want to know. Seein’ you like this? It’s kind of destroying me.”

She turns back to me, still sniffling, though the tears seem to have stopped for now. She pulls her hand from mine, and before I can say anything, she holds up her arm.

“It’s not exactly something I parade around,” she says, barely above a whisper. “And it’s a secret that no one down here knows about, and I’d really like to keep it that way.”

“You can trust me with anything,” I say without hesitation.

With a deep, shuddering breath, she closes her eyes, pulls up her sleeve, and holds her arm out for me to see. The word “love” is tattooed in cursive on her wrist, and while it’s nice and simple enough, that’s not what snatches my attention. At least a dozen scars cover that wrist, along with the section of her forearm that’s exposed. Some are tiny, some are long and jagged. Those kinds of scars don’t just come from anywhere. Did—did she actually try to
kill
herself?

I can’t breathe.

I lean back against my door, staring at her as seconds, minutes, hours pass. I have no clue how long it is before I’m pretty sure someone drives a knife through my gut. She won’t look at me. Instead, she pulls her sleeve down with a trembling hand, shoves open her door, and hops down from the truck. She walks to the pond and stops at the water’s edge, wrapping her arms around herself.

I should follow her. I should make sure she’s okay. I should say
something
. All that would be a lot easier if I could breathe.

Opening my door sends in a rush of freezing cold air, but it’s exactly what I need. I step down and start for the water, stuffing my hands in my pockets. Marisa was right; the stars do look like diamonds. Momma
used to tell me to make wishes on them, as if little balls of gas hold some sort of magical power. I think I have too many wishes for those things to handle, anyway. They’d explode under the pressure.