Page 10 of #Lovestrong

9

Lena

Iwonder how much my grandparents are paying Declan to take me shopping? There's no way the hottest, and possibly nicest, guy in this town just offers to spend a Friday, during the summer, taking some girl he doesn't know school shopping. Thankfully, we hit two stores in the strip mall in the next town over and now, I'm set. Less than an hour shopping, and I can go hide back in my room and this dude can go do whatever it is normal people our age do.

Opening the window, I lay my head against the door frame and enjoy the cool breeze coming off the coast. I didn't know it was only a forty-minute ride to the ocean. Too bad I don't have a car, or a license for that matter. It's hard to drive when every time someone honks their horn, you convulse and duck.

Declan is singing softly to some alt-pop song on the radio, and I'm doing my best to block the music out. I haven't listened to music in months. Every time I do, I think about all the times Camilla and I danced around my bedroom, singing into hair brushes like we were putting on a concert. If she was alive and things were normal, there's no doubt I'd be calling her to tell her all about Declan. But I'm not normal, life isn't normal, and thanks to me, she isn't alive.

I don't think I'll ever have another friend like Camilla. Her, our other friend, Jazmin, and I had been thick as thieves since Kindergarten. I honestly can't remember a time, except when Jazmin had Mono the summer we turned thirteen, when we were apart for more than two days.

Jazmin wasn't in our lunch period last year, but she visited me in the hospital while I was recovering. As Declan merges into the right lane, I reach inside my button-down shirt and rub the scar on my shoulder. It's been eight months since I spoke to Jazmin. We hugged at Camilla's funeral and she said she loved me. But I haven't spoken to her since.

I wouldn't know what to say anyway. Sorry I got our best friend killed? Sorry I got your boyfriend killed? I'd found out about that the following day in the hospital. There's no amount of apologies that can right the wrong of being the reason someone murdered twenty-one of your classmates and then killed their self. Even God doesn't have answers for that.

"You ready?" Declan's voice startles me, and I realize we're stopped. He's parked in front of some cafe or something with a porch dining room. It's not massively crowded, maybe seven tables occupied outside.

"Ready for what?"

"Lunch." He gives me a mega-watt smile, showing off his perfectly straight, blinding white teeth, his blue eyes shining as the sun bounces off the hood of his car and in through the window.

"Did my grandparents put you up to this? Seriously, I really appreciate what you did last night, and I know I didn't say thank you, I am thankful, but you really don't need to be nice to me just because they asked you to."

His smile fades and he takes a deep breath, his shoulders rising and falling with it. "Your grandparents didn't put me up to anything. I'm taking you to lunch because I want to. Is that okay?"

"I . . . I mean, I guess. I just don't get it."

"Get what?" He unbuckles his seat belt and twists to look at me. His eyes never leave my face.

"Why you're being so nice."

Shaking his head, he opens his door and climbs out of the car. I unbuckle my seat belt and reach around on the floor for my wallet. As I sit up, my door opens and Declan's hand comes into view. I lean forward a little and glance from his hand to his face. He’s smirking but staring in the opposite direction, toward the beach.

Nervously, I put my hand in his and he helps me from the car, which sits really low to the ground— downfall of a sports car, I guess. As he shuts my door, he slides his hand around and laces our fingers together. My brain screams at me to pull away, to shove my hands in my pockets . . . something.

But I don't. It's almost nice to feel someone's hand in mine. Safe. I know it's wrong, and disrespectful to Cameron and the others, but maybe it's okay to pretend for just an hour or two. Just while we're here at this cafe, thirty minutes from my new home, where no one is going to see us . . . where no one has to know. When we hit the line and cross back into Lakeview, we can just pretend it didn't happen.

Cameron would be okay with that, wouldn't he?