Brougham tipped his head back in frustration. “Of course. Of course that happened. Fuck me. It’s what I do, I convinced myself you didn’t feel the same because you never reached out like you said you would, so I threw myself into Winona so I could try to get over you and go back to the way I used to feel about her. I thought it’d work. I just didn’t want to deal with having feelings for someone who didn’t like me back, so I tried to change them.”

Because that’s what happened when someone who was anxiously attached felt rejected. And I knew this, and yet I couldn’t logically apply it to Brougham at the time, because I was too close to see things clearly. “It’s okay. I get it.”

“I fucked up.”

“I think it’s fair to say we both did.”

His hands drifted lazily to my thighs, where his thumb started tracing circles over my skin, sending a rippling shiver up to my shoulders. “Today’s been a lot,” he said. Then he pulled his hands away, and leaned back from me, giving me full control over our position. “I’m sure you have a lot you wanna think about.”

“There’s nothing to think about,” I said.

“You have to get home,” he added.

“Not for a while still.”

“It’s kind of happening out of nowhere.”

“You call that out of nowhere?”

He shrugged. Because he knew it was bullshit. He just wanted to protect himself by giving me an out. Any out.

“I don’t have anywhere else I’d rather be,” I said.

I touched his arm. Looking up at me, not taking his eyes away, he shifted his weight so he could lift one hand to take mine.

We laced our fingers back together and rested our hands between us.

He looked at our hands, then back up at me.

And then he smiled. Soft. And really not rare at all.

“Okay.”

TWENTY-THREE

Self-Analysis:

Darcy Phillips

Is not set in stone.

The swim meet was indoors, but the upper half of an entire wall was a grid of windowpanes, allowing the morning summer sun to stream through and glint on the pool’s surface. The effect was a little like a greenhouse, and combined with the heat radiating from the water and the strong smell of chlorine, it was hot, muggy, and stifling.

Our spot in the bleachers was behind the lifeguard station, where a girl in an oversized T-shirt kept an eagle eye on all the swimmers. On the ground was a line of white plastic tables where people with pens, papers, and timers sat watching the endless parade of swimmers. Along the sides of the pool, girls and guys hovered with jackets thrown over their swimsuits or towels wrapped around their shoulders, cheering on their teammates or awaiting their own races.