By the time school rolled around the following week, all of the awkwardness that had originally hung in the air between us had evaporated, and we were just Molly and Daryl again.

It felt good.

Too good to be true.

To be truthful, I spent that whole week waiting for the penny to drop, but it never did. Instead of drifting apart as I had half expected considering we were on completely different playing fields at school, Daryl and I only seemed to shift closer.

His weekend sleepovers slowly morphed into weeknight ones, too, until it was rare that he didn't spend the night at my house.

My lack of popularity and social status at the Academy clearly didn't matter a damn to Daryl.

Without hesitation, he adjusted his life to suit our re-found friendship, shifted some stuff around, until I was, once again, planted front and center on his list of priorities.

I, on the other hand, didn't need to make quite as many changes to my less than demanding schedule. My circle of friends doubled from one to two – three if you counted Rourke, who I could never quite be sure of – and that was about that. He had always been the center of my world, even when he didn't remember me.

12 Daryl

Life, for me, seemed to stabilize after that night. Against her father's warnings, pleas, and my own damn laden down conscience, I continued to trail after Molly Peterson just like I had when we were kids. I was desperate to make up for lost time and willing to do pretty much whatever it took to make it up to her.

At school, eating lunch together had become a routine, and my ass was welded to the chair next to hers in the classes we shared. Hell, I'd even managed to sway her into taking a ride to and from school with me instead of Mercy.

She was still keeping me at arm's length, but I didn't care. When it came to Molly, I was beginning to learn that I was a perseverant bastard. Shit, I was fairly certain that I would've followed the girl down to hell if I believed the place actually existed.

Days turned into weeks and I found myself falling into the same old pattern of co-dependency with the little girl – now beautiful fucking woman – across the street.

Secretly, or maybe not so secretly, Molly was everything to me.

Perfect.

Pure.

Too good for everyone.

Too good for me.

One look at her pretty blonde head and those big brown eyes and I was a goner.

Ruined.

13 Molly

"When Mase told me there was a hot blonde trying to break into my truck during practice, I called him a bullshitter," were the first words Daryl said when he opened the door of his truck before school and found me inside. "Goddammit, I hate it when he's right."

"Ha-ha." I rolled my eyes and tossed my pencil at his head. "Very smooth."