“I don’t know; she made me feel safe. Protected.” I swallowed. The words sounded so selfish. Was that really what I missed most? Was that why the thought of moving forward without her terrified me? Because I didn’t feel safe enough to take one step on my own?

“You can look out for yourself, can’t you?”

I let out a challenging huff, but considering our first encounter had him doubled over and wailing in pain, I didn’t think he was going to buy my denials. “It’s just that she was always looking out for me.”

“You seem pretty tough to me.”

I didn’t want to tell him that the toughness was all Kori’s influence, because I didn’t want him to know I’d been pretending to be something I wasn’t around him. That all this time, I’d been lying to him. And I didn’t exactly see him reaching across the console and wiping off my heavy makeup and understanding when there was someone else beneath it all.

I flicked a glance over at him before turning my eyes out the window at the hard panels of rock jutting up where the dynamite had blasted through to make room for the road. They looked close enough to reach my hand out and touch.

But just like with people, I knew they weren’t nearly as close as they appeared.

twenty-six

Why haven’t you done it yet?” Lexi used to ask me. She loved to ask personal questions of people, even though she herself couldn’t seem to muster the courage to say the word sex.

“Just haven’t,” I’d say, and it was a lie. Every girl has a reason—why they have or why they haven’t.

Cole’s was because Nickelback was playing and Ty Carter has eyes like Orlando Bloom’s. Lexi’s reason was no one had asked her, and as soon as some guy did, she’d probably have a new reason. Like the car wasn’t very romantic or her underwear wasn’t sexy or there weren’t enough rose petals on the bed. Kori had already lost her virginity before we became friends, and there had been so many guys since then I don’t think she’d even remember why. But I’m certain she had a reason.

I had a reason too. My reason was I’d never trusted a guy to stick around long enough for there to be an after.

That’s what Lexi called it. She always wanted to know what it was like after.

The big, vast dark hole of after. The great unknown. Menopausal women had “The Change.” And teenage girls had “After.”

I didn’t have answers for Lexi. I didn’t know what after was like. But Kori knew all about after.