I close my eyes and try to forget that, for a second, her leg was pressed against mine. For a second, I made her laugh, and she lit up my brain like the Fourth of July. For a second, she smiled at me. For a second, those were real things that happened to me, to her, and to us, but now I can’t breathe.

I can’t breathe.

I crouch down, not even caring that I’m in the middle of the sidewalk in the pouring rain, and it feels like hours but could be minutes before I hear the bells over the door clang behind her and then go silent.

“Ridley!” she shouts, and she’s holding my phone. “You forgot this.” Oh god, she’s holding my phone; she’s holding Bats and she doesn’t even know.

Jubilee stands under the awning. Waiting. She’s not chasing me, I realize; this isn’t the end of some epic romance movie. She just wants an explanation, deserves one, even. “Tell me,” she says, her eyes vacillating between concern and annoyance. “Tell me what’s going on.”

I stand, and finally, just to blow up the entire world—just to good and blow it up because of who I am and what I am and how I don’t deserve good things anyway—I turn back to her with a grin that turns to a sneer that turns to a grimace as I feel all the fight fall out of me. This will definitely get me sent back to Seattle. This will probably ruin everything. But screw it. She deserves the truth.

She does.

“Hey, Peak,” I say, my voice cracking.

She takes a step back, pressing her hand to the door. Her head tilts like she’s trying to see more of me than what’s in front of her, and then she raises her hand to her lips.

“Bats?” she says, like she can’t really believe it, and honestly, I barely can either.

“Yeah.”

“What?” There’s a little smile on her lips then, and I shouldn’t smile back but I do.

She pulls out her own phone and fires off a text, her mouth dropping open when my phone lights up in her hand. I shut my eyes.

“How are you here?”

I shrug, because I can’t tell her that. I can’t drop another bomb on her, especially not if there’s a single chance that we can get through this conversation without her hating me. I didn’t think there was, but that smile—that smile.

“Wait, are you stalking me?” she asks, crossing her arms around herself.

I hate that I did this.

“No,” I say too loud. “No,” I say a little softer, shivering slightly because of the cold rain and the March air and the mean look from the girl that I like. Shit. I do. I really like her.