“Come with me?” His voice is hushed and low and he’s already got me by the hand, pulling me up off of the canoe.

Aiden tugs me into the woods—out of the glow of the fire and into the darkness of the trees—and I’m having flashbacks of the warehouse and the stairwell, and his hands. His lips. My stomach is twisting into knots at the thought of it. And I hate how good his hand feels around mine right now. The same hand that hasn’t even bothered to text me all week. The hand that probably crossed out my name on the assignments board. I pull my hand out of his and it brings us to an abrupt halt, about thirty feet from everyone. Cloaked by the trees and the darkness, and the heaviness hanging around us.

He turns toward me, and he feels uncomfortably close. Closer than he’s been since the kiss. “I feel like you’re mad.”

“I’m not mad—” It’s almost true. I’m not mad in the same way that Aunt Sarah isn’t mad when I forget to take the trash out. I’m not mad, in an “I don’t know if I have the right to be mad, but I am anyway” sort of way. “—I’m … disappointed, I guess.” For someone who grew up without a real mom, I sure do sound like one right now.

“I’m sorry.” He stubs his toe down into the ground and shuffles pine needles and sand around with the toe of his sandal. “Last weekend at ArtPrize … I was out of line. I shouldn’t have kissed you. I knew you had a boyfriend, and I shouldn’t have been an ass.” He shoves his hands down into his pockets and tips his head up toward the sky. “I got caught up in everything. That performance was intense, and it seemed like you were into it too. But I felt like shit about it.”

I can’t help but let my eyes follow his. The inky sky shows in patches between the trees, and there are little clusters of stars visible, mixed in with clouds so thin they’re just barely veiling the little points of light.

Aiden’s chest slowly rises as he takes a slow, deep breath and lets it out. “I was hoping if we had some space for a few days, we’d just forget about it and never bring it up again, and we could still be friends and everything, but…”

“But I’m mad?”

“Yeah.” Aiden is looking at me now—looking me right in the eyes in a way that makes me want to run. “So I’m sorry.”

I cock my head to the side and look him in the eyes. “It sounds like you’re only sorry because I’m mad.”

“I am sorry that you’re mad.”

“But you’re not sorry that you kissed me.”