I looked at Imogen. Only now, Imogen’s face was close—dangerously close—and her breath was shallow, and her eyes were large and intense and filled with so much compassion that I didn’t deserve.

It was like someone lit a fuse, except that fuse separated in two, and reached both Imogen and me at the same time, igniting us like carefully timed fireworks.

We kissed.

Our lips met like waves crashing on a rocky shore—jagged, and rough, and alive. My hands were in her hair, ruining the freshly straightened curtains, and hers were on my face, cradling it like something precious. Imogen raised a leg, tucked it in, and slid it past me with impossible, balletic grace, until she was straddling me. She bit my lip. My frustratingly long fingernails scraped down the length of her back. Her hands ran down my neck, my bare shoulders, sliding down the curves of my chest. And then she grabbed my breasts, firmly, and squeezed them like she meant it.

Oh. My. God.

Something surged inside of me—an ecstasy I had never known. I lost all scope of the situation—who I was and what I was doing. My eyes became level with the rapidly forming hickey that Wynezra had left on Imogen’s neck. My mouth latched onto it like a bull’s-eye.

“Ohhhhhhhhh,” said Imogen, and her eyes rolled into the back of her skull. And then she laughed. “Oh my god. Did you tell Ezra that was my spot?”

Huh?

“What am I saying?” said Imogen. “Of course you did. You’re the only person who knows my body like that. Thanks a lot, traitor.”

My mouth let go—growing slack with realization.

Imogen wrapped her arms around me, squeezing me like she never intended to let me go. The sexual intensity defused, and there was nothing left but the deepest, purest, most heartbreaking affection.

“I feel like I’ve been holding my breath,” said Imogen. Her voice was like an open wound. “Ever since last summer. And now… now I can finally breathe.”

I felt the truth slip around my neck like a noose, pulling tighter with each passing second. Wynonna lied to me. Or, at least, she smudged the truth significantly.

Imogen was in love with someone, but it wasn’t a boy.

Imogen was in love with Wynonna.

FOURTEEN

MY WORLD HAD EXPLODED, and all sound had been absorbed in the blast. The only thing left was this ringing sensation that was everywhere and nowhere all at once. Imogen’s mouth was moving, but there were no words.

“What’s wrong?” said Imogen. Her voice punctured a hole in the silence—muffled, but coming rapidly into focus. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’ve made a terrible mistake,” I said.

Imogen took this like a slap to the face. She stood up from my lap. Backed against the wall of the bathroom stall. Shook her head.