“I'm glad you kissed her,” I lied through my teeth.
“No you aren't,” he argued.
I squeezed my eyes closed and turned my head so that I wouldn't be tempted to lean forward and close the gap between our lips.
“I won't fight over you.”
“Maybe I want you to fight for me,” he said, skimming his cheek against mine.
I pinched my eyes closed. “You're drunk. You won't remember any of this in the morning.”
“You know what?” He leaned forward and his breath hit my earlobe. “She'll never be you, Lilah.”
I absorbed his words in two slow breaths.
“You need sleep,” I offered with a gentle tone.
“You don’t know what I need,” he argued with a fury building behind his hazel eyes. He hauled his body against mine and his chest hit me with enough force to knock the wind out of me, but when his lips met mine—that’s when he stole my breath.
My fingers wound through his hair, trying to keep him at a safe distance, but his hands gripped my waist, lifting me back up onto the bathroom sink. I wound my legs around his hips and lost sight of everything beyond him. In a black and white world, Chase and I would never end up together—our mothers had ensured that—but in that small bathroom, under the harsh fluorescent lights, we dragged each other deeper into the gray—the messy, guilt-ridden space that sat between right and wrong.
He broke the kiss and I propped my hands on the bathroom sink, trying hard to stay upright on my own.
“That’s what I need,” he said before storming out of the bathroom and leaving me swaying back and forth on the sink, searching for the heart he’d just ripped from my chest.
I flipped the bathroom light and the room went dark. I’d never asked him to take me to the gray. I was perfectly happy living in the black.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chase
I slammed my bedroom door behind me and flipped on the light. Harvey had been asleep on my bed, and the noise from the door jarred him awake. My back rested against the cold wood as I watched Harvey watching me. His eyes were wide as he waited for my next move, but I didn't have a next move.
I hated how stubbornly I loved Lilah. She could tear me in two and I’d still come back. A dark part of me wanted to hate her. It'd be so much easier if I thought she was as evil as she thought she was, but I knew the secret she tried so hard to hide: she was scared shitless, scared of letting anything happen between us, scared of looking past everyone’s flaws to get to the real meat of life.
I’d thought she'd left the baseball game early. I'd concentrated hard on the game, knowing she was up in the stands watching me. When the game had ended and I’d looked up to find her seat empty, it had hurt more than I cared to admit. I’d gone through the motions of postgame traditions. We’d passed out roses to the Diamond Girls and then Connor had dragged me to his house for a party. I hadn’t wanted to go; I’d wanted to hunt Lilah down and force her to explain why she couldn't be there for me even once.
After four beers at Connor's house, I’d told myself Kimberly was who I belonged with. She was pretty and simple—so fucking simple it made no sense why I wasn't into her. She never let me down, she never moved away, she never pretended not to love me.
I never should have kissed her.
“I don't like you any more,” Kimberly laughed as I stepped away. “And you definitely don't like me either.”
I cringed.
She shrugged. “I think every girl at our high school has had a crush on you at least once, but I think I'm finally over you. Brian and I have been hanging out lately and he asked me to go out on a date with him next weekend.”
I couldn't believe Brian had actually worked up the courage to ask her out.
“And...obviously you're so in love with Lilah you can't even see straight.”
I wiped my hand down my face. “Yeah, well I'm not sure that will ever be reciprocated.”
She laughed. “Are you kidding? Did you not hear what I just said? Every girl has had a crush on you, and even Lilah Calloway isn’t immune to your charms. She was staring at you the whole time. If her dad wasn’t the coach, I would’ve assumed she had never seen a game of baseball before.”
I narrowed my eyes, trying to figure out if Kimberly was telling the truth. She had nothing to gain from lying, so I shrugged and changed the subject.
“Don't tell Brian about that kiss. I'm drunk.”
She laughed. “Consider it closure.”
Harvey slid off the bed to sniff around my heels. I leaned down to pet him, trying to work out if I needed to go on a late night run. I had too much energy to sleep, but I knew I’d throw up as soon as my feet hit the pavement. Instead, I reached under my bed for my tools and my box of cameras. I dropped the box onto my desk and rifled through it until I found the slim brown case at the very bottom. Inside, there was a vintage Leica M3 I’d found online a few months earlier. It was from 1952 and had been almost beyond repair when it’d first arrived. I’d been working on it slowly, trying to prolong the process so that I wouldn’t finish and then have to sell it. It was a rare find, worth too much to keep, but now I had a better idea for it.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Lilah
After the most restless night of sleep I’d ever had, I lay in bed listening to the sounds of our aging house and trying to ignore the sinking feeling in my gut. It was a physical sign of my stress and I knew it wouldn’t go away until I straightened out the creases of my life. Chase was the first item on that list.
How could he look at me every day when I had the same green eyes as my mother? I was a part of her no matter how hard I tried to pretend I wasn’t. He could pull me into the gray, we could pretend that we were good and happy there, but in the end, we’d always be living with ghosts.
I pushed my blankets off me and crawled out of bed. The house stayed quiet as I threw on a t-shirt and the same pair of tattered jeans I’d always worn when I gardened. There were holes in the knees from leaning down to dig in the dirt, but they fit me well and I couldn't bear the thought of replacing them.
Once my gardening gloves were shoved into my back pocket, I opened my door and stepped out into the hallway. Chase's door was closed, and the gap between the door and the carpet was dark; he was still asleep. I stepped past his room and headed down the stairs in search of a banana and some water. I'd take a break later to have a real breakfast; I was anxious to get started.
It was early in the season, but I was growing my plants from seeds and in Texas it’s better to get started early or the crops have to wrestle with summer heat. As I stepped out onto the porch, I took a deep breath and tried to ignore the lingering knot in my stomach.
With sharp concentration, I studied my plots and chewed bites of banana. The backyard wasn't much to look at yet, but in a few months, each of the raised plots would be brimming over with life. My dad had repaired them and now the only thing left to do was fill them up with soil and mulch.
I finished off my banana, set the peel aside, and then stepped out onto the grass.
The small shed near the fence was designated for our lawn mower and gardening equipment. I pulled open the wooden door and inhaled the quintessential earthy must that lingers around bagged mulch. My dad had taken the time to stock it full of supplies for the year, saving me the trip into town. I shot him a mental thank you and then started counting out the bags. I was halfway done when the house’s screen door creaked open.
When I spun around, I found my dad with a cup of coffee and a warm smile. He had on a Henley t-shirt and his gardening jeans, just like I did, except his looked even more worse for wear.
“I swear you start earlier every year,” he teased, taking a sip of coffee that I knew from experience was black as tar. I’d once stolen a sip of it as a kid and spit it out across the kitchen table. The black splatter had stained the wood before anyone had gotten around to cleaning it.
“I just like to start when there's still a chil
l in the air. It'll get up into the high 80s later today.”
He nodded and took another long sip from his mug.
“Vegetables or fruits first?” he asked.
“Fruits. They’ll be easier. I'm only doing watermelon and strawberries in the beds this year.”
“Thought you wanted to do that raspberry plant?” he asked.
My mom and I had tried and failed to grow a raspberry vine year after year.
“I do, but I’ve got to plant it along the fence so the vines have something to hang on to,” I explained.
He set his coffee on the porch with a hollow thunk. “They seem like they'll be high maintenance.”
Just like her.
“I think I'll be able to get them to grow,” I said just as the screen door creaked opened again.
Like the sun coming out from behind a cloud, Chase stepped onto the back porch wearing a simple white t-shirt and faded blue jeans. He was barefoot and his hair was tousled from sleep. He let loose a yawn just as the screen door hit the wood frame behind him.
“Morning Chase. Hope we didn't wake you,” my dad said.
He shook his head and tried in vain to tame his hair before giving up altogether. “Nah. I couldn't sleep so I figured I'd come down and help.” He paused and looked past my dad, his hazel eyes finding me standing in the doorway of the shed. “If that's okay…”
My dad turned to look at me with a funny expression and I knew if I said no, he would probably chastise me for being rude.
I shrugged and turned back to the shed. “The more the merrier.”
My dad finished off his coffee, Chase stepped off the porch, and then we all got busy forming an assembly line. My dad handed off the bags of mulch to Chase, Chase carried them to the beds, and I tore into them with a pair of gardening scissors. Each bed needed a couple bags, so eventually we were all working together, tearing open the plastic and pouring the bags out into even piles.
Chase knelt down at the bed across from me as my fingers dug into the fresh dirt. I tried not to glance up, but I did anyway. The morning light caught his blond hair in a way that made it hard to ignore. His face was evenly tanned from his baseball game the day before, and when he glanced up and caught me staring, I shifted my gaze back down as quickly as possible.
“I saw that banana peel on the porch. What's that for?” Chase asked with no trace of arrogance in his tone; maybe he hadn't noticed me watching him.
“I'm going to use it for my raspberries.”
He tilted his head toward me and cocked his brows. “For mulch?”
I nodded.
A few moments later he went back into the house and then came back out with a banana of his own. In true teenage-boy fashion, he ate it in three bites and then met my eye as he let the peel fall on top of mine.
“For the raspberries,” he said with his right hand over his heart and a smile that was too charming for his own good.
I chuckled under my breath and shook my head.
“Are you ready for the seeds yet, Lilah?” my dad asked from inside the shed.
I glanced around to the eight beds filled with new, rich soil. “Yup. Let's do the watermelons first.”
Three hours later, most of the beds were full of seeds, patted down, and watered. The seeds would hopefully sprout within a week or two and we'd know if we needed to plant more or not. I sat back on my heels and admired our hard work.
“I'm starving. Are you guys hungry?” my dad asked as he stood and dusted himself off.
“Yes!” Chase and I bellowed at the same time. I hadn't ever stopped to eat anything besides that banana and my stomach was grumbling in protest.
“All right. I'll run into town and grab some hamburgers.”
We rattled off specifications—no pickles for me, extra cheese for Chase—and then he set off for food. I was practically salivating at the thought of a hamburger, but I knew it would take my dad at least twenty minutes to get there and back, so I tried to keep busy continuing to plant seeds.
“Let's take a break,” Chase said, leaning back on his heels with a sigh.
I looked up at him and then laughed. There was dirt streaked across his cheek and his hair was a wild mess, even more so than when he’d first woken up.
“What? Is something funny?” he asked with a wicked gleam in his eye.
I pointed toward his cheek. “I think you've got a little something on your face.”
He swiped aimlessly at his mouth, chin, and forehead. I couldn't tell if he was intentionally missing the spot or not, but either way I pushed off the ground and rounded the flowerbed. When I was crouched down in front of him, I reached up with my thumb and wiped his cheek. The dirt hardly budged.
“Did you get it?” he asked, hopeful.
I chuckled and licked my thumb to see if it would help. The dirt was caked on really well.
He flinched when I brought my thumb back to his face. “Oh, gross. Now you're just wiping your spit on me.”
“No! I swear half your cheek is covered in dirt,” I laughed.
Before I could even react, he reached into the bed and wiped some dirt across my cheek.
“Chase!”
He shrugged. “There. Now we're even.”
Over my dead body.
I reached for a handful of dirt and took aim directly at him.
“Wait!” he yelled, holding up his hands in defense. “You don't want to do that!”
My eyebrow arched on its own accord. “Oh, I think I do.” The dirt he'd rubbed onto my cheek was cold and damp from the garden hose. It slipped down my face like sludge and then a small splatter hit the top of my shoulder. I didn't wait another second; I threw the wad of dirt directly at him and it landed square in the center of his white T-shirt.
“Lilah!” he bellowed as he lunged forward and caught my wrists in his hands. I instinctively tried to get away but I couldn’t move while he held me. I wiggled around and fell onto my back. He leaned over me with a confident smile, silhouetted by the sun behind him.
“Let me go, Chase.”
“I don't think that would be fair. You just slung a dirt clod at an unarmed man.” His smirk didn't budge and the longer it was present, the harder it was to convince my heart to slow its wild beat.
“You did it to me first,” I pointed out.
He nodded and his head fell an inch closer to mine. My eyes traveled to his lips on instinct.
“So maybe we should get even once and for all?” he asked. My breath caught in my throat and I knew he could hear the blood rioting in my body.
“About last night...” I began, feeling the blush creep up my cheeks as I thought about our kiss. I couldn't even look at his lips without remembering the feel of them on my mine.
“What about last night?” he dared, keeping his hazel eyes pinned on me.
“Um.” I couldn't think with him so close. His knee was wedged between my legs and his grip was tight around my wrists. The scent of his body wash was enough to confuse my logic. “We shouldn’t do it again.”
“Do what?” he challenged.
“Kiss.”
“So you don’t want me to lean down and kiss you right now?” he asked with an amused grin.
I pressed my lips together as if I feared he would act on his words, and then I shook my head no.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that.”
“I—”
My dad’s truck rumbled into the driveway, cutting our moment short and saving me from a stuttered reply. I listened to his engine cut off and then the truck door slammed closed. Chase let go of my wrists and pushed off the ground to stand. He’d been blocking the sun before and when he moved away, I had to squeeze my eyes shut from the blinding glare.
It was too bright.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Lilah
My school’s windows didn’t get cleaned as regularly as they should have. It was nearly impossible to see past the dirt and dust, but if I tried hard enough, I could see the perimeter fence and the
fields that lay beyond. I focused there at the start of my detention, trying to count the rows of dirt to keep my brain occupied. I didn’t want to think of Chase or my mom. The two of them already had ownership of my mind at night when there was nothing to distract me. They’d duel it out in the darkness of my room, tugging me back and forth like I was the leading lady in some sort of twisted love triangle.
Every step I took toward Chase, every time I let my guard down even an inch, I could feel my mother’s ghost twist around me, rooting me to the ground like a poisonous vine. I resented her for it, the way she could claw her way back from the dead. I’d foolishly assumed that death would finally take her away from me.
A student slipped into the spare seat in front of me, slinging his backpack so that it slammed into the stack of textbooks on my desk. Half of them went sliding off onto the ground and the chaos of the moment pulled me out of my staring contest with the cornfields.
“Oh, shit. Sorry,” he said, reaching down to grab the fallen books.
He pushed them back onto my desk and I waved off his apology, trying to decide if I had the willpower to open any of the books that were now restacked haphazardly on my desk. I was already ahead in all of my classes, but I wouldn’t survive an hour in detention without some sort of distraction.
Mrs. Nicholson—the poor teacher who’d been lucky enough to land detention duty—instructed everyone to have a seat and get comfortable. I glanced up at the large black clock that hung above the whiteboard at the front of the class. According to the plodding hands of the clock, I had fifty-nine minutes until freedom. With a sigh, I flipped open my literature textbook and turned to a chapter we weren’t due to cover for a few weeks.