To Be Yours

  I lifted my suitcase into the back of my truck and turned to face my family again. More hugs, more goodbyes, and I finally got behind the wheel. As I backed out and drove away, I didn’t have an ounce of worry weighing me down.

  At least not anything that had to do with my family. Eden was a completely different story, and my heart bobbed in the back of my throat.

  Text from Grayson to Eden on moving day:

  I miss you already.

  31

  Eden

  I knew the exact moment Grayson arrived, but I stayed in my room. My heart felt too big for my chest, all awkward and beating against my ribs and up my throat.

  I’d cried yesterday, hoping that would dry me out enough to make it through today’s goodbye without tears. But they pressed against my tongue, rising up and making my eyes hot hot hot.

  “Eden!” Josh called from somewhere outside my room. I’d helped him lug all his belongings to the front porch that morning, and it had only taken fifteen minutes. I wasn’t sure if it was sad or awesome that he could condense his entire life down to four paper boxes and three trash bags of clothes.

  He’d put his yearbooks, a Halloween costume, and a few awards from school into another box, which now rested in the top of my closet.

  “Eden!” Mom yelled, and that got me moving. She’d been crying for three straight days, and I’d stepped in to help the twins with their recital practices and make dinner with the girls. We all had chores around the house, and I’d made sure they’d gotten done so things would be easier for Mom.

  Since my competition at the end of March, a lot had changed around the house. I’d never realized that Mom wasn’t coming to my ice skating stuff because I’d asked her not to. I didn’t even remember doing that, but Josh confirmed it, so I must have. I’d spent several days upset with myself, and then I invited her to come again. Just to make sure she knew I wanted her there.

  “You ready for this?” Terry asked as he turned from the kitchen sink. He wiped his hands on a dishtowel and looked at me with his kind eyes.

  “I just have to get through the first week,” I said. “Right?”

  He’d told me that on the morning of graduation. “Just get through today, Eden,” he’d said. “And the first week after he moves out will be the hardest. It’ll get easier after that.”

  I’d believed him, but I’d asked, “How do you know?” anyway.

  “My brother went on a service mission to Africa when he graduated. The first week was the hardest.” Terry wiped the table. Wiped and wiped and wiped. He hadn’t been able to look at me. “There was an accident over there. He never came home.”

  He looked up and though his brother’s death had to be two decades old, I’d seen the hurt in his eyes. The pain.

  “The first week was the hardest,” he’d said.

  Now he said, “Right. The first week. And you’ve already got movies with friends and a trip to Idaho Falls to keep you occupied.”

  I nodded, slow realization pouring through me. “You set everything up so I’d be busy.”

  He grinned and pulled me into a quick hug. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He stepped away, opened the back door and yelled for the littles to come say good-bye to Josh.

  I stepped onto the front porch to find all the things we’d piled there already loaded into the back of Grayson’s truck. The two of them lingered at the tailgate, talking, while Mom sat on the top step with her right hand pressed over her heart.

  Terry spilled out of the house with the younger kids, and I swung Lily into my arms. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go make sure Josh misses us the most.”

  “He said he’s going to miss me the most,” Jilly said, running to catch up to me.

  The six of us descended on Josh with hugs and tears and he basked in it all. Mom finally guided everyone back toward the house and they disappeared through the front door, leaving me with Josh and Grayson.

  I hadn’t quite been able to look my boyfriend in the eye yet. His presence was huge, though, reaching out and threatening to swallow me whole.

  “I’ll call you when we get there,” Josh said.

  “You can just text.”

  He nodded, and I knew he’d text. Josh hated phone conversations. I wrapped my arms around my brother. “Thursday nights are gonna suck.”

  “Hey, you won’t have to eat at the sushi place ever again.” He held me tight for a few seconds and let me go. “All right?”

  I nodded, my tears dormant, thankfully. “All right.”

  Josh smiled, glanced at Grayson, and rounded the truck to the passenger side.

  I inhaled and turned to face Grayson. Sticking my hands in my back pockets, I tried on a smile. It only wobbled a little. “You’ll call when you get there, right?”

  Grayson swept me into his arms, a circle of safety and love. We hadn’t exchanged those three little words. Well, I’d written them in my letter, but we hadn’t talked about that much.

  “I’ll call you,” he said just before kissing me.

  I held onto the shape of his mouth, felt the affection in his touch, and I tried to return it so he would know I missed him already too.

  He pulled away and leaned his forehead against mine. “You’ll be okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Things are good.” And they really were. Well, at least as good as they could be until I figured out what kind of suit to where to the swimming pool with my friends.

  “How’s your mom?” I asked. “The rest of your family?”

  A slip of a smile graced his face. “They’re good.”

  “So we’re both good.”

  “And you’ll be coming to Vegas in a year.”

  Hope filled my chest, lifting my spirits like helium. “That’s the plan.”

  Grayson kissed me again, kneaded me closer, and then stepped back. “It’s a good plan.”

  I moved from behind the truck and down the sidewalk as Grayson climbed into his truck. I lifted my hand in a final farewell gesture as he leaned out the window and said, “Talk to you soon, Eden.” He backed out of the driveway and headed down the street.

  “Soon,” I whispered to myself before returning to the house, where I stepped next to Mom in the kitchen and started spreading mayo on bread to make bologna sandwiches for the twins, who ran around the backyard, their arms spread wide like airplanes.

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  Sneak Peek! JUST FRIENDS Chapter One

  “So, Drew, you need a ride home after school?” Omar Juavez sidled up beside my sister as we walked down the main hall at Stony Brook High. A smart move considering I’d warned him away from Drew at least ten thousand times in the past month alone.

  My stupid lipglossed freshman sister giggled and looked at me for permission. I glared first into her hopeful eyes, and then toward Omar’s sly smile.

  “I have track, so I need the car,” I said, gripping my cell phone too tight. I willed it to buzz. Just once.

  “So you do need a ride home after school.” Omar draped his arm around Drew’s shoulders and let his eyes linger on her chest—which was barely concealed beneath the scrap of fabric she called a shirt.

  She beamed under the glow of his attention, making me stop dead in the middle of the crowded hall. “Listen, Omar. You keep touching her like that, and you won’t recognize yourself next time you look in the mirror.”

  The smile slid off Drew’s face, replaced with a scowl. Omar dropped his hand from my sister’s shoulders, a sheepish glint in his eyes. I’d seen this look plenty of times over the years. Every time his mom came looking for him, in fact. He always seemed to “forget” to call her and tell her where he was. Omar did have the courtesy to look
and sound apologetic when he screwed up.

  Drew stopped next to Omar, and glared at me. “Shut up, Mitch,” she said. “You’re not my father.”

  Omar was the kind of guy my dad wouldn’t want anywhere near Drew. Just because Omar ate dinner with us almost every night didn’t mean he could suddenly transition from sleeping in my bedroom to camping out in Drew’s. He and I had been in the same classes for years, and he’d spent so much time at my house, my mom washed his jeans and stocked the kind of cereal he liked.

  “When it comes to my senior friends—” I glared at Omar. “—dating my little sister, you bet I am.” I stepped back into the flow of students, my sister and my best friend following.

  “I’m not that little,” Drew complained. “And I don’t want to wait until four-thirty to go home.”

  “Fine, whatever.” I hooked Omar with a pointed look as I stopped at my locker in Senior Row. “But no touching.”

  He crossed his heart and slung his arm around Drew’s shoulders—which counted as touching in my book—drawing her down the hall and away from me.

  I watched them go, my mood darkening as he leaned in and whispered something that caused Drew to throw her head back and laugh. Omar twirled her ponytail around his fingers. I turned away before I witnessed them doing something I wouldn’t be able to erase from my mind.

  I spun the combination on my locker and opened it, thinking that someone had to watch out for Drew. She was all flirt and no thought, and Omar kept blankets in the trunk of his car. I’d never cared who he slept with, but the thought of that person being my fourteen-year-old sister filled my stomach with fire.

  I clenched my teeth and drove them from my mind. The frustration remained as my phone stayed silent. Holly hadn’t texted. She wouldn’t until she could do it alone—without the inquisitive eyes of her latest boyfriend, Greg Matthews. I had nothing against Greg. He and I had played football for the jaguars until seventh grade. He went on to play tight end until he made the varsity team as a freshman, and I’d left football to the real jocks. I preferred being able to think with my brain and switched to a sport that didn’t require special equipment: Track.

  Holly Isaacson and I had been best friends since fifth grade, when she moved in next door. With a newly divorced mom and a younger brother, Holly came with a bright smile and lots of lawyer jokes. We had Mrs. Toolsen, and she was the kind of teacher that made us hand our spelling tests to the person behind us to get corrected. I never crossed my t’s, so they looked like l’s—until Holly, who sat behind me, crossed them for me. It was this unspoken thing between us, the fact that she was saving my fifth grade spelling grade every week. When Mrs. Toolsen found out—Holly didn’t have an identical blue pen to cross the t’s with one week—she said if Holly crossed my t’s one more time, we’d both fail.

  The very next Friday, we both failed, because Holly crossed all my t’s. I could still remember the stubborn glint in her eyes as she stared at Mrs. Toolsen and took her F without a word. From that Friday on, we’d been inseparable. We ran together, we studied together, we grew up together. I talked to her everyday—except when she was dating someone.

  I’d texted her last night with no response. And again this morning. Still nothing. It wasn’t like I needed her. I didn’t have a pressing question for her to answer. I didn’t like her for anything besides a friend. But I didn’t know how to function without her.

  She’d know what to do about Omar and Drew, and she’d ask if I’d finished my history essay. She’d remind me about youth group on Wednesday, and she’d assure me I was going to win the cross-country meet on Friday. I’d tell her about my latest crush on Jade Montgomery, and she’d advise me how to ease into Jade’s social calendar without being obvious. Without Holly, I felt isolated, lost.

  As much as I hated to admit it, I was lonely without Holly. I missed hanging out at her house after track, and I missed having her and her brother over for dinner when her mom had to work late. Holly and I had trained for track all summer, running early-early in the morning before the sun could bake the Kansas landscape into hundred-degree temps and before I had to work at the car wash and she had to strap on her roller skates and waitress at the drive-in. When Holly started dating Greg in mid-July, I’d found a new running partner. I wanted to believe that getting up at five a.m. to train with Ivy Olsen and Lance Higbee was the same, but it wasn’t.

  I gathered my books for first and second period and slammed my locker. My cell buzzed, causing a tremor of hope to vibrate through my chest. The warning bell rang as I checked the message.

  Holly (2)

  I sighed. The band of tension behind my eyes loosened.

  Just saw Omar and Drew. Looked pretty cozy. This relationship have your stamp of approval?

  Ironic that she’d ask about relationships having my consent. She didn’t need my permission to date other guys, but she withdrew from our friendship every time she did. I’d never said anything to her about it. Never asked her why we couldn’t still hang out when her boyfriend was at work or whatever.

  Because I got it. My last girlfriend told me she couldn’t date me anymore because of Holly. I’d said me and Holly weren’t like that, but in Katie’s eyes, me and Holly were exactly like that.

  Her second message read: Can you give me a ride home after track? Greg has to leave practice early to go to work.

  Holly ran sprints while I ran long distance, but the entire track team trained until four-thirty. I want to strangle Omar, I typed as I hurried down the hall to AP history. Holly would already be there, anxiously waiting to turn in her essay. We’d spent the better part of Saturday afternoon writing them together at her kitchen table. She always scored better than me, even though we collaborated and wrote almost identical responses.

  Mr. Thompson would have our papers graded from last week, and everyone coveted a perfect score of fifteen. Mr. Thompson bragged that he once went a whole year without giving a fifteen, claiming his students had to “earn such a stellar score.” The highest I’d ever gotten was a seven. I wasn’t holding out hope for a fifteen this year at all.

  I sent her the text as I ducked into the classroom. I didn’t look up as I slid into my seat behind her.

  “Ride after track is no problem,” I said while the tardy bell rang.

  She turned, her auburn ponytail swinging as she did. My mom always told Holly a face without freckles was a waste, because Holly hated hers. Her hazel eyes sparkled as she looked at me. “Thanks. Phones.”

  “I totally killed you with that last word.” I handed mine over and took hers. AP history during first period was the only class we had together on A-days. On B-days, we had lunch and track.

  “Whatever. You don’t know what words I have up my sleeve.” She smirked at me, and I saw her as the fifth grade girl who corrected my spelling tests and got caught. After that Friday, we finally broke our pact of silence on the issue, and she’d smirked at me and rolled her eyes as I said that Mrs. Toolsen was a beast. She’d never outgrown that smirk.

  I smiled as the last of the tension over her text silence left my shoulders. Holly had always been my right-hand man. She ran as fast as me even though she was a good eight inches shorter and had the skinniest legs I’d ever seen. She jumped the space between my roof and hers without balking, and she wasn’t afraid to sleep under the open sky. After class, she’d tell me what to do about my panting senior friend wanting to date my fourteen-year-old sister.

  “Don’t use my phone to text Drew,” I whispered as Mr. Thompson started passing back the essays. “I don’t know what to do about her and Omar yet.” Holly’s brother was in eighth grade, and for a few years there, Drew had had a crush on Scott. She’d spent hours and hours over at Holly’s, and they were as close as sisters.

  Holly nodded and slid my phone in her backpack pocket as the teacher started down our row. He put the papers facedown on the desks, and every student watched him until he finished.

  This was law in AP history. No one checked the
ir score until Mr. Thompson gave the wave indicating we could. A hush had settled over the class without him having to say anything. He leaned against the table in the front of the room and folded his arms.

  “Class, one of you scored a perfect fifteen on this essay.” The tension in the room exploded, mostly from Holly, who’d been flirting with twelves and thirteens even though senior year was only four weeks old. Could she skip fourteen and go straight to fifteen?

  I didn’t feel anything but my normal nerves on essay-return day. I knew I hadn’t scored the fifteen. No way I’d jump from five—last week’s score—to fifteen.

  “I’m also afraid to say that some of you who I thought would be my top scorers have slipped a little this week.” He straightened and moved around the table. “The Puritans will be on the test, people. You have to know about them, and be able to express what you know with words.”

  Holly’s phone buzzed in my lap, but I ignored it. She’d twisted her slight shoulders toward me, and I recognized the blip of worry in the tightness of her mouth.

  “Some of you impressed me by reaching new high scores, and some of you clearly wrote your essays in the car on the way to school.” He sighed when a couple of kids laughed half-heartedly. He sat down behind the table, where he’d stay for the rest of the period. It also meant only seconds separated us from our scores.

  I took a breath. Said a little prayer. Waited.

  He lifted his hand and waved. “You may turn over your papers and see your scores. Remember that you do not need to discuss your score with anyone, so please don’t ask each other. If you wish to share, that’s your choice. Also, this week’s essays are due in five minutes.”

  As one, the class drew a breath and reached for the papers on the edge of their desk. Crinkling sounds filled the room, and then sighs and shouts of triumph and the sullen stuffing of papers in backpacks.