“Aha!” he practically screams, pointing a finger at the pie in my hand. “I picked the healthier choice.”
I roll my eyes as he grins. “Just because it has apples in it, doesn’t mean that it’s healthier.”
“It so totally does.” He snatches the pie out of my hand, flips it over, and starts reading the back. Then he puts it into the cart and starts reading the back of the apple pie, his goofy attitude dissipating. “Shit, the apple sounds almost worse than the chocolate.”
“Told ya.” I give him a cocky grin as he puts the other pie into the cart.
“And I’m telling you that everything’s going to be okay with your band,” he says, draping his arm over my shoulder. I tense. Stop breathing. My mind searching for away to shrug him off without being too obvious. “You don’t give yourself enough credit for how much people love you. If they get pissed, just show them that sweet smile and I’m sure they’ll forgive you.”
“You’re giving me and my smile way too much credit.” I pretend to step forward and assess the selection of pies again.
“No way.” He moves forward with me and touches my bottom lip with his fingertip. “I’m not giving it enough credit.” His tongue slips out and wets his lips as his eyes zone in on mine.
I swallow hard. Shit. This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.
As he looks at me with this sort of lustful look, I realize I just might have more problems than my band getting mad at me. I can see it in his eyes—he’s thinking about kissing me. Right here in the grocery store. I should take off running, right down the aisle, but I freeze in place, worried that if I reject him like that, it could mess up how good everything’s going.
My thoughts are racing in a distorted stream that doesn’t make sense and the closer Tristan’s lips get to mine, the blurrier everything around me becomes. I feel a shift, one I want to run the hell away from. Not just out of the store, but back in time to when life didn’t seem so complicated. Back when I was sure about everything. Yet I keep standing in place. Motionless. About to ruin everything.
Thankfully, Lea turns the corner with two bags of rolls in her hand. “Okay, so I couldn’t decide what kind to get,” she says, dropping the bags into the cart. “So I got both.” She gives us a funny look as Tristan steps back, stuffing his hands into his pockets, and I start picking at my nails.
“Two bags is fine,” Tristan says indifferently. “You never can have too many rolls.”
Lea looks at him like he’s crazy, but Tristan ignores her and roams up the aisle, glancing at the crackers-and-cookies section like it’s the most fascinating thing in the world.
“Did you guys almost just kiss?” Lea hisses as I wrap my fingers around the handle of the cart.
I swiftly shake my head. “No.”
She raises her eyebrows at me. “Don’t lie to me, Nova Reed.”
“I’m not,” I say in a low voice, pushing the cart forward.
But I am lying. Because I know I wouldn’t have moved away if he’d kissed me. But for what reason, I’m not sure.
By the time I get back to the apartment, I feel like a terrible person. I end up going into my room, locking my door, cranking up my music, and pretending I don’t hear Tristan when he knocks or Lea when she hollers for me to come watch a movie with her. Instead I sit on my bed and take out my photo album dedicated to Landon. I relax back in bed, leaning against the headboard, and start turning the pages. I can’t help but smile at the good pictures, the ones where Landon looks really happy. The ones of our good moments. There weren’t many, which makes it hard to remember them sometimes and easier to remember the sad times because there were so many. But when things were good, they were amazing.
Finally, after I’m on the verge of tearing up, I decide to get out my camera and record myself. I set the camera on my nightstand and aim it at myself as I turn the pages of the album.
“Once upon a time, there was a girl who liked to look at things on a positive side a lot,” I say as I stare at a picture of myself grinning at the camera, a picture Landon took; his finger ended up covering part of the lens. “She had such hope inside her that everything was going to turn out okay. That despite the tragedy with her dad, she would grow up and be happy.” I turn the page and then run my fingers across a picture of Landon with his head tipped down as he stares at something on the ground, his backyard in the background. “What she didn’t realize is that tragedy was going to hit her again and her happily-ever-after wouldn’t exist anymore. And she’d be left feeling lost for the longest time.” I flip the page over to a picture of Landon and me together, one where he’s kissing my cheek and I’m laughing because his hair tickles me. I think it might be one of my favorites. “She’d eventually find her way back to a good life again, for the most part, anyway. But when it came to relationships, she’d be confused and she’d analyze it all the time, who she was supposed to end up with in life. But an answer would never come to her and she’d eventually start wondering if maybe she was just supposed to be alone in the world.” I sit up and pull my knees up to my chest, resting my chin on top of them, and stare down at a picture that captured a moment that was gone as soon as the flash died. “That maybe her heart would always belong to a ghost.” As soon as I say it, though, I know it’s not true. Yes, Landon did take a piece of my heart with him the day he died, but not the entire thing. I know because I can feel a pull to someone else at the moment.
I lean over to my nightstand, open the drawer, and take out Quinton’s sketches, which I picked up from his apartment floor in Vegas when he disappeared from my life. I unfold them and then run my fingers across the lines and shadings. One of them is of Lexi, his girlfriend who died in the car accident. The way he captures her, the dark lines drawn with such passion, lets me know how much he cared about her. The second is a picture of himself, only half of his face is skeletal, and then the final one is of me. The lines aren’t dark and full of passion like Lexi’s. They’re actually really light, like he was afraid to draw me or something. I wonder if he was—if he still is afraid of me.
I get up and turn my music down, then go get my phone out of my jacket pocket before returning to my bed. Once I get situated on the bed, I take a deep breath and dial Quinton’s number. I haven’t told him I have his drawings, because I’m not sure how he’ll react.