It was the first time I’d realized my best friend was…well, beautiful.

Stupid, I knew, especially considering the circumstances. He’d saved me from certain death, pounced on top of me so I wouldn’t get hit by a speeding car, and all I could think of was not Val, or Edie, or Depeche Mode, or how fragile life was, but the fact that the boy I’d grown up with was about to burst and bloom into a teenager. A handsome teenager. A handsome teenager who would have better things to do with his time than saving his awkward childhood friend or teaching her how to say douchebag in sign language.

I’d thought the memories of Valenciana nicked my heart, but that was nothing compared to the violent rip of it when I looked at Knight, realizing for the first time that he was going to break that piece of my heart he held hostage. Not maliciously, no, and definitely not intentionally. But it didn’t matter. Hit-and-run or struck by lightning—a death was a death.

A heartbreak was a heartbreak.

Pain was pain.

“What the fudge?” he screamed in my face.

He was so close I could smell his breath. Sugar and cocoa and boy. Boy. I still had a few years before it all started. Transfixed, I couldn’t even bring myself to wince at his anger. How had I never noticed the graceful angles of his nose? The color of his eyes—so vividly green with flecks of dark blue, a shade of viridian I’d never seen before? The regal slopes of his cheekbones, so sharp as they outlined his mischievous face like pop art inside a thousand-dollar gold frame?

“Answer me, goddammit.” He punched the concrete near my face.

His knuckles were as swollen as golf balls by now. He’d recently started cursing for real. Not a lot, just enough to make me cringe. I stared at him, steadfast, knowing he’d never hurt me. He wrapped a hand around his injured fist and let out a frustrated howl, then dropped his forehead to mine, panting hard. We were both out of breath, our chests rising and falling in the same rhythm.

“Why?” His voice was a soft growl now. He knew he wasn’t going to get an answer. Our hair matted together, his penny brown mane mixing with my dark curls. “Why’d you do this?”

I tried to wiggle my arms from out of the confines of his thighs so I could answer in sign language, but he pressed his legs against my body, locking me in place.

“No,” he growled, his voice thick with threat. “Use your words. You can. I know you can. Mom and Dad told me. Tell me why you did this.”

I opened my mouth, wanting so badly to answer his question. He was right, of course. I could speak. Physically, anyway. I knew because sometimes in the shower, or when otherwise completely alone, I would repeat words I loved, as practice. Just to prove I could, that I was capable of uttering them aloud, that I chose not to talk. I repeated the words, the sound of my voice sending small shudders of pleasure down my back.

Old books.

Fresh air (especially after the rain).

Watching the moon watching me back.

Seahorses.

Dad.

Edie.

Racer.

Knight.

Now, for the first time, Knight was demanding my words. I wanted to say them. More than that—I knew he deserved to hear them. But nothing came out. My mouth hung open, and the only thing flashing through my mind was, You don’t just seem to be stupid, you look it, too.

“Say it.” Knight shook my shoulders.

The hail faded into light rain, and my visibility cleared. His eyes were red-rimmed and tired. So tired. Tired because of me. Because I always got into stupid trouble he had to pull me out of.

He thought I’d tried to hurt myself. I hadn’t. I kept opening and closing my mouth like a fish, but the words wouldn’t come out. I tried to rip them from my mouth, my heart escalating, beating everywhere behind my ribs.

“Ahh…I….hmm…”

He stood up, pacing back and forth, threading his fingers in his thick, wet hair and tugging it in frustration.

“You’re so…” He shook his head, letting the drops fly everywhere. “So…”

I got up and ran toward him. I didn’t want to hear the rest of his sentence. I wasn’t keen on finding out what he thought of me. Because if he believed I’d driven straight into the car, hoping for a collision, he clearly thought I was way more screwed up than I was.

I grabbed his shoulder and twisted him around. He scowled.

I shook my head, frantic. “I didn’t see the car. I swear,” I signed.

“You could have died,” he screamed in my face, pounding his scarred knuckles over his heart. “You could have left me.”

“But I didn’t.” I used my hands, arms, fingers to reassure him.

My lips trembled. This was about so much more than us. This was about Rosie, his mother, too. Knight didn’t like people disappearing. Not even for a few days, to get better in the hospital.

“Thanks to you,” I signed. “You saved me.”

“Remember always, whenever, forever? What happened to that bullshit? Where’s your side of the bargain?”

He repeated my promise to him all those years ago, his voice dripping disdain. I opened my arms for a hug, and he stepped into it, melting into my body. We molded, like two distinct colors mixed together into something unique and true—a shade only we could paint with.

Knight buried his face in my hair, and I squeezed my eyes shut, imagining him doing it with someone else. Despite the chill, my blood ran hotter.

Mine.

I wasn’t only thinking it. My lips moved, shaping the word. I could almost hear the word. I tightened my hold on him.

“Ride or die,” he whispered into the shell of my ear.

I knew he meant his promise.

I also knew how unfair it was, because I didn’t know if I could save him if I had to.

If someone like Knight would ever need saving. Knight was a normal kid. He talked. He was athletic, outgoing, and oozed confidence. Edie had said he was so handsome, modeling scouts stopped Rosie at the mall and thrust their business cards in her hands, begging her to let them represent him. He was funny, charming, well-heeled, and rich beyond his wildest dreams. The world was his for the taking, and I knew one day he would.

I started crying in his arms. I wasn’t a crier. I could count on one hand the number of times I’d wept since Val left. But I couldn’t stop myself. I knew, then, that ours would not be a happily ever after.

He deserved more than a girl who couldn’t tell him how she felt.

He was perfect, and I was flawed.

“Promise me.” His lips touched my temple, his warm breath sending shivers down my body.

Shivers that felt different—like they filled my lower belly with lava. Promise him what? I wondered. I nodded yes anyway, eager to please him, though he hadn’t completed his sentence. My lips moved.

“I promise. I promise. I promise.”

Maybe that’s why he didn’t trust me.

Why he’d sneak into my bedroom that night—and every night, for the next six years—and wrap his arms around me, making sure I was really okay.

Sometimes he smelled of alcohol.

Sometimes of another girl. Fruity and sweet and different.

Oftentimes, he smelled of my heartbreak.

But he was always making sure I was safe.

And he always left before my dad knocked on my door to wake me up.

For the next six years, before jumping through my window, Knight would drop a kiss on my forehead in the exact same spot where shortly thereafter Dad would kiss me good morning, the heat of Knight’s lips still on my skin, making my face radiate.