Someday, when I'm living my dreams, I'm going to think of all the things that broke my heart and I'm going to be thankful for them.

I knew I had to. Because I had been wrong.

Everything had changed. In one night, nothing was the same.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Tenleigh

We took our finals a week later. I looked for Kyland after school, but couldn't find him. I wasn't overly anxious about it. I didn't really want to talk about how he'd done. Not that I didn't already know—I was sure he had aced them. He hadn't seemed concerned in the least and when we'd studied, even though he'd been distracted, he'd answered every question I'd asked him from his study guides with unflinching certainty.

No, the real reason I didn't want to discuss finals was because it was another topic that reminded me how soon he'd be leaving. In any case, I had to get home and drop off my stuff so I could get going to Al's where I had a shift. Al had said he'd have more shifts available now that summer was almost here. The clientele picked up in the warmer months when he opened the outdoor patio and he had lost a couple girls to the new bar that had opened in Evansly. So that was great news. I had insider information I'd be staying in Dennville and so it was good I was going to have a regular income, at least for the summer. After that, I'd figure something out. I'd come up with my life plan B. Disappointment filled my chest, but I dismissed it. I'd done this. I'd made the choice and I'd followed through with it. There was no going back now.

As I walked up the main road through Dennville, lost in my own thoughts, I looked to my left and saw Shelly talking to Kyland in the doorway of an abandoned building. She was standing in his space and looking up at him just like she owned him. Jealousy overtook me and I jolted. He leaned his hip on the doorframe as she said something I couldn't hear. I stepped backward so that I was being hidden by a thick, wooden telephone pole and peeked out at them.

Great. Now I was a stalker.

What was I doing? I bit my lip and debated whether to walk over and join them. Why did I feel like I would be interrupting? We'd only been together the one beautiful night in the lavender field, but it had to mean something. I swooned very temporarily as I recalled our night, but then the jealousy made itself known again and I glanced back over at Shelly and Kyland. Why did some part of me feel like I would be interfering in whatever they had going on between them if I approached? Like I was the interloper? I recalled the kiss I had witnessed between them, the groping in the theater all those months ago, and suddenly I felt like I'd be sick to my stomach. When I looked back again, they were gone. I blinked and spied them walking up ahead, Shelly pulling him along by the hand as he followed her.

My heart dropped. I didn't know how to feel. Was he mine? Did I have any right to claim him in some public way? He had asserted again and again that he was leaving and he could make me no promises. How could I talk to him about it now, demand things, when I had been the one to tell him it was okay with me if he slept with me and still left?  But then he'd told me he loved me. Confusion overwhelmed me. If love wasn't a sort of claiming in itself, then what was it? Could he love me, be intimate with me, but still feel free to be with other girls? I couldn't stop the pain that seemed to be flowing through my veins. I felt hot, yet empty—my skin prickly. No, he wouldn't. That wasn't Kyland. If I knew anything of him, I knew he was honorable. Didn't I?

I walked home slowly when I should have been hurrying. We'd spent what I thought had been such a beautiful night together, one that had changed me. I had given him all of me—my body and my heart. And suddenly, only a week later, I felt doubtful and insecure again.

"I hate love," I muttered.

I rushed into our trailer and threw my school stuff on the couch. Marlo came out of the bathroom, buttoning up her white shirt.

"Hey." She smiled. "How'd finals go?"

I didn't look at her as I grabbed my work clothes out of the closet. "Oh, um, fine I think," I lied. "I'm just glad they're over." I turned to her and gave her a big smile, one I hoped was distracting.

She narrowed her eyes at me, but nodded her head slowly. "Okay, good. Well, are you ready? If we leave now, we won't be late."

"Yeah, just give me two minutes," I said, rushing into the bathroom.

Five minutes later we were walking back down the road toward town.

There was a big basketball game on television today and the place would be packed, so we were both eager to get there. The extra customers would bring in extra money, and now that we'd both be working a shift, we'd bring in double. At least this day offered some sort of silver lining. I didn't get a lot of tips, but if the customers got drunk enough, a few of them would confuse me with a waitress and I'd make a little bit of cash, too. My usual MO was to stay out of the way as much as possible, especially when it came to the drunk executives who worked at the mine company headquarters in Evansly, but not today. Today I'd stay right in the way. I scowled down at my moving feet. They might look classy in their suits and gold jewelry, but down deep, they were just entitled scums who acted as if us backwoods women were damn lucky to get their attention at all. Of course, plenty of the girls around here thought just that and acted accordingly. I'd heard a particularly loud executive yell drunkenly to his group of out-of-town co-workers, "Take your pick, gentlemen, they come cheap," and then guffaw loudly. Problem was, food and heat didn't and sometimes you did what you had to do. And sometimes, you got it in your fool head that one of them wanted to save you from the miserable life you were living.