I push off the Jeep. What the hell? Noah gingerly touches his cheek, then inclines his head as if to release tension. “I was starting to feel left out after your little show back at the apartment complex.”

“This is your fault!” she screams. “You and Echo and your new life. You turned Isaiah against me because you’re too scared to be real. You want to be fake. Just like your girl.”

Tattoo Guy—Isaiah—places his hand on Beth’s arm and yanks her away from Noah.

Hell no. Punk or no punk, a girl is in serious trouble if she hits a guy and a guy should never touch a girl. My fingers tighten into a ball as I stalk over. “Get away from her.”

“Groveton,” Isaiah says as he ignores me.

“With your uncle. That is exactly where you need to be.” He points south, away from

Louisville, toward home. “That world can give you what I can’t. Not now. Just wait until graduation.”

“If you meant what you said,” she says in a low growl, “you’ll keep your promise now.”

A dark shadow seems to encompass the guy and I quicken my pace. “I said get away from her.” My heart pounds in my chest. Two against one. The odds are bad, but I’ll take them.

“Don’t you dare throw that in my face,”

Isaiah says to her, then rips his stare from Beth to focus on me. “This doesn’t involve you, man, so fuck off.”

“The hell it doesn’t. She came here with me and she’s going home with me. Anything that happens to her in between is my business.”

He angles his body toward me. “You say that like she’s yours.”

“Isaiah,” Beth whispers. “Don’t.”

With only two feet between us, I take another step with every muscle prepared for a fight. “She became mine the moment you laid a hand on her.”

He closes the gap and we’re standing toe-to-toe. His face inches from mine. Anger pulsates from his body. “She’s not yours. She’s mine and I don’t like how you treat her.”

A petite arm slides between our bodies.

“Isaiah,” says Beth. “Let it go.”

“How I treat her?” Is this guy high? “She doesn’t seem to want you.”

“Ryan, stop, please.” I’ve never heard Beth plead before and I want to look at her and confirm those words actually fell out of her mouth, but I don’t dare. I keep solid eye contact with the asshole in front of me.

An insane smile tugs at his lips. “You think she wants you? Is that what you think? That you’re some type of real man because you torture her at school? Because you spill her secrets? Because you humiliate her? You think she wants a guy that makes her cry?”

“Isaiah!” yells Beth.

His arm snaps back and so does mine. A large figure surges from my left and instead of the hit I’m prepared to take as I throw, Noah pushes Isaiah into a car. “Back off, bro.”

“How could you!” I expect to see Beth’s frigid, accusing stare in my direction. Instead, it’s fixed on Isaiah. Her entire body shakes and she rubs her left arm with her right hand. A continuous motion over and over again. “How could you tell him that?”

Isaiah blinks and the anger drains out of him. “Beth…”

She rushes to the Jeep. “Let’s go.”

She doesn’t have to tell me twice. I shove the keys in the ignition before I shut the door and roar out of the parking lot. Hitting the freeway, I click on my seat belt as Beth rests her head against the passenger window.

I search for the anger I felt earlier and try to find a way to blame her. She was the one that left. She was the one that spent time with those two guys. But the only thought turning in my  brain is the accusation Isaiah spat at me: I make her cry.

Beth

LIVING IS LIKE BEING CHAINED at the bottom of a shallow pond with my eyes open and no air. I can see distorted images of happiness and light, even hear muffled laughter, but everything is out of my reach as I lie in suffocating agony. If death is the opposite of living, then I hope death is like floating.

I’ve never fought with Isaiah and Noah like that. I never thought Isaiah would betray me, but he has. I trusted my best friend with secrets—secrets I’ve never told another living soul. He knows about my father, he knows about my mother, he knows how many times a man has slapped a hand across my face…he knows that Ryan, the way he offers friendship when I know he’s only playing me, hurts.

Resting my forehead against the glass of the passenger-side window, I watch the multiple white lines in the middle of the road speed by. On the two-lane road leading to my uncle’s house, Ryan passes a tractor trailer, easily doing sixty in a forty-five. I sort of wish I had the courage to open the door and fall out.

It would hurt, but then the pain would be over when I died. All the pain. The indescribable ache in my chest, the heaviness in my head, the hard lump in my throat—it would all be gone.

We’ve ridden in silence. I’m not sure if it’s been an uncomfortable silence as I am on the verge of numb. I’m striving for numb. I crave numb. I want to be high.

The Jeep veers to the left and we begin the trip down the long driveway. My stomach growls. We never ate.

When he reaches the house, Ryan places the Jeep in park and immediately turns off the engine. I hate the country. With no lights, the woods and fields become the playground of my nightmares. My skin pricks at the thought of the devil waiting in the darkness to snatch me up and expel me into nothingness.

There are so many things Ryan can do. He can yell. He can go inside and tell Scott everything. The latter would make him the upstanding kid that Scott wants me to be. It would also crush the remains of my life. Scott will send Mom to jail.

And me? I’ll want to die.

Four hours ago, pride would have never let me say the words, but there’s nothing left inside me. “I’m sorry.”

Frogs croak near the creek that borders Scott’s farm. Ryan says nothing back and I don’t blame him. There really is nothing for him to say to a girl like me.

He examines the keys in his hands. “You played me for a ride into Louisville.”

“Yes.” And if my plan had worked, I would be gone, and my uncle would have blamed him.

“You planned to meet with that guy instead of spending time with me.”

“Yes.” He deserves honesty and that is as honest an answer as I can give him.

He twirls the keys around his finger. “From the moment you walked into Taco Bell, you were nothing more than a dare. Chris and

Logan dared me to get your phone number and then I was dared to take you on a date.”

The words sting, but I struggle to keep the pain from surfacing. What more should I expect? He’s everything that’s right with the world. I’m everything wrong. Guys like him don’t go for girls like me.

“I almost got into a fight for you.”

“I know.” And I say those rare words again:

“I’m sorry.”

Ryan sticks the key into the ignition and starts the engine. “You owe me. I’ll pick you up at seven on Friday. No games this time. A simple night. We go to the party. We hang for an hour. I win my dare, then I take you home.

You go back to ignoring me. I’ll ignore you.”

“Fine.” I should be happy, but I’m not. This is what I thought I wanted. Behind the numbness is an ache waiting to torture me. I open the door to the Jeep and close it without looking back.

Ryan

STATE LAW KEEPS ME from pitching more than fifteen innings a week. I’m only brought in on Thursday games if our other two pitchers dig us a hole. Three innings ago, when Coach put me in, we were so far deep we couldn’t see daylight. Not that the rain helps.

It’s rained for two weeks. Two weeks’ worth of games have been called. Two weeks’ worth of parties have been canceled. Two weeks of me and Beth ignoring each other.

Everyone is anticipating that the rain will end tonight and the field party will finally take place tomorrow. I’m ready too—eager to win the dare and have Beth officially out of my life.

Bottom of the seventh with the score tied, I need to hold this last batter to send the game into extra innings. Light rain cools the heat on the back of my neck. Pooled droplets drip from the brim of my hat. The ball’s slick. So is my hand. I hate playing in the rain, but guys in the majors do it all the time.

The intensity of the rain increases. I can barely read Logan’s signal. Out of habit, I peek at the runner on first, but I can’t see a damn thing. I wind back and the game-changing sound of nature intervenes: thunder and lightning.

“Off the field!” the umpire shouts.

My cleats sink in the mud as I walk to the dugout. This is the third rain delay of the game.

There won’t be another. The game is done.

“Great job, guys.” Coach claps each one of us on our soggy backs as we enter. “Drive home safely. Severe weather is moving through.”

Rain beats against the roof. I don’t see the point of a roof if everything underneath it is wet. The seats. The equipment. Our bags. I quickly change shoes, tying my Nikes harder and faster than normal.

Knowing me better than anyone else, Chris wedges his large body onto the bench beside me. “We didn’t lose.”

Rain cancellations don’t count. “We didn’t win either.”

“You would have pulled us out.”

“Maybe.” I stand and sling my bag over my shoulder. “But I’ll never know.”

The rest of the team chatters, changes shoes, and waits in the dugout for the worst of the rain to end. I’m not in the mood for company and I’m already wet. The rain hammers my back as I head to the parking lot.

“Hey!” Chris runs to catch me. “What’s your deal, dawg?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t give me that shit,” he yells over the rain. “You’ve been a walking mood for two weeks.”

I open the door to my Jeep and toss my bag into the back. Beth. That’s what happened, but I can’t tell Chris that. I’m ending my losing streak tomorrow when the rain moves out and Beth comes with me to the party.

“Maybe he’ll tell me.” Standing next to

Chris, Lacy looks like a drowned rat with her hair plastered to her face. When the rain began an hour ago, she sought shelter in Chris’s car.

“Take me home, Ryan.”

The last thing I want is to be trapped in a car with her. “I’m not your boyfriend.”

“No,” she yells as another clap of thunder vibrates in the sky. “You’re my friend.”

Lacy kisses Chris’s cheek and runs to the passenger side. I glance at Chris and he nods.

“She doesn’t want to be mad at you anymore.”

I hop into the Jeep and start it up. In Lacy-like style, she goes to work turning on the heat and switching the radio to her favorite country station before lowering the sound. “Did you and Beth have a fight?”

The windshield wipers whine at a fast rate as I pull out of the parking lot. I wonder what Lacy knows. I didn’t tell anyone that Beth and I went into Louisville. “Is that what she said?”