The Missing Season by Gillian French

Author:Gillian French
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-04-11T16:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

I DON’T KNOW what to do.

A dam’s burst, letting all the consequences through, sweeping away my floaty, spinning feelings, leaving nothing but this roaring in my ears. I’m practically silent on the walk back, searching for words—don’t take this wrong, but—can we not—at least, not in front of—but it’s impossible, the idea of pushing him away, turning him down when we’re so new, just born together.

I’m sick with the thought of Bree, flat-out nauseous by the time we reach the park. Everyone’s here, like they heard a rumor that we were handing out free Fireball or something. Bree’s talking with Sage, Trace, and Moon. She doesn’t notice us coming out of the trees, doesn’t look over until she hears leaves crunching beneath our sneakers. I’m quick to split off from him, and now who’s in the killing jar, beating their wings as everything goes dark?

“Hope you’re ready for this,” Bree says to me. “Trace wants to pull another one.” But her heat-seeking gaze follows Kincaid, watching him get on his board and do a couple slow laps to warm up. I force myself to look anywhere but at him. We didn’t cheat. There’s nothing to cheat on. But still.

Trace shows Sage something on his phone, and I take in all the details: how she sits with her hip pressed against his, their shoulders touching, things that were just vaguely discomfiting PDA before, but now, over the span of one afternoon, I can so totally understand, and envy. What I did in the woods with Kincaid was the farthest I’ve ever gone, a giant leap from that first, chaste little kiss freshman year, with the boy who only dated me because he knew it couldn’t last.

“There’s a crapload of stuff you can do to a car like that.” Trace grins. “Crack picked the wrong ride.” He points his phone at each of us. “You’ll get a text letting you know when. We’ve got to change up the day we hit, so there’s no pattern. Human brains want a pattern. We want them scared.” Two skaters, underclassmen, stray close to our spot, and Trace stares them down until they move on.

“What’s the plan?” I say.

“Operation Hide the Bug.” Bree puts her hands up at my look. “That’s all he’ll say.”

I sit cross-legged on the ground, making the gummy bags crinkle in my coat pocket. I toss one to Sage, the other to Moon, stealing the moment of shark enthusiasm to drop, briefly, into a flashback of the woods. How I let his tongue in my mouth, something I always secretly thought sounded gross and intrusive, but isn’t at all. With the right person, maybe you can never get too intimate, never go too far. I open my eyes. Kincaid is watching me. I watch back.

He slows, hops off his board, holds it out to me. “Ever done it?” And it’s there between us, all the heat, his hands sliding over my bare skin. A smile plays at his lips. “Try.”

“So you can watch me fall on my ass?”

“Damn, really? No faith.

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