I was starting to need him to touch me more. What would happen if I didn’t stop this?

I tried to think of being with Cross, and then not. Of finding him with someone else. I tried to think how it’d feel if he walked away from me like Drake had. It had hurt with Drake—I couldn’t lie about that—but it would be devastating with Cross.

Pure agony sliced through my chest. That couldn’t happen. Ever.

“You’re never going to leave, are you?” It wasn’t like his answer would settle a future problem, but I couldn’t help myself.

I waited for him to respond, and my skin began to burn under his hand. I wanted his fingers to move, explore. I wanted them to slip under my shirt, and I tried to think of a way to lift it for him without moving a muscle.

“What?” His eyebrows drew together. “Where’d that come from?”

“Are you?”

“No.” He turned to face me. His eyes bore into mine. “No matter what happens, I’m not going anywhere.”

I felt my throat tightening again, that same damned wetness forming in my eyes. I curved my pinkie around his.

“We’re crew,” he added. “We don’t leave.”

Oh. “Yeah,” I managed. “We’re crew.”

“Seriously, are you okay?”

I nodded. “I’m okay.”

My eyes went back to the house, a different sort of yearning burrowing a hole in my chest. I felt Cross’ entire body soften, and he moved his arm to rest over my shoulder. His pinkie never unhooked from mine, and I lifted my hand to keep holding on.

He rested his head against the side of mine. “You never love the ones who are going to go.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s why you dated Drake. You didn’t care if he left.”

I almost sucked in my breath. It was true. I hadn’t realized until now. “That’s why I liked him?”

“Lust is not exclusive to need and love. You lusted after him. You didn’t need him.”

A ball dropped from my throat to my stomach. He had no idea what he’d just said to me, and I didn’t respond.

I shifted my body to rest back into him.

We’d sat like this so many times, but this time, Cross did something new.

He leaned back, his arms bracing behind him, and I almost fell into him. He caught me, easing me to lie on his chest, and wrapped his arm around my waist.

He was holding me.

And I let him.

We didn’t talk for the rest of the night. We never moved either.

It was dawn when I walked back into my house, Cross right behind me.

I was going to get dressed, and then we’d go to his house so he could do the same before school. It felt right having this closeness with him again—not that we hadn’t been close before, but there’d been a brief interval when we hadn’t been himandme, just him and me.

I’d stepped into the hallway, turning toward my bedroom when I heard the floor creak behind me.

I stiffened, knowing it wasn’t Cross. He was just coming through the screen door.

“Why do you do that?”

My brother.

My heart dropped. He sounded mad, and I turned to find that he was. Or he wasn’t. He had bags under his eyes. He seemed to have aged in just the few hours since I last saw him.

He wore a ripped T-shirt and grey sleeping pants.

I took a beat to consider my options.

Technically, I’d fucked up. He had been the nice one, checking on me yesterday, giving me space after the Ryerson fight. And Heather had asked me not to leave, but as I sat in the house yesterday, it had hit me.

If I followed their rules, they would keep piling them on.

If I became the dutiful sister/daughter, their expectations would rise.

I knew the end, because it’s the end most families had in mind for their children: he would want me to be normal.

I couldn’t do normal. That meant leaving the crew, and all the things we did as a crew.

There was no option.

“Just because you got stuck with the guardianship doesn’t mean you get to parent me,” I told him. Pain sliced through me, but I raised my chin defiantly. “You never had that privilege, and you certainly lost it when you were absent from my life for five years.”

“I’ve been here for the last two.”

“Not really,” I shot back. “You’ve been fighting. You’ve been managing a bar and a girlfriend.” I was tempted to name the other thing I knew had happened between him and Heather, but that wasn’t talked about. She’d never said it. He never had either. So I wouldn’t, but I ached inside too.

Cross closed the door quietly, and Channing came forward. When he saw him, he shook his head.

“Fuck. Now I get it.” He looked at me, sorrow in his eyes. “I get why Mom was so frustrated.” He gestured to Cross. “It sucks being on the other side.”

“Bullshit.” I couldn’t hold it in any longer. My voice rose. “You were gone, all the goddamn time—when she had to go to the hospital, when someone had to stay with her in there, when someone had to hold her hand, hold her hair back when she puked. Shit. Do you know how many blankets I got for her? How many times I cleaned her face, or moved her heating pad? Do you know I have vomit permanently burned into my nostrils? And that smell. Cancer has a smell. Did you know that?” No. I shook my head. “You were doing what I’m doing now. You were gone.”

He rubbed his forehead. “Bren.”

I shook my head. “You don’t get to say sorry now. She’s dead. I needed you then, not now. I’m good now.”

“You’re not good.”

“Oh, yes, I am.”

I was shaking. I didn’t realize until Cross touched my arm to stop the trembling.

I strained forward, all of my muscles tense, rigid. I was ready to attack, or be attacked.

“I’m sorry, Bren.” My brother’s voice dropped to a murmur. “I really am.”

“You missed my birthday.”

“What?” He dropped his hands from his forehead, trying to figure out what I was talking about.

“My birthdays. You missed them. All of them.”

His forehead wrinkled, and he cursed under his breath, “Shit.”

“I turned thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. I invited you to all of them. You didn’t come to one.”

“God, Bren. I’m sor—“

“I’m aware,” I cut him off. “Saying you’re sorry and being sorry are two totally different things. I’m immune by now.”

He stared at me, long and hard. I felt like I’d pulled off a layer and showed him the underside of me, and he wasn’t sure if he liked it or not—if he liked me or not. Finally, his shoulders lowered.

“I’ve been thinking this is normal teenage stuff, but it’s not, is it?”

I pressed my lips together. And even though everything in me suddenly hurt, my eyes were dry. I wouldn’t shed a tear, not for him, not for—I swallowed over a lump—not for what happened.

“Bren.” He moved toward me, reaching out.

I evaded him, backing away toward my room, but Cross moved in front of me. I blinked, and he appeared. He was protecting me against my own brother. No, that wasn’t totally right. He was shielding me.

His back was to me, and he held his hands up. “Stop.”

Channing did, looking between us before his head lowered.

He nodded. “Okay. Okay. I got it.”

He turned back to the kitchen, but stopped a few feet away. I hadn’t moved. Neither had Cross, and my brother looked between the two of us again. A soft sigh left him.

“I am sorry, Bren.”

I looked away. My dry eyes weren’t staying dry. I couldn’t have that.

“I was stupid and selfish back then, and I was a prick. I know it. Trust me. I fucked up other relationships during that time too,” he added, sounding haunted.

Goddamn him.

I didn’t want to hear those words. I didn’t want to hear how he seemed to be genuine.

Air hissed from my closed lips, and I swung into my room.

Goddamn! That fucker—now? NOW?! Why now? I shook my head. No, no. I wouldn’t go there. It was bullshit. Everything was bullshit. This was the safest way to live.

I went into my bathroom, but I didn’t close the door. I stood there, in front of the mirror, and held on to the counter.

Cross stood in the doorway. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to.

I looked up, feeling like someone had taken a battering ram to my body. “Did you buy that bullshit?”