Christian laughs. Laughs. “I’m not. I’ve just learned that when you hold shit back, things always end up more screwed than they were before. You want it, Brynn. If you didn’t, I wouldn’t have seen you sneaking out to your room so much. What’s the deal?” He turns into his driveway.

“Why do you care?” I snap and then feel like a jerk. “I’m sorry. It’s just…hard.”

“Welcome to the real world. We all have problems.”

His candor always shocks me. My feelings about it are a mixture of love and hate—there’s a part of me who likes that he pushes me. That he doesn’t tiptoe around or ignore me. But the other—well, the other hates it because like everything else, it’s hard. Like oil and water trying to blend together, I never know how to feel when Christian says things like that.

“I was doing it. Making something. In my pottery room. When she died.” My sentences are clipped, but they still come out. That’s what matters: that I opened my mouth and pushed the words out. That I want Christian to know.

“Shit. I’m sorry. But I think…” He pauses and reaches over to grab my hand. “You still need to get it back. It’s still yours. Don’t you want it? That thing that no one can take away from you?”

I do. I just don’t know if I can reach out and grab it. And as I look at him, in those blue, blue eyes that seem to go on forever, I wonder what someone took from him.

“What did you lose?” I ask.

Christian shakes his head. “It’s not really a big deal. We’ll talk about it later. Right now I just want to play my guitar and see you make something.”

I sigh and look down to realize we’re still holding hands. To see his darker skin contrast against my pale white. It makes me sound ridiculous, but I’ve only held hands with three boys in my life: Ian, Jason, and now Christian. I know it’s different with Christian and me, because with him, I feel his support. The way he squeezes and the texture of his skin feels different. The warmth in his body. It’s not about hooking up or walking down the hall with a girl in your arms. It’s about comfort. And it feels good to have someone comfort you. To not always have to do it for yourself.

“Come on, chica. You want this. I know you do. Let me play for you. Let me watch you create something.”

Those words pump me up. They give me a voice when I want to keep quiet. “I’ll try,” I tell him.

His smile skates over me. I feel it warm me even though my eyes are still on our hands.

…

“I can’t believe my music isn’t inspiring you. Guys who play guitar are supposed to be hot, right? I know I find hotness inspiring.”

I shoot Christian an annoyed look, although it’s hard to hold back my grin. He has the ability to make the corners of my mouth turn up when I least expect it. Whether I want them to or not. Though why would anyone not want to smile? That’s what Mom would say. “No talking about hotness.”

“Because you think I’m hot?”

Obviously. “Because I said so.”

“Whatever. We always have to play by your rules,” he says teasingly. And then he looks down again. His hair falls and I find myself wanting to touch it. Fight to hold back the thought that I shouldn’t want to because it feels good to want something normal. To try to pretend I’m like every other girl I know.

I watch as Christian’s fingers pluck the chords. As they move along each string, making a melody I’ve never heard before. It’s not someone else’s song. It’s Christian’s.

My eyes don’t leave him as I see his lips start to move. No sound comes out, but after a few seconds, I hear his voice. His words as he sings about overcoming obstacles in your life.

Slowly, his head tilts up. He doesn’t stop playing, but the words change and instead of his song, he sings to me, to stop watching him and start working. Shaking my head, I can’t help but chuckle as Christian continues with his song and I let my hands move through the clay. I wet them and again savor the feel of clay sliding through my fingers. Know that all I have to do is shape it. Move my fingers and create something, to claim that lost part of myself.

I close my eyes and just let myself feel. Feel and listen. Mom would have loved Christian’s music. I try to move my hands, begging myself, Make her happy, create something. I know her and know she would want me to still have this. Show Jason he didn’t win. That you’re worth more than he thought you were.

But who am I really? Even though I want to go back to who I was because it was so much easier, I don’t want to be that girl because that girl let Jason take advantage of her. She wasn’t strong.

“I can’t.” I push away from my pottery wheel.

I expect Christian to argue with me. To look at me like he’s disappointed because I know he is. He doesn’t get it. He’s able to just move on, but all my roadblocks keep stopping me.

“Come here.” He nods toward the spot next to him on the small couch. It makes my heart speed up, but I try not to concentrate on that.

“I have to wash my hands.” Walking over to the sink, I do just that. Dry them and then sit next to him. It’s not a big deal. And I am determined not to make it into one.

“You ever play the guitar?” he asks, and I shake my head. Christian sets the guitar in my hands. “I’m trusting you with my baby.”

“I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“Then I guess it’s good that I’m here.”

“It is,” I say. “I’m glad you’re here. I appreciate everything you do.” It’s important to me that he knows it. I don’t think I’ve ever told him.

“It’s the least I can do for the girl who taught me how to dance.” His voice is soft, sweet.

“I didn’t teach you how to dance.”

“Maybe I practiced so I could dance with you.”

My heart stops. Then jump-starts and speeds up. His words are exciting and scary and a million other things I can’t express. Christian doesn’t give me time to freak out, though. He doesn’t give me time to reply, either.

“Here. Put your hands like this.” He rearranges my fingers on the guitar.

He gets on the floor in front of me. “This is C.” Christian moves my fingers to put the right pressure where it’s needed and so they’re in the right spots. “Strum here,” he tells me, touching a finger. And I do. Christian teaches me a few notes. I almost drop the guitar once and he gasps, but it’s playful. We fool around, the sounds I’m making nothing compared to the beautiful music that dances off his fingers, but it still feels good to try.

“If you can’t get your pottery back, maybe you can have this,” he says. The words are like little knives, stabbing into my soul. Not because I don’t appreciate them, not because I wouldn’t like to play the guitar. But I don’t want to lose pottery. Not forever. I want it to be a part of me. It’s a part of Mom and me, and my eyes sting when I think about never getting that back.

“I won’t lose it forever. Pottery will always be mine.”

Christian looks at me. I wait for a smart-aleck reply or a smile, but get neither. Just his blue eyes sucking me in like a whirlpool. “That’s what I thought you would say. So you just have to keep fighting for it. Keep fighting to get it back. It’s what all the books say.” He grins, but I’m too entranced to do the same.

My eyes won’t leave his and his mine. And he’s hot. God, he’s so hot, I just want to focus on his cuteness. I want that to be all that matters. When his hand comes up and cups my cheek, I gasp. He brushes his thumb under my eye and licks his lips and I’m frozen and on fire and close to having a heart attack and anxious, too.

There’s a different air around us than there had been when he almost kissed me at school. Intimate and emotional and…more.

Slowly, he leans forward, and I know he’s giving me time, and my heart is leaping and I want to feel his lips. This is Christian. The boy who asked me to dance. The boy I used to tell Mom I loved. The first person who has made me feel normal since everything happened.

But I’m so scared. Scared of messing it up. Scared he’ll decide he doesn’t want me. Scared of losing him. Of getting hurt.

He gets closer and I smell his sweet, sugary scent. See his mouth and wet lips and that hair I want to touch.

See the one person besides Emery I have. The one person I can’t lose. “Wait,” I say, and Christian stops moving. He’s still close. So very, very close that his lips are only an inch away from mine. “I’m scared,” I admit.

“I won’t hurt you.”

And I swear a part of me believes him. Maybe all of me. But how do I know if that’s the right decision or not? And kissing always leads to touching and I don’t know if I can do more with a boy ever again.

He runs his hand down my face and touches my hair. I love that he’s not nervous to do it the way I am with him, and I watch his fingers, brown against my red hair.

“Go out with me, Bryntastic. Let’s go do something this weekend. Don’t keep running. I won’t even try to kiss you again unless you tell me to. Or I’ll wait for you to do it. Just let go. Live.”

His words are what I want. I want them so badly and they sound so perfect that it’s hard not to just scream Yes! right now. “Why?” I ask him. “Why are you so nice to me?”

I love his strength. Love that he doesn’t even hesitate before saying, “Because you were my first crush. Because I used to watch you follow your dreams with your pottery and listen to you laugh with your friends. You were happy, and I loved your smile. Because I had to work up the courage to ask you to dance and I did. Then we had to move and the one thing I missed was that smile. I watched my sister lose hers and watched my family fall apart and when I came back here? I wanted to see your smile again. Because you’re beautiful when you smile and you’ve lost it, too. I want you to conquer this because what the hell is the purpose in it all, if the first girl I ever danced with loses her smile?”

I don’t realize I’m crying until Christian wipes my tears. “You think I’m beautiful?” Mom called me beautiful. Dad called me beautiful. Jason did, too, but it had been a lie.

“Yeah, but it doesn’t matter unless you think you are.”

“Hey, Brynn. I was thinking—” Dad pushes open the door to my pottery room, and Christian jumps away from me. I see Dad’s face twist. See the wheels running in his head, but all I can think of is what Christian said. Do I think I’m beautiful? Hell, what is beautiful? Not just looks, but love is beautiful, right? What Mom and Dad had. Pottery. Christian playing the guitar. Sally and Brenda. Smiles.

“What are you doing?” Dad asks.

Christian pushes to his feet and holds out his hand. Before he can introduce himself, I jump up and say, “Dad, this is Christian Medina. He’s going to stay for dinner.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Now

We order pizza. I’m a little embarrassed about this because it feels so cliché. Girl and Dad living alone after Mom dies and no one cooks. They order pizza.

Christian rolls with the whole dinner thing the way he rolls with everything. He doesn’t know why I asked him over. Dad does. I can see that he’s glad to officially meet Christian so he can size him up, but he’s also not happy about it. If I’m letting them get to know each other, it means I want to spend more time with him, and I don’t think Dad wants me to spend time with a boy ever again.

For my sake or the guy’s, I’m not sure.

We’re sitting at the kitchen table. The pizza just arrived, and it feels so different from when I sat at the table with Brenda and Sally. It’s much more strained, but Dad doesn’t seem to notice. He doesn’t notice much of anything because all he’s doing is eating and staring at Christian.