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broad chest that tapered down to a trim waist. He might not play sports, but whatever he did to stay fit was working. I suspected the only thing that kept him from being the most popular guy in school, was himself. He didn’t seem to care about anything, and had no interest in being liked by anyone except the female half of the student body, and even then he didn’t seem all that concerned with actually being liked. For the most part he kept to his very small group of friends and enjoyed stirring up trouble. There were all sorts of rumors that went around about him.
    He caught me staring and instantly I looked away, going to stand nowhere near him while I waited for Jeremy to come out of the locker room.
    Mr. Kilroy took it easy on us for the first day, going over the rules before making us do a few laps around the basketball court and then letting us split into teams for a game of indoor flag football. The guys were always way too intense, and with Jeremy and his friends on one team and Nash and Derek on the other, the competition heated up quickly. The few of us girls mostly stayed out of the way except when Kilroy was watching to see who was participating. I was glad when class was over and even more grateful when the day was over.
    I was wiped after cheer practice and turned down Jeremy’s invitation to have dinner with his family in favor of going home, throwing on some yoga pants and getting a head start on the English and History reading. I made a quick stop by the library and asked if they had a copy of the book Nash had recommended. One of the librarians retrieved it and checked it out to me. I was hungry and they were minutes from closing so I tossed it in my bag without another glance and headed home.
    My mom was checked out in the living room, staring mindlessly at the TV, a bottle of wine half gone beside her. She didn’t even bother to ask how the first day of my last year of high school was. She could hardly be bothered to look up when I walked through to the kitchen. It was nothing new. I couldn’t remember the last real conversation we’d had. The only time she seemed to actually show an interest was when she felt I wasn’t living up to the standards of this family, or she needed me to put on my fake face and attend some stupid charity function with her. That’s what our relationship consisted of. Behind closed doors it was long bouts of silence, followed by lectures and disappointment that turned to more silence. But out there, we were the image of class and sophistication and the biggest lie of all, happy.
    I found everything I needed in the fridge to make myself a chicken salad and then took it up to my room, where I started pulling books and notebooks from my backpack.
    The English project outline fell to the floor along with the library book. I snatched them up and took a closer look at the book. The cover featured a dark haired woman, well her back anyway. Some kind of toga or sheet draped her shoulders. I flipped it open to the first chapter, something about a Hungarian adventurer.
    I didn’t make it ten pages before I slammed the book closed and tossed it on my bed, my cheeks flushed and my heart thudding a little quicker.
    Then I noticed the faint word that I had somehow missed before at the top of the book in tiny, almost unnoticeable script.
    Erotica.
    Asshole, I thought.

Five
     
    Shae
     
    April 29
    Present . . .
     
    “Then I think we can both agree there’s no sense in dragging the past back up.”
    “That’s fine with me,” he bristled. “I wasn’t looking to rehash old arguments. I just thought we could put it behind us and–”
    “And what? Be friends?” I laughed bitterly. “You and I both know friends was the one thing we never could do very well.”
    “Things change. We’ve both changed. We can be adults about this. I’d like to hear how you’ve been. You’re living in New York?” He really wanted to do this.
    “Trust me, Nash, you don’t want to hear about the