I guess I had no chances. I put my hands on my hips. “I’ve never done anything to make you hate me. Why are you so mean to me?”
“Because you’re so annoying.”
I glared at him. My babysitter was wrong. And Miles Young was a jerk face. “Well I don’t want to play with you anyway.”
“Good.” He turned around and started to walk away.
I just wanted to be friends with him. Was that really so hard to ask? There were no other kids around. It was just the two of us. We were supposed to be best of friends.
And in that moment I hated him so much. I leaned down and packed a snowball together, lifted it up in my mittens, and threw it at the back of his stupid head.
It was glorious. The snowball made perfect contact and exploded into powdery dust. He immediately froze.
I clapped my mittens over my mouth so he wouldn't hear my laughter.
“Oh, it is so on,” he said and leaned down to pack a snowball.
I squealed and started running. I didn’t even want to retaliate. He was hitting me with snowballs. Which meant he could see me. I wasn’t invisible anymore.
In a few minutes I was covered in snow. I was pretty sure if I looked in the mirror I’d think I was looking at a snowman instead of myself.
“I surrender,” I said. I fell backward into the snow and started making snow angels.
He laughed and plopped down in the snow beside me. I smiled up at the falling snow when I heard him flapping his arms and legs. He had wanted to make snow angels. And I had convinced him to make them with me.
One of my favorite things was catching snowflakes on my tongue. I was about to tell him to try, but when I turned to face him, I stopped. He was still making snow angels. And his tongue was sticking out.
I had never seen it directed at anyone but me. There he was though, catching snowflakes on his tongue. And I realized that catching snowflakes was no longer my favorite thing. His smile definitely surpassed it.
I was about to tell him how much I liked playing with him when his mother called his name.
“The hot chocolate is ready!” Mrs. Young said. “Summer, do you want some too?”
I stared at Miles. All I wanted in the whole world was for him to invite me in. I had been in his house before, but always by his mother’s invitation. He had always made it perfectly clear that he didn’t want me around.
“I guess you can come if you have to,” Miles said as he sat up.
I definitely had to. Yes, it was the rudest invitation in the history of invitations. But how could I refuse him? I loved Miles Young. The only thing I hated about him was that he didn’t love me back.
Chapter 2
18 Years Old
Present Day – Sunday
I slowly opened my eyes. At first I wasn’t sure what had awakened me, but it only took a moment to realize that the usual noises of the city had ceased. I stared up at the ceiling. A snow day. Great. I sighed and pulled the covers back up to my chin. All I wanted to do was curl back up in a ball and dream of simpler times. But time was a luxury I no longer had.
It had been four months since I had slipped the note under Miles’ door, confessing who I was and telling him it was time for him to move on. When I wrote it, I thought I was going to die. In a lot of ways I had. I pushed the comforter off of me and stepped down onto the cold wood floor.
I stopped in front of the mirror and wondered if Miles would even recognize me now. I had ditched my Sadie Davis disguise. And with it, I had ditched the last piece of myself that made any sense…Miles. I'd cut my hair to right beneath my chin and dyed it dirty blonde. I'd stopped wearing my brown colored contacts. After dozens of fights with Liza, I had gotten a fake ID with my real name – Summer Brooks. The agreement was that I didn’t contact anyone from my past. That I never actually used my ID for anything. And that I never left the house unless I could hide in the darkness or behind my new mask.
The rules should have been easy to follow. I was wanted for the murder of Sadie Davis. But every night, I came close to breaking the rules. I crept to a rooftop adjacent to my old dorm building and waited for Miles to come look at the stars. Every night I waited. Only…he never came. He stopped going to his favorite place. My letter had told him to stop looking for me. I shouldn’t have been surprised.
My stalking tendencies didn’t just stop there either. I watched his soccer games from afar. I watched his team win the division. I watched him celebrating with his friends. I watched him leave NYC to go home for the holidays. I watched him forget about all about me.
And it hurt. Part of me thought he’d continue his search for me now that he knew I was alive. But it wasn’t that simple. He would have seen the news. He would have seen that I was a murderer. Clearly he wanted nothing to do with me now. And even though I wasn’t a murderer, I would be soon. Miles had made the right choice. I just hoped that I was about to make the right one too.
I pulled on my leggings and sweater and grabbed my gun off the nightstand. I had invested in a bra holster because when I kept the gun on my hip, all V could seem to do was glare at it. This way, I felt safe and he couldn’t complain. What he didn’t know wouldn’t kill him. It wasn’t like he had been anywhere near my breasts lately anyway. I had pushed him away. Just like I had pushed Eli away. And Miles.
Miles. He was coming back from winter session break today. I put my gun in its holster and adjusted my sweater. There was no reason to go to the roof to see if he would appear tonight. It was snowing. There were no stars in the snow. Besides, what if he did go to the rooftop? What if he brought someone with him? I couldn’t watch that. Believing that he had moved on was one thing. Seeing it though? I couldn’t.
I quickly washed up in the bathroom and stepped out into the hall. V was already sitting at the kitchen table. When we had all agreed to work together, I hadn’t realized it would mean living together. Eli, Liza, V, and I were pretty much the worst group of roommates ever. Liza was a night owl. Eli hogged the shower for way too long. And V…it was just really hard living with V. He probably didn’t enjoy it either. It never allowed him to take off his stupid mask. When I bought the apartment for our new headquarters, I should have invested in a bigger space instead of all the extra tech. It wasn’t like our security was keeping Don Roberts away. And right now, all I wanted was more space.
“Good morning, Sadie,” V said without looking up from his bowl of cereal.
That. That was why it was so hard to live with him. And it was one of the reasons I had pushed him away too. Right before the bomb went off in his secret lair, he called me Summer. He confessed that he loved me. And afterward? He went back to calling me Sadie right away. And never spoke of loving me again. People did stupid things when they were about to die. His lies stung. What was I supposed to say to him?
“Good morning.” Smooth. I walked past him to the fridge. Nothing in the kitchen seemed at all appetizing. I grabbed an apple and sat down at the kitchen counter, basically on the other side of the room as V. We both ate in awkward silence. What it came down to was that we'd had a fling. And now we were living together. We weren’t even friends really. He thought he knew me, but he didn’t. And I barely knew a thing about him.
“Spring semester starts tomorrow,” V said.
I looked up from my apple. “Mhm.” For a moment, I let myself stare. I remembered how safe I felt in his arms. I even remembered how nice my name sounded on his tongue. He'd said he loved me, but clearly regretted it.