It might've been the middle of summer, but sitting alone in the dark woods sent a chill down my spine.

Chloe x Halle blasted from someone's speaker's system and as much as I loved the song, at that moment I hated it. If the music wasn't so loud maybe someone would've heard my screams for help. I'd been down there for almost thirty minutes. My ankle throbbed and my throat felt rough from shouting.

I should've stayed in the tent. When Naomi and Theo got bored roasting weenies, just the three of us, they decided to accept the invitation Theo and I got earlier.

They double teamed me with pouty puppy dog faces until I agreed to go with them. Now, I was stuck at the bottom of a hill surrounded by trees and darkness while they roasted weenies with strangers.

Something rustled in the leaves. My head whipped back and forth, hoping it wasn't some wild animal. Theo said he was joking about the bears, but that didn't ease my anxiety.

"Waverly?"

I let out a heavy sigh when I heard the familiar voice. Stephen. Never thought I'd be so happy to hear my name on his lips again. I was grateful someone was there to save me from the woods. That gratefulness was accompanied by a flutter in my belly. Butterflies I immediately squashed.

"Over here!" I called back, turning on the flashlight on my phone and waving it in the air. The light from his own phone found me as he came closer.

"Be careful." I didn't want him making the same mistake I did. We both couldn't be injured down there.

"What happened?" he asked, towering over me.

I couldn't make out his face because his phone was blinding me, but he sounded worried. Something that simple shouldn't have had my heart doing flips.

"I fell," I said, keeping it simple. "And hurt my ankle."

He squatted beside me, his fingertips brushing my leg as he pulled the leg of my jeans up as far as the tiny foot hole would allow. As I watched him examine my ankle, I tried to remember the last time I shaved my legs. I probably had stubble.

A sharp pain pulled me out of my thoughts. He had poked my now swollen ankle, apologizing under his breath when I jerked away from his touch.

"It doesn't look broken, at least." He stood then reached a hand out to me. "Can you stand up?"

"Yeah," I said, accepting his help. "But I didn't want to risk trying to get back up the hill."

"How'd you get down here anyway?"

I sighed, annoyed at the chain of events leading to that moment. "Some guy kept asking me if I wanted to dance and when I said no for the fifth, he took my book and tossed it. I slipped when I came down to find it."

Now that he didn't have his flashlight pointed at my face, I could see the slight amusement on his face, but it was gone in a second. "Where's the book?"

He came to my rescue when I called, yet he was kind of stand-offish. Like he didn't want to be there. His replies to me were short and he avoided eye contact. He was the one spreading rumors. I should've been mad at him, not the other way around.

Now wasn't the time to call him out on it. He was my way of making it back up the hill without dying. I pointed my light up at the tree across from us, where my precious baby was stuck on the branches like a kitten.

Stephen started for the tree. "You don't have to do that," I said, partially afraid he'd fall and break his neck. The book was pretty high up.

He obviously didn't see that as a problem as he jumped up to grab the lowest branch, hauling himself up effortlessly. One of the butterflies must've survived because watching Stephen risk his life for a book, for me, had me wondering if I was too quick to cut him off.

Normal boys didn't do things like that. Stephen was one of a kind.

I followed him up with the light from my phone so he wasn't climbing in the dark. If I was being honest, I kept getting distracted by the way the muscles in his arms flexed as he pulled himself up branch by branch. It was doing things to me that I tried hard to suppress.

He plucked the book from the branches and tossed it down to me. Once he safely back on the ground I allowed myself to breathe.

"You didn't have to do that," I said as I inspected the book. A few pages were bent, but no tears. That was good.

He shone the light on the book in my hands. "What's the diagnosis?"

"Well, it's in one piece," I told him as I tried to smooth down the crumpled pages.

That time he was quicker to keep his emotions in check. What would've been a smile or laugh turned into a weird face twitch and cough.

Physically we were only inches apart. Yet, it felt like a ten-foot-thick concrete slab separated us.

"You ready?" He asked, jutting out his chin towards the steep hill.

I nodded and he slipped his arm around my waist, allowing me to lean on him for support.

Being so close to him, breathing in his scent of spice and apples, made me realize just how much I missed him.

He didn't reach out that night I left the party and neither did I. It didn't sit right with me to let things end without even a conversation.

"Thanks," I said—stalling what I really wanted say—when we got to the top of the hill.

He dropped his hand from my waist and took a step back as if our skin touching was too painful for him.

The weenie roast was still going strong. It was strange seeing people dance around holding half eaten hot dogs instead of red cups sloshing around with alcohol.

"Where are your friends?" His eyes bounced around the crowd searching for them as if he was in a rush to get away from me.

"This is stupid, right?" I blurted out. His brows pulled together as he looked down at me, so I explained. "We've both read enough books to know how this goes. The couple breaks up over something that could be easily resolved with a conversation. We should just talk about what happened at that party the other day."

He rubbed the back of neck, focused on the ground instead of me. "I didn't tell them that I slept with you," he said, finally meeting my eyes.

I tried to reel in my relief, noticing the impending "but" in his tone.

"But...I didn't deny it, either."

Ignoring the sting of his truth, I pushed on. "Okay. Why didn't you?"

He shrugged, jamming his hands into the pockets of his joggers. "Because...it's embarrassing."

My brow furrowed as I looked up at him. "Embarrassing?"

"Yeah." His whole demeaner changed. "I've been following you around all summer and for what? I'm just wasting my time." The iciness of his tone cut deep.

My gaze shifted to the crowd of people living it up around the fire pit, hoping to see a sign that it was all a joke I wasn't in on yet. No one even noticed us standing there.

"You don't mean that," I said, mostly to myself. I felt the pressure building behind my eyes. "That's not you, Stephen."

"How would you know?" He snapped, followed by a dry laugh. "We met a month ago. You don't know anything about me."

"That's not true," I shot back taking a step closer him. My throbbing ankle the last thing on my mind. He's jaw clenched and unclenched but he didn't move. "I know enough to know that you're scared. That's why you're trying to push me away. You like me and you don't know how to deal with it—"

He cut me off with a laugh, crossing his arms over chest with a smug look on his face. "Which book did you steal that line from? That's your problem right there, Waverly. You're living in a fantasy. You want some romance novel life, but it doesn't work like that in the real world."

He was lying. I knew he was lying, but the pressure behind my eyes was getting to be too much. And I was not going to let him see me shed a single tear over him.

I wrapped my arms around myself, afraid that I might give into the urge to slap him or worse—fall apart in front of him.

The hurt I felt from his cold words bubble up and over flowed from my mouth. "FUCK YOU!"

From the way he flinched you'd think I really did slap him. My words came out louder than I intended, catching the attention of a few campers near us.

Stephen's wide, brown eyes were the last thing I saw before I turned away and limped back to our camp site.

Tears flooded my eyes and I could barely make out Naomi running up to me. "Found her!" She shouted. "What the hell happened? We were looking for you! Theo's Dad was about to call the rangers. Are you okay?"

The rest of her questions were drowned out by my sobs. The pain from my ankle and my heart double teaming me.