"I think you should apologize."

I stared at Toni as though she were growing a second head. In a way she kind of was. She was approaching the fourth month mark and was finally starting to show a little bit, which made everybody in the Martinez Fernandez household hyper aware of everything around Toni. Now that papa and mama had made peace with the facts, they were starting to border on helicopter grandparenthood. Mama was on a campaign to get Toni to eat only organic and homemade. Meanwhile papa was showing the first stages of obsession with converting what used to be our studio into a nursery.

I'd earned myself a break from the madness the couple of weeks leading to Homecoming, since I'd been so busy with it that I'd barely been at home enough to sleep and eat. Now that that was over and it was back to the regular routine, my nerves were chafing every time I got home from school and the two of them were fretting about Toni and the baby, barely realizing if I was there. My sister and I had got to a mutual agreement after that one scare, that from then on we were going to be honest to each other, no matter what.

This morning after a hectic breakfast where mama was explaining the nutritional superiority of homemade arepas versus white bread, I'd exchanged a look with Toni and pulled her aside. Openly I told her, "If I sound jealous it's because I am, but I'm so sick of their fretting about you."

She chuckled for a hot second but then said, "Honestly, so am I. I need a break. Wanna trade?"

I thought it through. Much as I always enjoyed standing out to our parents, I didn't want their spotlight on me. Under the extra light they might see things I didn't want them to. Like for example the calluses in my hands for spending nearly every night of my life drawing in my room. Or the bags under my eyes I had developed the past few nights, awake until late as I thought about every interaction with a certain boy.

"No, thanks," I said, which surprised us both. "What if we go to the mall or something?"

She'd perked up at the idea and a half hour later Adam came to pick us up for a strange sort of family outing. On the way to the mall he asked me how Sawyer was doing and I made a crucial mistake. Instead of connecting the dots and figuring he asked about Sawyer's injuries, I thought he was asking a broader question—which instead gave them very specific answers. By that point I'd already got multiple lectures from Courtney and Lina on the topic, but I wanted to hear their perspectives. Which brought me back to Toni's suggestion.

But since the honesty rule was established between the Martinez sisters, I should have expected the conversation to take a direction I might not like.

By that same token, though, I was free to reply to her with, "I don't want to."

Toni's dark eyes shone bright with laughter as she turned from the baby onesie in her hand to me. We were in a store packed to the brim in baby paraphernalia, and although our combined budget was limited at best, I was sure we were going to come out at least with little socks. Adam had bee lined straight to the toys section while Toni and I were drawn to the clothes.

That was not enough to distract her from the topic. "It's not about whether you want to or not, but whether you should."

I groaned.

"Not fair," I said. "Why doesn't he apologize to me for subjecting me to public ridicule?"

She shrugged. "Unless he created the rumors himself, why should he?"

I frowned at the fool proof logic and grumbled, "Well, he's the one who kissed me."

"Sure, but since it was consensual there's no need for him to apologize. Unless it was really bad," this she said with a pointed look and since I'd already put my foot in my mouth by spilling all the beans, I figured there was no use in holding anything back anyway. I was actually relieved she wasn't judging me as hard as the girls were.

I rubbed my hands against my sides to dry them. It was as if I was suddenly nervous.

"It was amazing," I mumbled. Toni gifted me with a smirk.

"Sometimes boys know what they're doing."

As if on cue we both turned to Adam. He was in the middle of the store examining the mechanics of baby toys like he'd never seen anything more fascinating. It was jarring to see a super hot college stud like that in a place like this, and he was attracting quite a bit of attention from patrons of all ages.

I snorted. "I assume he does?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Gross," I said with a laugh. Her eyebrows went up.

"So you're telling me you don't want to do anything... more, with Sawyer?"

I snapped my jaw shut so tight it echoed around us. A rush of heat traveled in waves across my body and I broke into a sweat, as if I'd just ran a marathon, all in the span of a few seconds. This sent Toni into peals of laughter.

"Just make sure to use a good condom, okay?" she said as she patted my head. "You know what? Might as well get you on the pill ASAP."

"Toni!" I gasped and looked around, in case anyone heard. No one was paying attention to us, all the employees had become a swarm around Adam. I focused on my sister again. "It's not like I'm going to do you know what, with Sawyer."

She cupped her ear. "No, do what?"

I smacked her shoulder. By the burning in my face I must have been past red and into purple territory.

"Stop it."

"Hey guys." Adam chose that moment to come over. There was a ridiculous contraption in his hands but instead of talking about whatever the heck that was, he took one look at me and dropped it. He touched my forehead. "Rory, are you sick? You don't look well."

I batted his hands away and scowled even harder as Toni's laughter intensified.

"She's fine, she's just having a moment here," she said.

"Oh yeah?"

I decided it was way better to agree with her on the previous topic than to keep exploring this more disturbing one. I especially did not want to have a conversation about how I may or may not want to jump Sawyer's bones with the guy who jumped my sister's. My life couldn't turn into a full blown soap opera quite yet.

"Anyway," I said with a roll of my eyes. "You're probably right. I should apologize to him."

"And you know what for, right?" Toni asked, raising her hands in defense at my glare. "Just checking."

Yeah, I knew. The problem was that I couldn't pick a single thing to apologize for without addressing how mean I'd been to him for years. I tried to think of the last time I apologized short of the polite sorry after bumping into somebody and came up blank. I sighed. No wonder he was so mad at me.

The problem was that I had no outlet for what was bothering me. School had been a nightmare this week with all the stares and whispers and mean giggles directed my way, and it wasn't fair that I had to suffer all that by myself. But Toni was right, it wasn't his fault just as much as it wasn't mine. We hadn't done anything wrong and even if we had, it wasn't anybody's business. And on top of that, if we'd done something wrong I was pretty sure that with Sawyer it would be and feel absolutely right. That was why Toni's teasing had set off fireworks in my belly. She must have seen just how much I really wanted him.

That was a scary thought.

I looked at Toni and Adam chat about the weird toy he'd been recommended by the sales associates that was supposed to help the cognitive development of the baby from the very first months of life. All I saw was really big plastic shapes and lights, and yet as they looked into each other's eyes I had the feeling that what was between them wasn't just a surprise baby. There was something real and deep beneath the surface that connected them, and I wondered if I could ever get to feel something like that for another human being. I was used to loving myself above all others, and now that I knew what I knew about Sawyer, I had a feeling he deserved somebody who could give him what Toni and Adam had to him, and I didn't think I was the right person for the job.

A few hours later in the privacy of my bedroom, I shook my head to try to clear those thoughts from my mind. They kept recurring even as I worked to finish my first and most important college application. That was what I should be focusing on, not on crazy notions of love for a boy. We were 17 year old kids, for goodness's sake. No matter how much I liked Sawyer, there was no future with him.

I groaned and let my head drop to my desk. There, I admitted it. I liked Sawyer Logan. Maybe I had, for a while, even before he stole my first kiss last summer. But that had to be it. I was college bound. He was... I had no idea what he wanted to do with his life after high school. I wanted to one day, like ten years from now, bring home a guy that my parents approved of and Sawyer didn't fit the bill. Papa had affection for him, which now I figured it probably was because he knew the neglect Sawyer lived under that somewhat reminded papa of his past, but mama hated Sawyer and that was a fact of life.

I jumped to my feet and paced. "Stop," I told myself. "It's not like you're going to marry him, Aurora."

I put my hands on my head because now I could see it clearly. The white dress dragging down the isle at our church and Sawyer in an elegant suit waiting for me at the opposite end, his blond hair cropped into a smart fade that allowed a wave at the top of his handsome face. It was so vivid and so ridiculous that I started laughing. My body moved by the spell of routine to my closet where I pulled out the box with arts supplies, so that I could draw the picture. If I got it on paper and out of my head it was going to leave me alone.

It was almost dinnertime when a knock on the door startled me out of my trance.

"One second!" I screamed, my heart now racing in a panic. I swept everything under the bed in haste before I opened the door and saw mama there with a bundle of folded laundry.

"Let me put these away, mija," she said and I let her into the room. She started stacking the items in my closet and when she was done she pulled back, hands on her hips. "What's this big hole doing here?"

What she was referring to was precisely where my arts box normally was, hidden by the blankets I'd dumped on the floor. I scrambled to pick them up and put them in place.

"I forgot to put these back in there," I said, noting how my breath failed a tad. Although it was plain to see that she was not convinced, I was relieved when she didn't press further.

"Anyway, did you send your application to Rollins already?"

I froze at the question.

"I, uh-"

"I thought you'd be done by now," there was no mistaking the disappointment in her face.

"Yes, I'll be done in a second. I just have to hit send," I lied with a smile.

When she left and closed the door behind her, I sat back at my desk and opened my laptop once more. I blinked a few times as the screen came to life, as if disoriented, like someone waking up from a dream. I'd been awake when I'd dreamed of a crazy, impossible future with the boy who used to be everything I fought not to be, and I didn't know just quite what to do with myself.

I smacked my cheeks and focused on my application. I read it through three times, each one in more detail than the previous one. Mama was calling for everybody to come to the table as dinner was served, when I finally clicked on the Send button.

I sat back and let out a breath in a rush. That was it. The most important thing in my life, at least right now, was officially done. I was going to apply to more colleges in Orlando and a couple out of state, but this one was the one I dreamed of attending. A business degree there was going to help take our family business to the next level. That was the future I'd worked so hard toward, not the silly fantasy I'd just had. Sawyer's and my future were already carved out, and they definitely diverged from each other.

do they?