Chapter 1
I was the girl next door. Chloe Reed was the girl who fell from the sky.
They say the girl next door never stands a chance against the one who comes out of nowhere. Not long after she transferred,
someone saw them in the empty stairwell after school.
They said that Jackson King–my Jax, the boy who bowed to no one–was standing there with his head down like a chastened pup- py, listening to her lecture him.
Later, when Chloe and I had a falling out, all it took was a quiet word from him: “I don’t want to see Aubrey Hale at this school
again.”
My parents, terrified of jeopardizing their business with the King family, had me transferred by the end of the week.
After that, I vanished from his world. I didn’t dare even show my face where he might see it.
But then, on his birthday, he showed up at my door, drenched by the rain, his face a wreck of misery and hurt. “Did you forget?” he
Lasked, his voice cracking. “Did you forget it was my birthday?”
01
They say the girl who’s been there forever can’t compete with the girl who shows up out of the blue. I used to scoff at that.
But then I sat in the school auditorium, watching Jackson’s eyes follow Chloe Reed as she danced across the stage, and I saw it.
The unfiltered adoration. The love he couldn’t hide.
In that moment, I believed it.
And I finally believed the rumors, the ones about the untouchable Jax King, the king of Crestwood High, letting this new girl put him
in his place in a deserted stairwell.
The confession I’d held in my heart, the one I was always waiting for the right moment to share, would have to stay buried there
forever.
When the music ended, I applauded with the rest of the crowd, my hands moving mechanically as the girl on stage took a glittering
bow.
Jax stood up and headed for the wings, undoubtedly to find her. I stood up, too, and walked out of the auditorium.
Outside, the evening air was cool. I raised my hand, letting the little wooden star charm he gave me years ago dance in the breeze.
“Aubrey… for you.”
I looked at the crudely carved star in his palm. “What is it?”
Seven–year–old Jax had been watching some soap opera with his aunt and had learned a new phrase. “It’s a promise,” he’d said, his
cheeks pink. “You have to wear it. It means you have to like me best, forever.”
“And I’ll always protect you, Aubrey.”
My eyes stung with the memory. I closed my fist around the charm. A kid’s promise. It’s not supposed to mean anything.
But I’d let it mean everything. Jax King, the boy who broke rules and hearts with equal impunity, was the secret joy and the central
truth of my entire youth.
Chloe Reed had transferred in at the start of the semester. She was beautiful, a trained dancer, and her arrival was an event.
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The girls in my class immediately cast her in their imaginary high school drama. She was the perfect transfer student protagonist -the quiet, talented girl who catches the eye of the school’s resident bad boy.
The bad boy who would, inevitably, tame himself for her.
A lot of guys tried to ask Chloe out. Someone even joked that the only one left was Jax.
Jax, lounging at his desk, had stretched languidly and shot the guy a look of pure disdain. “Her? Is that a joke?”
See? That’s how untouchable he’d seemed.
I never really believed the rumors about them, because I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. Because he’d never said the words to
me, never told me he was with someone else.
But now I knew. It was time to pull back, to put a real, measurable distance between us.
For years, I’d always walked home with Jax. I can’t remember exactly when it started, but recently he always had some excuse for
me to go on ahead.
He could have just told me the truth, I wouldn’t have made a scene. I wouldn’t have clung to him.
After all, we were never really together in the first place.
