He growled, “Stay away from my ‘little sister!’” Mason rushed him, tackled him to the ground, and when he stood, he fed Chase a line I sometimes wish he’d choke on. The minute his brace-face smiled at me from across the yard, my twin appeared out of nowhere, something he’s inconveniently good at. Granted, mine wasn’t the murderous sort, and watching that movie gave me hardcore, unachievable body goals, but all that’s beside the point.Ĭhase Harper had arrived in the neighborhood, and I was determined to be the one to show him around it, so I pressed the brakes on my bike at the edge of his lawn, gaining his attention. I understood the power of obsession and mine started the minute I laid eyes on him. Sure, I was only in junior high, but I’d seen The Boy Next Door. It was as if an invisible stamp came down and pressed across his forehead, a big fat red label that screamed mine. See, the day Chase and his family moved in across the street, I saw him first. Probably because I’ve had the better part of six years to perfect it. ‘Play but don’t push’ is the game I’m forced to settle for and I’m good at it. Group car rides are pretty much the only time I get to feign innocence when I lean a little further into the star player of my fantasies, more commonly known as my brother’s best friend. We stopped seven times already thanks to Brady’s baby bladder.Īt least they seem to have sobered up in the last fifteen minutes, finally allowing us to turn the music up loud enough to where we can actually hear it. We learned years ago that long drives with pouty, hungover man-boys are not fun, but here we are again, willing yet slightly annoyed participants in the ‘how many times does one man have to stop to piss’ experiment. My girl Cameron and I knew better than to party hard the night before a drive, so we headed home early to finish packing for our final trip to the beach before college life begins.Ī trip that should have taken no more than three and a half hours, yet we’ve already been in this damn SUV for five. So out they stayed, saying drunken goodbyes to our classmates at the very last summer party to be had in our hometown.

The drive to Oceanside is usually a peaceful one, but my brother, Mason, and his two best friends, Chase and Brady, came to an unspoken agreement last night that “one more,” meant one more twelve-pack. Now I’m a shell of who I was, on a path too blurry to follow, and I see no way out. It didn’t matter how wild I allowed my imagination to run, it always led me to the same place in the end. For years, I’ve dreamt of what college life could bring and while some things changed, there was always one constant.

Say you swear by meagan brandy