Read Page 28

I pointed to the bruise on his face. "That looks bad."

But Zach shook his head. "It isn't. He—"Advertisement

"Hits like a girl?" I teased.

But Zach didn't smile; he didn't laugh. Something else hung in the air between us as he said, "Not the girls I know."

I thought about the boy I'd met in D.C.—the kid who'd teased me all semester—and I tried to reconcile those images with the boy who stood before me.

Zach was still cocky; he was still tough. But on the other hand, he'd offered me candy once when I was hungry, and I couldn't help thinking that maybe that made him sort of knightlike after all. That maybe it wasn't his fault his armor was kind of tarnished.

A semester was gone, so I didn't let myself think about what might have happened if things had been different. After all, trust is a hard thing for any girl—especially a Gallagher Girl—and this is the life I've chosen. These are questions and doubts that will probably follow me for the rest of my life.

I turned slowly, started to walk away—toward my friends and my future and whatever was supposed to come next.

"Oh, and Cammie." At the sound of his voice I spun around, expecting to hear him crack a joke or call me Gallagher Girl. The last thing I expected was to feel his arms sliding around me, to sense the whole world turning upside down as Zach dipped me in the middle of the foyer and pressed his lips to mine.

Then he smiled that smile I'd come to know. "I always finish what I start."

He stepped toward the open door and the warm spring sun that was just waiting to burst into summer, a new season. Another clean slate.

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"So this is good-bye?" I asked.

"Come on, Gallagher Girl." Zach turned to me. He winked. "What would be the odds of that?"

He walked outside and got in the van, and as far as I could tell, he never looked back—

Because neither did I.

I didn't think about the rules we'd broken or the time we'd wasted. I didn't dwell on the questions that had seemed so important once and were now fading like a long-lost note in a heavy rain.

There are secrets in my world. They stack side by side like dominoes, and last September they'd started to fall—all because I'd said hello to a boy. Now I was saying good-bye to another one. But now, at least in Zach's case, I finally knew the truth. Well…most of the truth.

And it had set me free.

The whole summer lay ahead of us—time to rest, time to wait. And when the future comes—no matter what comes with it—I'll be smarter. I'll be stronger. I'll be ready. pqdm.com