Page 179 of June First

I don’t love that I fell for the one person I shouldn’t have.

It’s not fair.

It hurts.

Wrapping my arms around my mother, I sob quietly into her shoulder, wishing I could jump into the photograph and change our fate.

Theo wouldn’t go to that accident scene, and I wouldn’t kiss Brant on a silly dare.

My eyes land on the photograph, lying amongst the jagged pieces of the picture frame.

Fractured.

Cracked.

I think back to seven years ago when I was standing on the frozen pond. I can still hear my pounding heart. The cruel laughter coming from Wyatt and his friends. Brant calling my name as he raced toward me, his face a mask of blind fear. And then…that sound.

I heard it, louder than all the other sounds.

We all heard it.

That first crack.

I’ll never forget the feeling that shot through me when the ice split. It was only a tiny fissure—a chip in the surface. But it was a catalyst for the big break. The ultimate collapse.

The end.

I’d gone completely still, weighing my options as I held Brant’s horrified gaze from across the pond, knowing that one wrong move could kill me.

And now, as I cling to my mother, a crumpled mess of grief, that same feeling ripples through me. It’s like ice in my veins.

We’re that first crack.

Me and Brant.

One wrong move, one misstep, and we’re going under.

We’re going to drown.

And I don’t know what to do.

33

FIRST GOODBYE

JUNE, AGE 19

“It’s a good day to save someone, Peach.”

Joyous disbelief washes over me when his voice meets my ears, and my head pops up as I sit cross-legged in a golden field of tall grass and wildflowers while fluffy white clouds dance overhead.

There he stands.

Backlit by the bright sun that’s illuminating his head like a halo.

Like an angel.

“Theo!” Leaping to my feet, I race over to him with outstretched arms and a wildly beating heart. “You came.”