“Oh look, how truly fabulous. There’s Maggie, shaking her pom-poms.”

“She’s not—oh, you’re horrible, Chloe. And totally right.”

Maggie had her pompons in hand but wasn’t lined up on the track with the other cheerleaders. She was bent over the metal railing, batting her eyelashes and shaking her Fighting Hornet to a group of senior guys sitting on the front bench.

“Didn’t I tell you this would be a fabulous night?”

Chloe and Sawyer found a spot halfway up the bleachers. The view was obstructed by students randomly getting up to dance or hug a newcomer or shimmying out toward the aisles. Sawyer liked it that way.

The game started late, so the girls were just in time to see the cheerleaders do some sort of memorial cheer to Kevin—Sawyer would never have guessed that pom-poms were a good way to honor the dead—and the football team bow their heads in a group prayer, ending with an all-hands-in explosion of “Number twenty-one!”

Chloe grimaced at Sawyer. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize there would be so much”—she gestured wildly with her hands.

“Don’t worry about it,” Sawyer said. “I’m sad, but it’s not like I’m not reminded of Kevin every day.”

Chloe threw her arms around Sawyer and squeezed her, giving her a loud smacking kiss on the cheek. “You’re the best.”

The game was halfway through the second quarter when Sawyer said, “Hey, I’m going to grab a hot dog. You want?”

Chloe shook her head. “Are you kidding me? With something going on out there on the field? I’m seriously riveted to this game right now.”

“Something tells me you might be more riveted to Ryan’s ass than to the actual game going on.”

“Potato, potah-toh.” She handed Sawyer a crumpled bill. “Can you get me some Red Vines?”

“Be back in a jiff.”

Sawyer picked her way down the bleacher steps, doing her best to avoid an avalanche of Styrofoamy popcorn and pools of sticky soda.

“Hey,” she heard when she hit the lowest level.

Sawyer spun, grinning up at Cooper. “Hi. I didn’t know you were going to be here.”

“What kind of Hornet would I be if I wasn’t at the big game?”

“You’re just full of school spirit, aren’t you, Cooper?”

“Rah, rah. Where you headed?”

Sawyer waved her dollars. “Snack shack.”

“Woman after my own heart. Mind if I join you?”

“Sure, but it might cost you.”

Cooper raised his eyebrows as he fell in step with Sawyer. “Is that so? Just what do you have in mind, exactly?”

“A Snickers bar.”

Cooper’s mouth dropped open, even as the edges of his lips turned up. “Oh, so you mean it’s going to cost me, cost me?”

“Isn’t that what I said?”

They reached the order window, and Sawyer placed hers—a hot dog with everything, two Diet Cokes, a pack of Red Vines. And Cooper placed his—a hot dog with everything, a Coke…and a Snickers bar.

“What can I say?” he said with a smile like spun sugar. “You’ve got some kind of hold over me.” He handed her the Snickers bar, his fingers lightly brushing over her palm as he did so. That same tiny electric jolt that Sawyer hoped she would never get used to flashed through her.

“Um, are you here alone?”

Cooper shrugged. “With some of the guys from the track team. But our seats are pretty crap. I might be looking for a spot to move to.”

Sawyer wrinkled her nose. “Our seats are pretty crap too.”

“That’s what I meant,” Cooper corrected, “our seats aren’t crap enough. Maybe I can sit with you?”

Sawyer laughed, loving the zing of heat that went through her each time Cooper looked at her. It only took one step onto the bleachers, though, for that delicious warmth to be replaced by a gut-wrenching guilt. She slid into her spot next to Chloe, Cooper sandwiching Sawyer.

Chloe blinked at Sawyer. “I only asked for Red Vines.”

“Shut up.”

Chloe burst out with a laugh that Sawyer thought was a little too loud. She looked from Chloe to Cooper and back again, wondering if perhaps her best friend was a little jealous of Cooper. Sawyer had had a hard time juggling her time between Chloe and Kevin, with Chloe being the one who lost out most often. She said it didn’t bother her, but Sawyer knew that it did.

The three watched the game in silence until the buzzer rang and the football team trotted back to the locker room. The cheerleaders danced across the field, shaking their butts to some song with muddled words and a throbbing bass. Just as the song ended, the girls ran around and started to tug on an enormous white canvas.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” came across the PA system, “please turn your attention toward the screen being unfurled on the center field. The ASB would like to present a short video in memorial of Kevin Anderson.”

Chloe and Sawyer exchanged an eyebrows-up glance, Chloe’s full of concern. “Are you okay with this? Or do you want to leave?”

Sawyer worked lightness into her tone. “Are you telling me you’re over looking at Ryan’s butt?”

Chloe rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t looking at Ryan’s butt. At least not the whole time. But seriously, we can leave.”

Sawyer shook her head, steeling her jaw. “No, I’m okay.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah.” Sawyer rubbed her palms on her jeans and turned to Cooper. “How was your hot dog?”

“It was everything I’ve always wanted in a snack, plus nitrates.”

The first few bars of music crackled over the PA system, and Sawyer sucked in a deep breath, glancing up at the screen just as one of Kevin’s baby pictures flashed nine feet tall in front of her.

There was a pang of hurt, but nothing she couldn’t handle. When a shot of a teenaged Kevin in his football uniform flashed, Sawyer felt the hot dog bulging in her stomach, making her nauseous. At least that was what she told herself, not willing to admit to the guilt—and to a slight twinge of fear.

The slide show continued the whole length of the song, and Sawyer watched, strangely riveted, her emotions rising and crashing with every other picture. As the photos got closer to the end of Kevin’s life, Sawyer felt her heart start to pound; she felt sticky and hot underneath her thin Hornets T-shirt. The people in the bleachers seemed to lean in on her, lean closer toward her, leering, staring. Anxiety burst in her chest, tendrils, like needle pricks, racing through her.

“I have to get out of here.” She stood up and shimmied past Chloe, past the row of students, and ran down the bleacher stairs, taking them two at a time as she neared the bottom. Once she was at the snack shack, she was in the midst of a full-blown panic attack and she backed into the cool, dark space under the bleachers, doubling over and working to suck in bursts of cold air. Her skin felt too tight, and she felt overwhelmed, guilt, anger, sadness, and panic washing over her in body-wracking waves. She didn’t even know when she started to cry.

“Sawyer?”

She could barely make out his form in the darkness underneath the bleachers, but she recognized his voice. “Cooper?”

“Yeah. You took off like a shot. I tried to catch you, but you disappeared into the crowd.”

“I’m sorry, Cooper, I’m just…” She shook her head, hating the way her words sounded, choked by her tears. “Crazy,” she finally whispered.

Cooper carefully picked his way toward her in the darkness. Sawyer felt his fingers first on her wrist, then walking up her arm. His touch gave her goose bumps even though her body was seizing in a panic.

Before she knew it, she was slumped against Cooper, his arms around her, fingers laced at the small of her back. And she was crying. Huge, body-wracking sobs that left a wet spot on his chest, and Sawyer hiccupping and coughing. She broke their embrace, feeling the immediate cold of Cooper’s absence on her chest.

“I’m sorry.” She stopped crying, using her fist to push away the tears on her cheeks.

Cooper stepped into her, his arms wrapping around her again, cautious, this time not pulling her close. “Don’t be. He was your boyfriend, Sawyer. You loved him. It’s okay to be sad.”

A tremble, so heavy it made her teeth chatter, started in Sawyer’s body, and she began to cry all over again.

I did love Kevin, she thought, once. But she hadn’t for a long time. Toward the end, he kissed her as often as he slapped her, and a severe hatred had started deep in Sawyer’s chest. She wanted to break up with him; she had tried a dozen times, but each time he drew her back in with promises, pleas, and threats.

I’d kill myself if you ever left me, Sawyer, Kevin had said when they lay, bodies intertwined, on the grass. I could never live without you. At the time she had found the sentiment passionate and deep and a true statement of their unyielding love. But eventually it became a threat that she found so real it filled her with dread—with guilt. He needed her. Kevin Anderson needed her so much he couldn’t live without her.

It made so much sense, then.

The tears stopped abruptly, and this time it was Sawyer who pulled Cooper toward her. She crushed him against her chest, and her lips, chapped from crying, found his. She kissed him hard, with passion and blazing anger for something she had missed. Her lips parted and her tongue slipped into his mouth just as her arms slipped around his neck, clawed at his back. She didn’t know why, but she needed this. It was almost as if she needed Cooper to wipe the taste—or the memory—of Kevin away.

Cooper groaned when Sawyer leaned into him, her body fitting smoothly into his angles, that burning zinging racing through her bloodstream, firing every synapse in her body. She wanted Cooper Grey.