Chapter 4

Summer's POV

I stared at the empty space on his chest where the pin had been. I didn't understand. "For me?"

Evan looked away. The tips of his ears went slightly pink. "Don't make it weird. I promised you, remember?"

And then it came back to me.

Two months before finals. My mother's death anniversary. I couldn't leave campus to visit her grave, so I sat alone on the track field and cried.

Evan had been walking back from practice. He saw me.

He noticed my red eyes and came over, crouching down in front of me.

"Summer. What's wrong?"

That one quiet question made it worse. I sobbed harder.

He panicked a little. He reached to wipe my face, then remembered he was drenched in sweat and pulled back, helpless.

"Okay. Stop crying. I'll give you whatever you want."

I looked up through blurry eyes. "Anything?"

He looked pained. "Anything. Just please stop crying."

I went from sobbing to grinning in about two seconds.

"Then I want the custom pin you wear for graduation photos. The one you pin over your heart!"

He'd actually remembered.

I stared at the pin in my hand, completely lost in thought. I didn't notice Lily watching from a few feet away, her expression darkening.

Not until she started crying.

"Summer." Her voice wobbled with manufactured hurt. "Fine. You win. I'll go run twenty laps."

She turned to leave, but Evan grabbed her arm. "What are you doing?"

Lily bit her lip. "Last night, Summer bet me that you'd give the pin to her. Whoever lost had to run twenty laps."

I looked at her. "What bet? I never made any bet with you."

Lily cried harder. "You did. You suggested it. And when I said I didn't want to, you threatened to cut my hair if I refused. I was scared, so I agreed. But it's just twenty laps. I'll run it."

She tried to pull away again. Evan held on. Then he looked at me.

His voice was subzero. "Summer. Was this your plan?"

I understood immediately what he thought. That I'd known in advance Evan would give me the pin, so I'd set up the bet just to humiliate Lily.

"No."

The word came out, and then I stopped.

Because what was the point? Evan would never doubt Lily to believe me.

So I just opened my palm and said, calmly, "If you don't believe me, take it back."

Evan went very still. Like he hadn't heard correctly. "What did you say?"

He probably still remembered the moment on the track field when he'd first agreed. I jumped around him, laughing through my tears:

"Evan! I'm finally winning your heart!"

And now I was handing it back. Just like that.

He was still processing it when I frowned slightly. "Is that not enough? Do you want me to run laps too?"

Before he could answer, Lily gave a quick sideways glance to one of her friends.

The girl surged forward, yanked the pin out of my hand, and yelled, "You touched it, now it's ruined. Who'd want it now!"

Then she hurled it into the school's decorative pond.

"No!"

That was when my expression finally changed.

Not for the pin.

The girl's arm had swung too wide. My mother's bracelet had flown out of my palm with it.