THIRTY-SIX | SEAWEED

I was adrift, cast aside by the murmuring waves and the thrashing riptide. I thought of Ben, of the blood leaving his body, and I thought that this must be how it feels: the ebb of life, draining slowly away, leaving your fingertips cold and your heart numb.

Harper knew. Of course he did; I’d loved him because of his sweetness, but he was intelligent, too, and more perceptive than I gave him credit for. Harper knew, and my world was crumbling around me.

“Cals, look – I know there’s something going on with you and that guy.”

One sentence, and my world was irrevocably changed.

“There isn’t,” I said, but my shoulders were too stiff, and the words sounded false to my own ears. I sighed. “I… I don’t know what it is.”

I’d almost been ready to admit to myself that my feelings for Cyrus were more than my feeli