Todos os capítulos de To the two boys I like: Burn me the safe way: Capítulo 11 - Capítulo 20

Elena couldn't sleep.She'd tried. Genuinely tried—lights off, phone face down, eyes closed, the whole performance. Lay there for an hour listening to the house breathe around her.The fridge hum, a car passing outside. Nothing worked. Her brain was running on some frequency she couldn't switch off, replaying the evening in pieces—Liam's hand closing around hers, warm and steady, the boardwalk, the water, the comfortable quiet of someone who wanted nothing complicated from her.It was a good evening. She kept arriving at that conclusion and then immediately leaving it again.Around one she gave up. Sat up. Listened at her mother's door on the way past—the slow even breathing of someone properly asleep, deeply asleep, the kind of sleep that only came from genuine exhaustion. Claire had been doing that lately. Working late, coming home quiet. Grief took different shapes in different bodies. In Claire it looked like tiredness that never fully lifted.Elena didn't wake her.She grabbed he

"Oh my God," JoJo shrieked.Not quietly, not discreetly. Loud enough that two tables nearby turned to look, and Elena immediately grabbed her arm."JoJo—""He kissed you—""I know, keep your voice—""On the mouth—""That's generally where kissing happens, yes—"Dusty slammed both palms flat on the table. "Start. Over. From the beginning. Leave nothing out. I want geography, I want weather conditions, I want the exact words, I want—""Dusty—""Elena." His eyes were enormous. "A boy climbed a fence for you at one in the morning and took you to a roof. This is not a drill. This is a full debrief situation."Elena looked down at her lunch tray. Her face was doing something warm and traitorous that she had very little control over. She'd told them because she'd needed to tell someone and her two available options were her mother—absolutely not—or these two, who had known her for approximately two weeks and already felt like the kind of people you told things to. She'd expected interest. Sh

Elena coughed, her eyes watering, which was mortifying and also gave her about three seconds to not answer the question while her brain scrambled around like a dropped phone. Liam's face went through several expressions in rapid succession. Concern first, then something that looked like dawning horror."Oh God," he said. "I'm sorry. That was—I shouldn't have just—""No, it's not—" She was still coughing slightly. "It's not that, I just—""You don't have to answer now," he said quickly. "Actually, you don't have to answer at all, I was being presumptuous, we've only been—""Liam."He stopped mid-sentence.Elena looked at him. At the panic that had settled into his expression, the way he'd immediately started backtracking the moment her response wasn't immediate enthusiasm. It made her chest do something complicated."Can I think about it?" she said. "Not because—just because I want to give you a proper answer. Not a panicked one."His shoulders dropped slightly. Relief, maybe. "Yeah.

Elena followed the directions on her phone through streets that got progressively darker and more industrial. Past closed shops with metal grates pulled down, past empty lots scattered with broken glass, past the kind of buildings that looked like they'd been abandoned on purpose and left that way.The warehouse wasn't hard to find once she got close. The bass was audible from two blocks away, a low thrum that seemed to come up through the pavement. Cars parked at odd angles along the street. People moving in small groups toward a building that looked like every other building except for the stream of bodies going in and out of a side door.Outside was chaos in the specific way that crowds got when they were somewhere they technically weren't supposed to be. Smoke drifting from cigarettes and other things. Groups of people passing bottles. A teenage couple pressed against a chain link fence in what was either an argument or foreplay, possibly both. The smell of beer and exhaust and s

Noah grabbed his shirt from where he'd dropped it, pulled it on in one fluid motion.His hand found hers and he led her through the thinning crowd toward the exit. People moved out of their way, some nodding at him, others just staring. Elena kept her head down, focused on his back, the way his shoulders moved under the thin fabric.Outside the air was cooler, cleaner. The smell of the warehouse clung to them both but out here she could breathe properly again. Noah stopped in front of a motorcycle parked under a streetlight.Without him needing to say anything, Elena started shaking her head."I can't get on that.""Why not?""Because it's a motorcycle. Because I've never been on one. Because it looks terrifying."Noah almost smiled. The expression tugged at the corner of his mouth before he caught it. "You want to walk home instead? Through these streets? At this time of night?"Elena looked around. The area looked different now that she wasn't focused on finding the warehouse. Darke