Revealed

me.
    He sounded so un-Heath-like and formal that I relaxed a little. “Yeah, of course.”
    “I believe I owe you an apology.”
    “For what?”
    His smooth brow furrowed. “I believe I said something impolite to you last night.”
    “You believe?”
    “My memory seems impaired. I can only remember pieces of what I said.”
    “Aurox, getting wasted does a lot more than just impair your memory. It can make you sick and make you do and say stupid things. You don’t need to apologize to me, just don’t get drunk again.”
    He sighed and rubbed his forehead as if he had a headache, which I was pretty sure he did have. “But, Zo, beer’s really good.”
    I felt like he’d smacked me in the gut. “How do you do that?”
    His hand dropped from his forehead and he gave me a totally confused look. “Like the taste of beer?”
    “No!” I threw my hands up in frustration. “Sound just like Heath.”
    “Do I?”
    “Not most of the time, but you did just then, when you called me Zo.”
    Aurox blinked a few times, then he said, “I am sorry I offend you.”
    “You don’t offend me. You confuse me,” I said.
    “You confuse me, too,” he said.
    “Why?”
    “Because I feel things for you that I know are wrong.”
    “Wrong feelings? Like what?” I held my breath while he answered.
    “I am drawn to you. I care about you. I think about you. Often,” he said slowly. “And I know those feelings are wrong because you loathe me.”
    I opened my mouth to tell him that I didn’t loathe him, hell, I didn’t even dislike him, but he held up his hand, stopping my words.
    “No, I understand why you loathe me. It’s not because you are a bad person. You are a really good person—a special person. It’s not your fault you feel like you do.” Aurox started to back away from me. “I just wanted to apologize for anything impolite I said last night. I’ll leave you alone now.”
    “Aurox, hang on. Don’t go anywhere. I need to say something to you.” I motioned for him to follow me over to one of the many stone benches that were positioned under the huge oaks on the school grounds. “Okay, sit with me a sec and let me figure out how to say this right.”
    He sat beside me. Well, not really beside me. Mostly he perched on the very end of the bench, as far away from me as possible. I sighed.
    “All right. Here goes.” I took a long breath and blurted, “I feel as drawn to you as you are to me. I think about you. Wait, no, that’s not right. I make myself
not
think about you because I’m thinking about you.” I sighed again. “Like that’s not confusing. Anyway, here’s the deal—I’m seventeen, and inside of you is the soul of the kid I’ve loved for almost half of my life. But
you’re
not that kid, which is what I tell myself all the time, and mostly I can believe it. Then you’ll do something like sing the psaghetti song, or call me Zo with that one tone of voice that only Heath had, or get stupid drunk and say something that’s totally Heath-like, and I’m scared I can’t make myself believe it anymore,” I finished in a rush.
    “It?”
    I frowned at him. “See, that’s exactly what Heath would have said. I used a complex sentence and lost you.”
    “Sorry, Zo.”
    “You just did it again! And the
it
I’m scared of is that I can’t make myself believe that you and Heath aren’t turning into the same kid.”
    “Oh.” He paused and I could practically see the wheels turning inside his head. “You still love Heath?”
    I met his gaze and told him the absolute truth. “I’ll always love Heath.”
    He didn’t look away from me, so when his grin started I saw the beginnings of it and how it made his eyes sparkle with familiar Heath mischief. “That’s good,” he said.
    “No, that’s confusing, especially because Stark is my Warrior as well as my boyfriend,” I said.
    “But did you not love Heath and Stark together before?”
    “Well, yeah, but it was pretty complex. And stressful. For all three of us.”
    “Yet you still loved them.”
    He hadn’t phrased it like a question, but I answered anyway. “Yeah, and what I’m trying to get you to understand is that I think it’s just too hard to love more than one guy at the same time. I can tell you for sure what Stark would say about me trying that again.”
    “Stark was kind to me last night.”
    “Well, Stark and Heath ended up being friends. Sort of.”
    “Then perhaps we can all be friends again,” he said.
    Friends