Chapter 1
I was the childhood friend. Wendy was the girl who fell from the sky.
They say the girl next door never stands a chance against the one who appears out of nowhere. Not long after she transferred, someone saw them in the empty stairwell after school. My wild, untamable Bill, head bowed like a scolded puppy, was meekly apologizing to her.
Later, after a small falling out between Wendy and me, he delivered the final blow with a single, careless sentence: “I don’t want to see Tessa Shaw at school anymore.”
My parents, terrified of jeopardizing their ties to the Vances, immediately had me transferred. From that day on, I vanished from his world, not daring to even show my face where he might see it.
But then, on his birthday, he showed up at my door, drenched and miserable, his face a mask of desperatior and hurt. “You forgot it was my birthday, didn’t you?”
1
They say the girl next door never stands a chance against the one who appears out of nowhere. I used to scoff at that.
But now, sitting in the school auditorium, watching Bill gaze at Wendy as she danced on stage, the undisgui. sed adoration in his eyes told a different story.
In that moment, I believed it.
I also believed the rumors I’d heard-about Bill Vance, the boy who defied the world, surrendering to Wendy in that deserted stairwell. The confession I had been holding in my heart, waiting for the right moment to share, would now have to be buried forever.
When the music ended, I joined the applause for the radiant girl on stage. Bill shot up from his seat, probably on his way to find her. I got up too and slipped out of the auditorium.
Outside, I lifted my hand, a small, gourd-shaped wooden charm dangling from a string on my wrist, twisting in the evening breeze.
“Tessa… for you.”
I remember staring at it, confused. “What is it?”
A seven-year-old Bill, having learned the term “token of love” from some soap opera his aunt was watching, had pressed it into my hand.
“It’s for you, Tessa. So you’ll only ever like me.”
“And I’ll protect you forever.”
A bitter sting pricked my eyes. I unhooked the charm from my wrist and clenched it in my fist. A child’s pro- mise, so easily broken.
Chapter
But I had believed it. Bill Vance, the untamable rebel, had been the secret joy of my entire youth.
Wendy Summers had transferred this semester. She was beautiful, a talented dancer, and her arrival caused
an immediate stir.
The girls in my class used to whisper that Wendy was like the protagonist of a teen novel-the sweet new girl who captures the heart of the school’s resident bad boy. The story always ends the same: the bad boy cha- nges for the good girl.
Plenty of guys were chasing after Wendy back then, and someone even joked that all she needed now was
for Bill to fall for her too.
Bill, who had been lounging lazily at his desk, just stretched and shot the speaker a dismissive look. “Her? Is she even worthy?”
See? Such arrogance back then.
I hadn’t believed the rumors that they were together. I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes or heard it from his own lips. I needed him to tell me he was with someone else.
But now, I knew. It was time to pull back, to finally put some distance between us.
I used to walk home with Bill every day. I can’t remember when it started, but he began making excuses, telling me to go on ahead.
He could have just told me the truth. I wouldn’t have clung to him.
After all, we were never really together in the first place.
