Something else

PART ONE

THE PAST

Friends or Best Friends?

December

At first, I wasn’t in love with Elliot Freshman. We were just really good friends. Very good, actually. I grew up in the same neighborhood as the Freshman family; our mothers were best friends, and we were born in the same hospital, only two hours apart. The only difference was the ten meters between their rooms. To my great annoyance, he was born first, and he’s never let me forget it.

We did everything together — played with dolls in my playpen and with toy cars on his blue blanket in Melissa and Thomas Freshman’s living room, learned to eat with a spoon and fork together, did our homework side by side — where one of us was, the other wasn’t far behind. My whole life revolved around him. And all the girls at school were jealous of me. Because, let’s be honest, Elliot was the hottest guy around — tall, muscular with those tight shirts that clung to him, handsome like a Greek god, his sandy blond hair always styled in those spiky, gelled tips, irresistible full lips, and that sharp jawline you just couldn’t ignore.

What they didn’t understand was that the two of us were just friends. Nothing more. I never competed with any of them for his heart, because I never looked at him that way, nor was I ever jealous when he got a new girlfriend. And he had plenty. A lot. But is it my fault that he preferred to hang out with me instead of them? Of course not. Right? I was just Hope Brown, his best friend.

The violent storm that had taken hold of Chicago was shaking the buildings to their foundations. The wind was howling, and the heavy snow was falling thick over the ground like a white, soft blanket. I was sitting in the passenger seat of Elliot’s Mustang GT — a tuned-up beast that Thomas Freshman had happily paid a small fortune for. Back then, he owned a chain of luxury real estate properties that brought in more money than he could count, so buying his only son a race-ready car wasn’t exactly a big deal.

Either way, I wasn’t scared. Not with Elliot behind the wheel. He’d been trained by a top SRI agent when he first got his driver’s license. I had complete faith in him — a professional driver, my personal bodyguard on wheels.

“Shit!” he hissed through his teeth, gripping the steering wheel as the car’s tires skidded dangerously over the frozen asphalt. Elliot had been trained by the best, and that ounce of luck we had on our side saved us from a spectacular collision with the massive rock that seemed to be waving us down. He braked hard, and when the car spun out, he slammed the accelerator and turned the wheel in the opposite direction of the skid. The car stopped abruptly in the middle of the road.

“Jesus, that was close!” he exhaled in relief, pressing a hand to his temples as if to check his heart hadn’t leapt out through them.

“It’s fine, nothing happened,” I reassured him confidently, but when he turned to me and raised an eyebrow, we both burst into hysterical laughter. I don’t know what it meant for him, but for me, that laugh was like saying, “We just escaped by the skin of our teeth.” I could almost see myself crushed against those damned rocks. Not that I ever doubted his amazing driving skills — no way. It was just my stupid mind playing disaster movies I couldn’t turn off.

The truth is, if we had stuck to his crazy idea from this morning — skipping school — none of this would’ve happened. We’d probably be sprawled out on the Freshmans’ living room couch right now, watching Stranger Things and eating caramel popcorn. He knew it too, but he didn’t say it out loud because he knew I was thinking the same thing. And anyway, saying it would’ve just boosted his ego way too much. So I stayed quiet. That was for the best.

“Told you so,” he said in a low, smug voice as he parked his tuned-up car in the driveway.

“Told me what, exactly?” I raised an eyebrow, pretending not to know. I shrank a little in my seat, sensing his eagerness to rub it in.

“That we should’ve stayed home. This wouldn’t have happened.”

“I knew you were going to say that. But nothing did happen, did it?”

He nodded shortly, then got out of the car, storming into the house without waiting for me. I shrugged and headed into my own house — which, by the way, was literally attached to his. I did mention I grew up next to the Freshmans, right? That’s what I meant. We lived practically in the same house, separated only by a brick wall.

At that time, the spark of attraction between me and Elliot hadn’t ignited yet. We acted normal, like always. Besides, I wasn’t even allowed to have a boyfriend. My father, being a judge, had made it very clear: no dating before eighteen. The only exception was, of course, my neighbor — not that our outings had any romantic purpose. We just hung out — in the park, at the movies — as friends. We didn’t hold hands or do any of that cheesy stuff. I couldn’t picture myself and Elliot doing things like that. And sex? Forget it. I could never imagine his lips on my body or his body doing things to mine. Ugh. Gross. And I mean gross not because he wasn’t attractive, but because the idea of sex didn’t appeal to me at all.

I’d seen him naked a thousand times anyway, back when we used to swim in the lake behind his house. And after secretly watching porn with Olive, I’d completely changed my perspective on those things. Anyway, let me tell you this right now — Elliot and I never went that far. Don’t get your hopes up.