Page 15 of Don't Leave Me Behind
“No,” Pepper gasps while Miya ducks behind her mug, trying to hide her smile.
“Yes!”
“Well, shit, if you weren’t fucked before…” Miya can’t control her giggles now, with Pepper joining in. I was born on a ranch, cowboys do it for me, and they know it.
“Stop laughing at my expense, you two! This is terrible! How am I supposed to figure out my life when I can’t stop imagining him in that stupid uniform?”
“I mean, you could imagine what he looks like with just the hat on.”
My jaw drops at what Miya said. I’d expect something like that from Pepper, but Miya? She doesn’t have a romantic bone in her body.
“Where the hell did that come from?” I stare at her in shock. Pepper is cackling now, her laughter dissolving into tears.
“What?” Miya gives me a mock look of innocence. “You’ve been in love with him your whole damn life, Leni. You think it’s a coincidence that you both moved home at the same time, and ended up in the same cabin with, how many beds is it? Oh, right,one.”
Pepper is absolutely no help as she’s wheezing in the background. The mention of a popular romance novel trope sends her back over the edge.
“I didn’tmoveback home. I’m…re-grouping.”
“So, you’re not sitting there spiraling, pretending he isn’t the reason you’ve never had a real relationship?”
I’d like to punch Miya in her smug little face at this point. How dare she point out the obvious when I’m struggling to accept it? She’s right, of course. I have been sitting here spiraling.
I dated here and there, tried my best to get over this crush, but I think it’s pretty safe to say that I never did. That Clayton Traeger is so deeply ingrained in my bones, I’m not sure I’ll ever get over him. I never gave my heart to anyone else, becausedespite everything that happened between us, it has always belonged to him.
“You know it’s not that simple.” I hate the way my voice sounds small and wounded.
“Well,” Pepper cuts in, finally sobered from her laughing fit. “Nothing in life is ever really simple. Maybe you were sent back to the ranch at the same time for a reason.”
“Agreed.” Miya sets her tea down on a side table and looks me straight in the eyes. “This is a chance to figure out what happened, Leni. You walked away and never gave him the chance to explain himself. Maybe this is an opportunity to see what could have been. You’re not eighteen anymore, and from what I’ve heard from Ethan, he’s grown a lot, too.”
“Wait,” Pepper butts in, “you talk to her brothers?”
“Just a few of them.”
“How many is a few?”
I narrow my eyes at Miya in surprise. I had no idea she talked to any of my brothers.
“It’s not all the time. Ethan was in town a couple of months ago and asked to get lunch. That’s all.”
“What do you mean, that’s all?” I demand. “I live in the same town! Why didn’t he ask me?”
“He did. You had that overnight field trip with tenth grade that weekend.”
“Oh.” I scrunch my face up, still trying to wrap my head around Miya having lunch with Ethan.
“Next question.” Pepper bites her lower lip, giving me the face that gets her all the free drinks at the bars. “How doIget their numbers? Your brothers are hot.”
“Ewww.” I shake my head, trying to ward off the mental image of Pepper with any of my brothers. “Nope, not happening, Peps, you’re mine. I will not share you with any of my nasty brothers.”
“That’s so not fair!” She whines.
Miya chuckles, and I give her a disapproving glare.
“What? It’s an objective truth, Leni. Your parents made beautiful babies, and those babies just so happened to grow into some fine-ass men. And you, of course, you’re a bombshell, too.”
“Ugh, you guys are the worst.”
