Chapter 19

The air inside the car felt wrong from the moment we pulled out of the parking lot.

Kayla suddenly became talkative, sticky, performative.

One moment she was gushing about a sunset trip she and Wesley took to Turkey last month.

The next, at a red light, she leaned across the console to smear her sweet-scented lip balm across Wesley’s

mouth.

“Every fall and winter you make me remind you,” she teased. “Last time you kissed too hard and split your lip, and you still never learn.”

She laughed, soft to the point of cloying.