Sunbound

☀ The Perfect Storm / Complications of the Heart

C H A P T E R  12: The Perfect Storm / Complications of the Heart

☀ ☀ ☀

It had been three days since Scout's hyperventilating fit on the floor behind Santan Valley Auto Repair's reception desk, and she had not spent those days staring at Skylar through the garage door. Instead, she spent them sucking down vanilla milkshakes like they were oxygen at Santan Valley Diner or holed up at Bo's house eating everything in their pantry and mulling over the conversation she had with Skylar in the garage. Whenever someone asked her what was wrong, she responded with, "Ya' know, just normal teenage angst," which was not entirely true.

She missed him, strangely, and she could not stop thinking about how the sunlight could manifest his eyes from a car crash and the violent tides of a hurricane into buoyant, brilliant sunflowers. And she hated it. She hated how she was connecting him to all of these nouns and adjectives, how she was practically writing poetry about him whenever she thought of him. Slowly, her entire vocabulary was laced with prose of him, and she thought that maybe everyone who had ever met Skylar became poets under his influence.

Scout groaned loudly all of a sudden, sinking further down onto the floor of Bo's parents' pantry. She clutched a bag of Cheetos between her orange-tinted fingers, tossing one into her mouth every once in a while.

Bo was sitting next to Scout, chewing thoughtfully on the top of a donut that she doused in chocolate syrup and coconut flakes.

"So," Bo began, "can you explain to me why we've been giving ourselves diabetes for the past three days? Not that I'm complaining or anything. I love any excuse to eat donuts all day."

Then, as an afterthought, she added, "And don't give me that teen angst bullshit again."

Scout squinted at Bo, then she sighed. "I almost asked Skylar out on a date."

Bo coughed so hard that she blew the coconut flakes off of the donut. They fluttered around in the air like miniature doves before landing on the package of double-stuffed Oreos sitting beside her legs. "YOU DID NOT," she shouted.

"I did," Scout muttered, "almost."

"I thought you were gonna stay away from him," Bo spoke loudly and incredulously.

Scout sighed again as she sucked the orange powder off of her fingers. "It's harder than it looks."

"So, like, what does this mean?" Bo asked with wild eyes. "Do we like Skylar? Are we gonna date him?"

"We?"

"C'mon, Scout," Bo drawled, rolling her dark eyes, "you and I are a two-for-one special. If you like him, then that means I have to like him to. If you hate him, then I'll help you sharpen your proverbial pitchfork. You know this."

Scout did, in fact, know that. She knew it better than Bo did. When Scout was with Antonio, Bo accompanied them almost everywhere they went. She said it made her feel included, because there was nothing Bodhi Benson hated more than being left out of the loop. Likewise, when Bo was with her ex-girlfriend, Sandrine, she dragged Scout along on every date. Literally dragged; Scout was OK with being left out, but Bo wouldn't stand for it.

"So, are we dating him?" Bo asked. She was giddy.

"No," Scout snapped. "No, I'm not dating anyone! Just because I had one slip doesn't mean that everything's changed. I'm still trying to avoid him. I'm not gonna let myself get close to him. I don't need another heartbreak in my life, thank you very fucking much."