The Last Time We Were Us Read Online Free Page A

starts kissing me again, his hands pressed into the small of my back, but I push him again, taking a deep gasp of air as our lips part.
    “I don’t think I want to do anything more tonight,” I say.
    He groans, louder this time, but he scoots over, gives me space.
    I sit up straight, pull down the edges of my skirt, and try to catch my breath.
    “What is it?” he asks, his voice kind. “What’s wrong?”
    “Nothing’s wrong,” I say.
    “Then why?”
    “I’m just not ready .” I hate how much I sound like a PSA.
    I wonder, briefly, if he’s angry, but then he just shrugs. “All right.”
    “We’re good?” I adjust my top awkwardly.
    He nods. “Course we’re good.”
    Innis never asked me to be his girlfriend, and I never asked to be it, but now I wonder how long this whatever-it-is will go on if we don’t go any further.
    But he leans in again, and his voice is soft and smooth, like it is when he wants to please. “We can wait as long as you want.”
    And I smile, feel myself blushing, though he won’t be able to see it in the dark.
    Innis could have anyone.
    But lately, it seems like that anyone is me.

Chapter 3
    M AC K ENZIE DRIVES US HOME SO WE CAN GET BACK IN time for curfew, giving me an extremely detailed play-by-play of her and Payton’s night.
    “How’d it go with Innis?” she finally asks, when I know a bit more about both of her and Payton’s anatomies than I’d like to.
    “Good,” I say. “Really good.”
    “ Really good? Don’t tell me you did it on the couch and are only now getting around to telling me.”
    “Actually, we barely did anything. Just kissed.”
    “And that’s good news?” she asks.
    “You know, sometimes, I think you have a hard time understanding that I’m not you.”
    “What can I say?” MacKenzie turns onto our street. “You’re my first repressed Southerner friend.”
    “Ha ha ,” I say as she pulls up to my house.
    “Anyway, sleep well. Dream of all the things you didn’t do with Innis.”
    “You’re such a jerk.” I laugh. “Talk tomorrow.”
    I hear the shuffle of footsteps above as I close the front door behind me, then the creak of the stairs.
    Mom patters down, a smile on her sleepy face. “I wasn’t sure if you were going to make it.”
    “With minutes to spare,” I say.
    She gives me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Good night, dear.”
    “Good night.”
    But when I’m in bed and the house is silent, when the sounds of my mother doing her cold cream and serums in the bathroom die off, when the cicadas themselves decide it’s time to turn in, when I’ve slogged through two whole chapters of Heart of Darkness , my AP English summer reading, I still can’t sleep.
    I want to think about Innis, to indulge in his sweet words, but when I close my eyes, all I see is Jason, Jason and his whole family, knock-knock-knocking, just like they used to do when they lived next door.
    I flip back the sheets, climb out of bed, and kneel down at the foot of it. I push aside the clothes that didn’t make it to the hamper, and navigate the stacks of old art projects and overdue library books and an unused yoga mat until my fingers hit the smooth edge of a shoebox. I pull it out with two hands.
    It’s my very own Pandora’s box. Mom doesn’t know about it, just like she doesn’t know that I used to go over to Jason’s empty house sometimes, something I’ve promised myself I won’t do anymore. If she did, she’d probably burn the contents and seriously reconsider her stance against therapy.
    The photos are on the top, which is good because I don’t think I can stand to see the news clippings right now. I flip through five or so before I find the one I was thinking of. It’s me and Jason and his parents, his gorgeous mom and his always-pulled-together dad on either side of us. It was Jason’s eighth birthday, and the two of us have chocolate cake on our faces. Our arms are wrapped around each other’s shoulders, and it’s so dang cute