Chapter 3: The Boy Who Wasn’t Him
Crestline High’s gym had been turned into something out of a dream — string lights, a archway of flowers, music already thumping through the floor.
Ollie offered me his arm the way he must have seen Logan do, and we walked in together, a seventeen-year-old in a blue dress and a thirteen-year-old swimming in his brother’s suit.
For a few minutes, it was perfect.
He was so careful. So proud. He kept checking that I had a drink, that I had somewhere to sit, narrating everything Logan had apparently coached him on over the phone.
Then Preston found us.
Preston Vale, who’d asked me out twice sophomore year and never quite forgiven me for choosing Logan, sauntered over with his date and a smirk I wanted to wipe off with a napkin.
“Wow, Hailey,” he said, loud enough for the tables around us. “Things must be rough. The Marine finally wise up and dump you? Now you’re bringing what, a seventh grader?”
