Chapter Eight
Aria’s POV
By the next morning, I’d almost convinced myself to forget everything that happened the night before. I’d buried it somewhere in the back of my mind, like a dream that didn’t belong to me. The words Ryan said—the closeness, the warmth of his hands around my wrist, the way his voice had dropped when he said it’s different with you—all of it played in flashes I refused to think about.
I told myself it didn’t matter. Ryan Hale said a lot of things, to a lot of girls. I wasn’t going to be another one of his stories.
So when I walked into school that morning, everything felt almost normal. I smiled at a few people, shoved my earphones in, and kept my head down. I thought maybe, just maybe, things were finally starting to feel okay again.
Then I heard my name.
“Ar
