Keep From Falling (Markson Grove Series Book 1) by Amy Vanessa Miller Page A

school; about how Evan was looking at me. She’s threatened by him.
    For a moment, she looks taken aback by my accusation but regains her composure quickly. “Not that you belong to me. I’m not saying that I own you, Bree.”
    My shoulders relax and I shake my head a bit as if shaking the idea out as well.
    “I’m sorry,” I say with a sigh and lean in to kiss her. “Of course you’re not saying that.”
    She kisses me back. “Thank you for today,” she says, interrupting the kiss.
    I know that she’s talking about what happened with Parker at school after our public lip lock, but all I can think about is what happened with Evan at the store tonight. Everything I told her has been compromised by my stupidity tonight and she has no clue about any of it.
    I gently run my index finger over her lips, wondering how I can even begin to tell her that I wanted Evan to kiss me and that I told him he could. No matter which way you look at it I kissed someone else, and there is no erasing that.
    Her body tenses up and I can tell that she senses something is bothering me. “What’s wrong?”
    I fumble around in my mind trying to think of the right words to say. But I can’t make it sound any less horrible. I cheated on the person I care about most in the world and I did it without thinking about it. Because why? Because Evan Daniels asked me to?
    I can see the look of worry developing on Skylar’s face and I don’t want to prolong the inevitable. “Evan kissed me tonight,” I blurt out.
    At first Skylar doesn’t react. She sits there looking at me as if she didn’t even hear the words. But then, her eyes narrow and she pulls away from me like I’m a flame that will burn her. “He what?”
    I lower my head in shame. I can’t look at her face right now. I can’t watch the pain and emotion forcing its way to the surface in the expressions she’s giving me. I don’t want her to look into my eyes out of fear of what she might discover. “He kissed me,” I say. “And I kissed him back.”
    Skylar scrambles out from under the blanket. “What the fuck, Bree! Is that why he came to talk to you today? To make a move on you?”
    I shake my head quickly and swallow hard. “No, no, I don’t think so. It was a mistake. I mean, I wanted him to kiss me, I told him he could. But right afterward I knew it was a mistake because I love you, Sky. I’m with you.”
    Skylar begins to pace the floor back and forth and I’m sure she’s thinking about what she can throw at me that won’t make enough noise to wake my parents.
    “This isn’t happening,” she says with a moan. She sits on the floor and pulls her knees to her chest.
    I crawl out from the blanket, over to her. I reach for her face, but she swats my hand away.
    “You wanted him to kiss you? You asked him to?” she asks while trying to hold back the tears I can see are coming. She’s rocking herself back and forth.
    I shake my head. “No. He wanted to and I said he could. He makes me feel things that I can’t explain.”
    “Good things?”
    “Different things,” I reply honestly but regret it almost immediately. The confession seems to make her completely fall apart and she begins to sob loudly. I wish she would yell or scream. I wish she would throw something. But she doesn’t. She just sobs into her folded arms and curled up knees, and it breaks my heart.
    “It won’t happen again,” I say urgently. “I told him that I’m with you and that it was a mistake.”
    She wipes the tears from her eyes but doesn’t say anything for a while as she stares off into nothingness. I shift my body uncomfortably, still kneeling in front of her. My legs feel like jelly but going back to the couch doesn’t seem like an option at this point, so I ignore the discomfort.
    “What did he say back?”
    That was certainly not a question I was anticipating. I think over everything that he said and how upset he was with me. My mind is full of guilt. “He said to tell you