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nervous stutter in my heart at that thought.
    I need to stop fanning those flames. No matter how gorgeous the fire between us was. Because it burned.
    Damn, did it burn.
    “What the hell were you doing?” My voice is a rough scratch around my surprise.
    “Good question. Right back at you. Why are you wandering around this fucking dump at this hour? Do you have any idea the kind of tweakers and asshole fuckups who hang out around the tracks?”
    He pushes his hood back and rakes a hand through his shiny hair, making it stick up at odd angles.
    I want to fix it.
    I stop myself.
    “Asshole fuckups, huh? Like you?” I stand up and wince slightly when I put weight on my foot.
    He scrambles to his feet after me, wraps an arm around my waist. For a second we both stare at each other through the clouds our ragged breath makes in the bitter cold. His arm pulls tighter, closing around my back, and I want to be locked in his arms again. I want to let go of all the worries, all the fear, and just melt against him.
    But I can’t. I know all the reasons, and there are too many to count. So I pull out of his grasp, and he lets me go.
    It’s stupid, but I wish he wouldn’t let me go.
    “Don’t try to be cute, Sadie. I’m serious. There’s a reason our moms beat the crap out of you guys after they caught you guzzling peach Schnapps down here back when you were in high school. And it doesn’t have anything to do with your shitty choice of beverage.”
    “You remember that?”
    I squint at him. It’s like my tongue can still taste the sticky sweet alcohol Georgia and I chugged next to the tracks. By the time our mothers came to find us—Georgia’s mother’s blue Beetle careening over the broken bottles and mounds of cigarette butts, its headlights blinding us—we were too drunk to do anything except vomit out the window and apologize through our miserable sobs. Our mothers were ferociously angry.
    How much of that crazy, awful night did Trent see? He was only an eighth grader then, pimply with greasy hair and too-big feet.
    “I was always around. And you guys were older, so that made you automatically cooler. Even if you did drink lame shit like peach Schnapps.”
    He nudges me in the direction of my house, careful not to touch me possessively, the way he did before. I’m disappointed, but I hide it by looking around for his bike.
    “Where are you parked?”
    His boots crunch the gravel as he marches me forward. “I walked. Let’s get you home.”
    “You live in the opposite direction. And I know my way home.” I push him to the side. “Go. Juvenile delinquency turns into criminal mischief once you’re eighteen, you know.”
    He stops and I stop with him, expecting a good-bye hug.
    “You...you saw what I did? The...” He looks over his shoulder, back to the images on the bridge, and his voice strangles out like it’s being squeezed by a vice.
    “You did the whole thing?” I clarify.
    It’s amazing. Beyond amazing. The work, the artistry. But this is Trent, and it’s also illegal. I don’t want him getting in trouble.
    “Yeah.”
    He flips one paint can out of his pocket and shakes it back and forth absently. The metallic jingle echoes in the cold night air.
    “I…” I clear my throat. “Yeah. I saw it.”
    It’s a huge freaking understatement.
    It shook my aesthetic expectations. It expanded my definition of beauty by a thousand percent. It sucked the wonder away from the stars and transformed the steel and rust of my youth into something vibrant.
    But I don’t say any of that to Trent.
    Yeah. I saw it.
    I want to tell him—
    “You saw it, and your only thought was ‘criminal mischief’?” He sticks the can and his hands deep into the front pocket of his hoodie and frowns with solid disappointment. “That’s it?”
    God, no. Not at all. But I’m afraid to say anything that will encourage him. I know what’s at stake for Trent.
    “Didn’t you get busted dealing your junior year?” I probe,