Lucky Girl by Jamie Pacton (novels for beginners txt) 📕

for that to happen. I know we’re over, really. I swear I do.” My voice stumbles over the words, as if I’m admitting them reluctantly.

I force myself take a deep breath and let it out slowly. So I kissed my ex. No big deal. Won’t happen again.

“Old habits,” says Holden, looking embarrassed. “I’m sorry too. Not that I haven’t been thinking about doing that for days … It’s just not like that between us now. I know. I messed everything up …”

Another gust of cold wind whips across the lake, and I shiver in my thin jacket, T-shirt, and jeans.

“It’s not a big deal.” I sit down on one of the benches and cross my arms. “We won’t do it again. Promise.”

Holden shoots me a look. “Deal. Hey, I have something for you. From my trip to Hawaii.”

I shake my head. “You already gave me a pin, remember? Plus, you don’t have to buy your ex-girlfriend gifts while you’re on vacation.”

“I know we were broken up at the time, but I saw it, and it screamed ‘Jane!’ at me. Do you want it?” He pulls a blue sweatshirt out from a grocery bag that’s sitting on one of the seats. It has a humpback on it and says Whale Watcher.

Maybe if I wasn’t shivering, I could say no. Sending him a small, grateful smile, I slip it over my head. It fits perfectly and smells like Holden’s laundry detergent.

“I love it,” I say, warming up from more than the fleece inside. “Thank you.”

Holden returns my smile. That reckless bit of attraction that drew us together in the first place is still between us, practically a living thing. Dammit.

I look away first, trying to keep some part of myself unentangled. The sun is nearly down, and strains of music from the Harvest Festival drift out over the lake.

“Want to join the party?” Holden asks quietly as he turns the boat around. He nods toward the group of boats clustered near the beach. It looks like half my high school is there, drinking and hanging out.

“Nope.” I point toward the middle of the lake far from the beach. “Let’s get away from the crowd.”

“Excellent plan.”

Holden steers us away from the dock, and I close my eyes as the wind races over my face. It takes with it any thought of how stupid it was to kiss Holden—that just kind of happened, as these things go—and how nice it would be to kiss him again. The pontoon is no speedboat, but it’s fast enough to make me forget anything but wind and water.

Holden stops when we’re on the far side of the lake, closer to the marsh. Luckily, the mosquitoes have given up the ghost for the season, but I still pull the sweatshirt hood over my ears. Holden sits next to me, scooting close enough on the small-boat bench seat so our thighs touch. The waves rock us, and it takes everything in me not to lean my head onto his shoulder. Above us, the sky darkens, and thunder rumbles.

“So, how are college applications going?” I ask, seizing on the first neutral topic of conversation that floats through my mind. “Are still you planning on going somewhere near Lakesboro?”

As far as I knew, Holden wanted to go to UW–Madison, just like his parents had done. He’d always been into math, and that’s what helped him get into the FICA camp last summer.

Holden makes a dismissive noise. “Not if I can help it. I want to get to New York City and stay there until I’m living above Central Park.”

“Are you going to major in finance?” That had been his plan since we were sophomores and he’d started investing all his saved birthday money in stocks.

“Absolutely,” says Holden. He picks at a piece of vinyl that’s cracking on the boat seat and throws it overboard. “I’m done with shitty little towns, shitty festivals, shitty boats. All of it.”

“How perfectly Wolf of Wall Street of you,” I say dryly.

Holden laughs. “Tell me you wouldn’t want to hang out on a yacht over this crappy boat?”

Of course some part of me wants to hang out on a yacht someday, but the rest of me wants to lecture Holden on the environmental impact of luxury yachts.

“What really happened in New York?” I blurt out. It’s the question I’ve been turning over for the last two months. “I mean, you went away, like, this nerdy math guy who was casually interested in investments, and you came back caring about things like the Hamptons and yacht prices. I mean, it’s fine, you can tell me: Were you body-snatched by a super materialistic alien?”

Holden barks a laugh, but it’s sharp. With edges that dig into my bones. “I promise you I’m not an alien.” He stares out over the lake for a moment and then runs a hand through his hair. “And truthfully, New York was fucking terrible. I went in thinking I could learn about Wall Street and find a place for myself there, but from day one, the other kids hated me. It’s like I couldn’t get the stink of Lakesboro off me, and they made fun of me for everything from my haircut to my clothing. They called me ‘Holden from the Holler,’ and to them, I was just some country bumpkin who was visiting the big city. Most of them made it quite clear I would never be their equal.”

“But you are their equal, and that’s just classist,” I say, making a face. “Like, yes, there are terrible rich people who shit in gold toilets, but that doesn’t mean you have to let them get under your skin.”

Holden snorts. “I met someone with a golden toilet.”

“You didn’t.”

“Swear to God.” Holden pulls up his phone and scrolls through the pictures on it until he comes to one of him standing by the Wall Street bull and bear statues with a preppy-looking white guy in a blue blazer. “This is my roommate, Finn. Eventually, he was one