When I got home from the party, my throat was raw, my eyes red from crying. My mom accused me of being high until I spoke and my voice came out as a harsh croak. I told her how awful I felt—I did not explain the specifics of why.

Sure enough, she jumped to conclusions and assumed I was sick. She sent me to bed and brought in a bowl of chicken noodle soup that she spooned into my mouth like I was an invalid. I didn't mind it, though. I didn't have the strength to lift my arms. I didn't really want the soup, but I enjoyed the comfort as she dragged her fingers through my hair, humming.

I thought this bone weary feeling would fade by morning. I was just sad. Not actually sick, after all.

I was wrong.

For most of Saturday, I just felt tired and sad. I had a terrible headache and stuffy nose from crying all night. I didn't get out of bed all day. The thought of eating made my stomach churn. My phone dinged, and pinged, and rang, and whistled with a myriad of notifications, but I couldn't bring myself to reach out to the nightstand to pick it up. Just the thought of it was exhausting.

When I awoke Sunday morning, I felt worse than before. My skin was on fire, drenched in sweat. My mother informed me I had a fever, even before she broke out the baby thermometer to shove in my ear, confirming her diagnosis. She made me get up so she could change the sweat-dampened sheets. I tried to protest. "I don't care if they're wet." I didn't want to leave my cozy cocoon of blankets. She insisted to the point of ripping the blankets away, leaving me exposed to the icy air in just my boxers and t-shirt.

Mom helped me to the shower, but I insisted on doing that part alone. She grimaced, putting her hands on her hips, offended. "I changed your diapers, little boy."

"Well, I've grown since then," I grumbled.

She threw up her hands and left me to undress by myself. Every little movement hurt. My body was so weak. My limbs weighed a hundred pounds each.

Could a broken heart could cause this kind of sickness? I figured the word heartsick existed for a reason.

For the first time in my life, I actually craved a cold shower. The cold water was not cold enough, though. It felt warm against my blazing skin. I imagined each droplet sizzling into steam as it hit my body.

After I got out and dressed in the long-sleeved shirt and pajama pants my mom had readied, I opened the door to discover her sitting on the edge of the freshly made bed. She leapt up and ran to put an arm around me.

This went on for days. I didn't even know how many. Everything just blurred together into a mixture of sipping soup broth, having terrible nightmares about Emmett abandoning me, gulping down a disgusting bittersweet syrup that made me gag, and my mother's voice softly singing to me. In my moments of clarity, I responded to messages from Jackson. I also had many calls and texts from Emmett, only I didn't know what to say to him, so they went unanswered.

Finally, my fever broke, but Mom wouldn't let me out of bed just yet. She said I still needed to rest, so the fever didn't return.

Sometime in the afternoon of whatever day it was, I awoke from a nap and heard my door crack open with a tiny squeak.

I rolled over to check it. "Mom?"

She stuck her head in the door. "You're awake? There's someone here to see you, if you feel up to it."

Emmett's face popped into my mind. Then Duke's appeared, taking away the momentary glee I felt at the prospect of seeing Emmett. Honestly, I didn't even know if he'd want to see me again. I broke my promise that I wouldn't vanish like I did before. At least this time, I had the excuse of being deliriously ill to fall back on.

My mom disappeared. When the door opened wider, my chest constricted. The beautiful girl who stepped inside, her arms crossed over her chest with a blue binder clutched in them, was the last person I expected to see.

"Summer? What are you doing here?"

She'd changed her hair since the last time I saw her. Gone were her long curls. Replaced by a straight, blunt bob, cut to her chin. It suited the oval shape of her face. She looked very cute in a pair of high-waisted jeans and a sleeveless purple crop top, leaving a two-inch strip of her dark skin exposed. I had the sudden thought that a guy who was into girls would probably find the look sexy.

Summer closed the door, crossing over to sit at the foot of my bed. It was so familiar. She'd done that a hundred times. However, it didn't feel right for her to be here. She hated me.

She tossed the binder into my lap. I opened it to find my schoolwork. I lifted my eyes up to her. "You're the one who's been bringing this over? I thought it was Jackson." Jackson was the only person I'd spoken to outside the house for days. I tried texting Emmett back, but the words never came out right. I typed so many things, deleting each line as soon as I finished it. They were all selfish. I confessed my feelings a dozen times, only to tap them away again and again.

Emmett didn't want me like that. It wasn't fair to lay these feelings at his feet when I knew he did not share them.

"You look like shit," Summer said before she cracked a smile.

I pushed my long sleeves up to my elbows, sighing. "That's about how I feel." I rubbed a hand over my face. "I don't even know what day it is."

"It's Wednesday."

Wednesday. That meant it had been five days since I last saw or spoke to Emmett.

Summer was still staring at me, scanning my face. "And to be honest, you actually mostly just look depressed."

I took a shuddering breath as tears welled in my eyes.

"Oh my God!" Summer scooted closer and laid a hand on my arm. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."

I shook my head. "It's not you."

"Then what is it?" Summer asked. She tilted her head, softening her eyes in that Summer-way of hers to show me she was listening. I had her sole focus.

Something about the caring look in her stormy ocean eyes got me to speak the words I'd been too afraid to say aloud to anyone: "I think I'm in love with my friend Emmett. Who's a guy."

Saying it out loud, I felt a weight lifted off my chest, just a fraction. I was so sick of carrying this burden alone.

If my confession surprised Summer, she should teach a master class in acting because she didn't show it. She reached out and brushed her hand along my arm. "Does he know?" Her voice was so tender and calm.

That was not what I expected her first question to be. I thought she might ask how long I had known I liked guys—or, specifically, guy, since Emmett was the only one so far.

"Nobody knows."

Summer turned her head to the side, squinting her eyes at the signed Kobe Bryant jersey hanging on the wall by the door. "I don't think I know an Emmett. Do I?"

"He goes to Heron Prep."

"Fancy. How did you meet?"

"You remember that big fight we had the day before you broke up with me?"

Summer raised an incredulous brow and lifted her index finger in front of her. "You told me you didn't have romantic feelings for me. That you just wanted to be friends. I think you are the one who broke us up."

She had a point. I had taken her walking out on me as her ending it. But all the stuff I said beforehand definitely was the beginnings of a breakup speech.

"I really meant that I wanted us to be friends." I took hold of her hand. I was glad she didn't pull away. "I love you, Summer. Just not the way I was supposed to, as your boyfriend."

Summer gripped her fingers around my hand, actually holding it. "It's okay. I got over it. I'm dating someone new."

"Who?" I furrowed my brow. No one told me about this. Usually gossip about an ex got back to you immediately. TMZ couldn't hold a candle to the Huntington High gossip mill.

"Shawn Turner."

"Shawn Turner," I repeated, scrunching my nose. "He's not your type at all."

"My type didn't work out so well for me if you'll recall." Her eyes went wide accusatorially as they scanned me. She had a point. I immediately apologized. She tucked her hair behind her ear with a hint of a smile. "He's really sweet, and I don't know if it'll last, but I like him."

"I'm happy for you."

Summer patted my leg. "So, back to this boy. You were saying... the night before you broke up with me—"

"That's when we met. Remember? We were supposed to go bowling with Jackson and his girlfriend."

"Right! The girl who did those awesome hand-drawn designs on her tennis shoes."

I had no memory of said shoes, but I knew Carrie was artsy, so I just nodded. "Emmett is her best friend. He was there for a date, but the dude got back with his ex and flaked."

"That sucks."

"Yeah, and I was a dick to him because I was upset about our fight."

"Sounds like you." She chuckled.

I joined in for a moment. "I kinda deserve that."

"You do. But continue."

I leaned back against the headboard. I'd thought about that night so much it shined in my memory with diamond sharp clarity. "Emmett was so sweet to me, even though I kept bitching about everything, raging on him for the tiniest mistakes—we were on the same team against Jackson and Carrie. I called him a fuckwit once." I smiled, recalling his absolute disdain for me. "I think he wanted to punch me."

Summer crossed her legs and propped her head on her fist. "I don't blame him."

"We talked about what you said about me being distant. He helped me realize it was because I wasn't invested in us the way you were. He convinced me I shouldn't be selfish. That I should let you go if I felt that way. So you could be happy."

"I already like him."

I nodded. "I didn't know it then, but I did too. I couldn't stop thinking about him. And I had this warm, gooey feeling in my gut. It's like nausea, but I kinda liked it."

"That's always the first sign."

"We'll, I didn't know that. I've never had this before."

She gave me a look like I was an adorable puppy, but I wished she'd stop because I was getting embarrassed.

I told her about the go-karts. How his smile made my heart hurt. In a good way. How much I longed to see him every day.

Summer listened, riveted by the story, as I told her everything that I'd felt. How I fantasized about Emmett. How it felt to be with him. To be myself. To be happy. All the while, tears trickled down my cheeks, making little tapping sounds as they dropped onto the binder in my lap.

"You really are in love with him, aren't you?"

I nodded, staring into Summer's clear gray eyes as my breath hitched. "But why doesn't he love me back?"

"I don't know, baby." Summer moved to sit at my side, wrapping her arms around my neck. She smelled like cupcakes. "And I know it's not the same, it probably doesn't even compare, but I love you."

I wrapped my arms around her, letting out all my pain as she held me, whispering in my ear how great I was, how much she cared about me. "You deserve the world, Clayton Lennox-Miller. If that boy is too dumb to see it, it's his loss."

"I don't need the world. I just need him."

Summer squeezed me tighter, smoothing her hand over the back of my head. "I know, I know."

"I've done everything I can to make him happy, hoping that he might... that he might change his mind about me. Feel what I feel. But he—" I stopped myself before I mentioned Duke. I pulled back from the hug to wipe my hand under my runny nose, sniffling. I took a breath and rephrased the thought, "He hooked up with his ex-boyfriend. I wanted to crawl in a hole and die when I saw them together."

Summer stared into my eyes, gripping my chin in her hand. "Maybe you should focus on making yourself happy. If you believe Emmett is your way to do that, you have to tell him how you feel. You can't keep holding all this in. He won't know how much this is hurting you, if he doesn't know that you like him."

My breath shuddered again. My voice came out so low and hoarse when I said, "I'm afraid."

"Love is an immense thing. It can be scary." Summer leaned in to press her forehead against mine. "But I think it's worth the risk."

"Thank you."

"What good is having an ex-girlfriend if she can't hook you up with a hot guy?"

I laughed through my tears.

She pulled back with narrowed eyes. "He is hot, right?"

"So very."

Summer moved to the other side of the bed to sit beside me. We spent the next few hours talking about Emmett in so much detail that I worried she would get bored. But it was so nice finally saying it out loud. My family were the only people I ever spoke to about Emmett. They knew he was important to me, but they didn't know the full capacity of my feelings for him.

After a while, I let Summer slip in a few stories about Shawn Turner. She really seemed happy with him. If this whole Emmett thing turned out horribly wrong, at least Summer came out the other end in a better place. Because even if Emmett wasn't a factor, I wasn't right for her. I could never return her affection the way she deserved.