Childhood best friends to enemies to lovers.
Alina wants nothing to do with the rebellious bad boy, Liam Somner.
Which is difficult, because he goes to her school. And lives on her street. And keeps showing up at her apartment, and sitting in her ki...
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"I can't believe you were arrested for underage drinking and I didn't even know."
"I didn't want you to know, back then," Liam says. "I didn't want you to think badly of me. I guess I was ashamed."
"Well I've already seen you arrested for graffiti,"I say. "It didn't really change my opinion of you."
"The graffiti was Max's," Liam says. "Max's tag. I don't know, I just thought I could bring a little piece of him to New York. He never came here, but he always said he wanted to. So I thought if I painted the streets of Brooklyn with his name, it would be like he came here with me."
"But you can't get arrested again, Liam. Your aunt has struggled with alcoholism her whole life. If you don't get a handle on it, I'm worried you will too," I say, and my voice actually breaks when I say it.
Liam stares at me, because he realises that I'm crying. He reaches out and places his hand on my arm. "Are you worried about me, Cook?"
I wipe away my tears, frustrated, and look up at him. "Of course I am, Liam. You're reckless. You're a fucking idiot most of the time. It would absolutely kill your mom if something bad happened to you, or worse, if you did something bad to yourself."
I'm really crying now. I guess there's a lot of built up emotion that I didn't know I had about this. I didn't know how much I was worried about Liam. "It would absolutely kill me, too."
"I'm not going to do anything bad," Liam says.
"I can't believe your promises," I say. "You just spent the whole weekend getting too drunk. I don't even know what you were doing. It was easier when you were in Germany because I just pretended you didn't exist. I didn't have to care about you anymore."
"But you care about me now?"
I glare up at him. "I hate you, Liam."
"I don't know what I can say to make you feel better," Liam admits. "But I hate that you're upset because of me."
"There's nothing you can say," I tell him. "You just have to show me that you're not going to turn into Julia. You can't follow her path."
Liam swallows and nods. "She's better now, though. And Fiona's back," he says. "When I was in Germany I called Julia every week. She always talked to me about how she was working so hard to get Fiona back. And she did it. She got better. She got Fiona back."
I wipe away the rest of my tears and take a shaky breath. "They're really good together," I say.
"I know," he says. "Are you cold?"
"I'm freezing," I admit.
"Come on, let's go home. My mom will have cookies."
We walk slowly back to Juniper Street, mostly in silence, because I've got a lot of conflicting emotions in my head and the only thing I really feel is confused. The city streets are full of activity - yellow cabs honking horns, joggers in head-to-toe Lululemon, and two guys pulling a couch out of a van. But I barely notice the chaos around me, because I'm too busy thinking about everything.
