Free Breaking Beautiful by Jennifer Shaw Wolf

for me to turn back, the cave opens up and a dim light spills in from a crack in the ceiling that reaches the surface.
    I scramble onto the ledge against the back wall where Blake and I used to hide from the world. Well above the watermark is another ledge where we kept our treasures—sea glass and shells, a smuggled box of cookies, the walkie-talkies we bought at the thrift store. We quit leaving things in the cave after a high tide submerged it and everything was swept away. A couple of times we carried Andrew into the back of the cave with us, but usually he stayed at the entrance and played lookout with his walkie-talkie.
    The musty, salty smell is sickening, but sweet and familiar at the same time. The walls are covered with green slime and seaweed. I lean back against the wall of the cave so my scar rests on the dry rock above the waterline. I tuck my knees up under my gray sweatshirt and reach for the stone in my pocket.
    I should have run when I had the chance. Not yesterday, months ago—before the accident.
    When I close my eyes, I see Hannah’s face contorting in pain and shock—so different from the fake-sweet Beachcomber’s Queen of the last few weeks. I was stupid to think she had changed.
    I’m not sorry.
    Hannah deserved what she got. No one is going to see it that way, but I’m glad that I hurt her.
    I wonder if that means I’m crazy.
    The ocean roars in my ears. I run my fingers over the stone in my pocket and shrink farther into the darkest corner of the ledge—hidden. I wish I could stay in here forever. In the creepy blackness of this cave, more than anywhere else in Pacific Cliffs, I feel safe.
    “Allie.” His voice echoes from the front of the cave. “Allie. I know you’re here. I saw your footprints.”
    Blake. His voice brings a prick of tears to my eyes. He shouldn’t have followed me. He should let the tide come in and sweep me out with the rest of the garbage in the entrance. I don’t answer, but he keeps coming. It’s harder for him to squeeze through the crack than it used to be, and he has to stay low, even in the back. I guess we’ve both grown since the last time we were here.
    “Hey.” He says it like we were still in school, greeting each other between classes. He climbs on the ledge next to me and sits directly in the light from above. “Slimier than I remember.” He wipes a film of green from his hand onto his jeans. “Smells worse, too. Nothing compares to the fertilizer plant, but still bad.” Blake works at a plant up the coast that makes fertilizer out of leftover fish parts. Because of his job, most of the kids at school greet him with their noses plugged. I’ve never noticed any smell, but I have noticed the broad back and thick biceps Blake developed loading bags of fertilizer into the trucks all summer.
    I keep my face in the shadow. “What are you doing here?” It comes out more abrupt and more accusing than I mean it to.
    He rubs his throat. “You know, boring day at school. I thought I’d go for a walk, get a soda. Maybe huddle in the back of a cave for a while.”
    I glance at him. The light from the crack in the ceiling falls on his face. “You think I’m crazy.”
    “Yeah,” Blake says. “I knew you were crazy the first time I saw you crawl all the way back here. I thought we were going to get stuck and die, but you kept going.” He grins, but I can’t return his smile. “What you did today, finally giving Hannah what she deserved, that wasn’t crazy. In fact, that’s about the sanest thing I’ve seen you do in a long time. Much saner than pretending those girls are your friends. Much saner than going out wi—” He looks down so the shadow from his bangs falls over his face. I know he wants to say, “Much saner than going out with Trip Phillips.”
    He’s more right about that than I’ll ever let him know.
    He scoots closer, so his cologne masks the smell of seaweed a little bit—still not close enough to touch me. He clears his