Free Bitter End by Jennifer Brown

call it ‘Bitter End.’ Because maybe it’s not over, you know? Like they’re sticking it out
     until…” He held up his hands, a cocky grin on his face.
    “The bitter end,” I finished for him, nodding my head. I pursed my lips. “Hmmm.”
    He poked me in the ribs with his finger. “What do you mean, hmmm? Come on, you have to admit that’s a pretty good title.”
    “I don’t know,” I said, giggling and curling away from his finger. “How about this—if your song ever makes it big and, like,
     wins a Grammy or something, I’ll let you title it.”
    “Deal,” he said. “Hey, speaking of. Weren’t we gonna teach you a song tonight?”
    I brightened. “Yeah!”
    He stood and reached down to pull me up, and then held my hand all the way to the car, loosely, as if we’d done it a million
     times before. “Get in,” he said. “I’ve got the perfect place for guitar lessons.”

CHAPTER NINE
    We both slid into Cole’s car and he took off, pulling out of the shelter and winding through the park, past all the other
     shelters, where other cars sat, dark and foggy, in the parking lots. Some of the shelters had fires smoldering in their shelter
     pits, just begging for the park rangers to show up and make everyone leave. The park was supposed to close at dusk, but nobody
     ever paid attention to that rule—not even the park rangers, as long as nobody ran the risk of burning the woods down.
    We bumped along the lake road, past the closed swimming beach and the boat rental dock, and then pulled onto a grassy, gated
     road. Cole pulled up to the gate, put his car in park, and reached down below the dash to pop the trunk.
    “Here?” I asked.
    He nodded. “Well, not
here
, here. In there. The spillway.” He pointed at the gate. A rusted red-and-white signhung from the middle of it: DANGER: NO TRESPASSING. DROWNING RISK .
    The sign needn’t have hung there. Everybody already knew the risk of hanging out at the top of the spillway. There to drain
     excess water and keep the lake from flooding during rainy periods, the spillway gates could open at any time, releasing a
     rush of water down the thirty-foot concrete drop into the pool below.
    Legend had it that sometime in the seventies, a drunk girl had climbed over the gate and immediately fallen to her death,
     going head over heels down the steep concrete slab and drowning at the bottom. Shannin always claimed it was just urban legend,
     and nobody ever seemed to know who the “drunk girl” was, only that she’d gasped and cried for help and there was nothing her
     friends could do but watch from the top of the spillway and call out her name.
    The only kids who crossed the spillway gate were the kids with a death wish. One wrong step and you could tumble one way down
     the concrete or the other way into the lake itself. Or if a gate opened, the rush of water would take you down into the water
     below whether you wanted to go or not.
    And if a park ranger caught you up there, you’d be in huge trouble.
    “Cole, I don’t think…” I started, but Cole had already gotten out and was banging the trunk shut, his guitar case in one hand.
     He came around to my side and pulled open the door.
    “Come on,” he said, holding out his other hand. When I hesitated, he bent to look me in the eye. “I’m not going to let anything
     happen to you,” he said. He slid his finger down my cheek, and I got butterflies. “Besides, it hasn’t rained in weeks. The
     spillway isn’t going to open up anytime soon. Worrywart.”
    He winked at me, and suddenly I was overcome with a surge of boldness.
This is what life is about, right?
I told myself. Taking risks. Going for it. Not being like Dad—a husk of a person shifting this way and that in the wind,
     with no real place to land. Life was about staring down a tackle. Standing at the top of the spillway. Climbing gates with
     danger signs. I grabbed his hand and got out.
    “Who you calling worrywart?” I teased,