“I don’t know if I’m bi or whatever. I’ve never thought about a guy like that, except … you. And I don’t … I’m not here to … I’m not asking anything from you, I don’t expect anything. I just want to be your friend again. I miss that. Miss who I was back then, with you. You got me, the me before the money. The kid with the holes in his shoes.” I try a smile, but Evan only looks angrier the more I talk. “So … yeah.” I slap my hands down by my sides. “Now you know. I abandoned you, but you abandoned me too. When you stopped returning my texts, I was a coward and I took the easy way out, because how I felt about you scared the shit out of me, and I knew I’d fucked up and I thought maybe you hated me. Or maybe you even knew I liked you and you were disgusted or something.” I scan his face for clues as to whether I was right. By the utter shock and confusion etched into his features right now, I’m guessing I was wrong.
“And then I got a girlfriend, and for a while, I stopped thinking about guys. It was the coward’s option, and I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when your dad was sick. I wish I had been. But I can’t change that now. And Evan, we were kids. If I’d have known Bryce screwed you over, I would have done something about it, I swear. I would never throw you under the bus, not for anything.”
I stop talking. Evan hasn’t said a word. I swear he hasn’t blinked since I started talking.
“Evan? Say something.”
He swallows. Opens his mouth. Closes it again.
“I’ve gotta go.”
“What?”
My heart sinks into my stomach as I watch him turn around, telling myself surely he can’t just walkaway after everything I just said. I want to call him back, but what would be the point? I told him. I put it all out there and he’s made it clear what he thinks.
I get back in the car and start the engine, throwing one last glance in Evan’s direction to see if maybe he changed his mind. But no. Even the sound of the engine purring to life doesn’t make him turn around or alter his course. He’s even further away now than he was before.
I’m notin any kind of mood to face people when I drive back to campus.
Ben’s waiting for me outside class. I try to paint on my usual fake smile as I get out of the car with my books, but he sees straight through it.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Let’s go in, we’re gonna be late.”
I can feel him watching me while I try to listen to the professor and make notes. But I’m mostly just scribbling nonsense on the page and tuning out her voice.
After class, he won’t take no for an answer until I agree to go for coffee with him. He waits until we’re set up on some too-soft couches at the campus coffee shop to ask me what’s wrong.
“Is it Mira?”
The thought is so far from my mind that it takes me a second to even register why I’d be upset over Mira.
“No, it’s not Mira.”
I can see he isn’t going to let me off the hook until I tell him something. Looking around to see if anyone’s listening, I lean in closer and he mirrors my posture.
“I’ve been hanging out with that friend, from my old neighborhood.”
“Uh huh?” Ben’s giving me his whole attention.
“And well … he’s mad at me for something I didn’t even know Bryce did, when we were younger.”
He frowns. “Why would he be mad at you if you didn’t know? What did Bryce do?”
I sigh and lean in even closer, still ashamed of that stupid mistake and worried someone will overhear. “I stole a car and crashed it into a tree, and then, panicking, and not knowing what else to do, I called Evan. He came and cleaned up my mess.”
Ben’s eyes grow comically wide.
“Bryce hadn’t been dating my mom for long at this point and she was furious. But he fixed it. He got some fancy lawyer and I got off without even a smudge on my record. I tried to talk to Evan about it after, find out what happened to him. But he ghosted me and I guess I was scared to find out, or scared he was mad at me or …” I run a hand over my face. “Scared he’d realized how I felt about him.”
Ben flushes. “What do you mean?” His voice is small.
I swallow. “I had a crush on him.” There, it’s out there. Out in the world to someone other than Evan. I can only hope Ben reacts better than Evan did.
He blinks hard a few times. I can see the effort it’s taking him to maintain eye-contact. His blush making his cheeks blotchy.
“And I told him, this morning.”
