“No!” I say. “Let’s go onto the lake. We can walk towards each other’s homes and meet in the middle?”
“Okay. That sounds … great.”
“See you soon!”
We meet each other on the path, before continuing in the southeast direction. “I love walks,” Eve says. “I’m basically Lizzie Bennet.”
I raise a brow. “Who’s Lizzie Bennet?”
“FromPride and Prejudice.”
I shake my head and her mouth drops open. “You’ve never heard ofPride and Prejudice?”
“Is that a book?” I ask.
“Yes, by Jane Austen. There’s a movie as well, and a miniseries. It’s the perfect love story.”
I laugh. “So you’re a romantic. Okay, tell me everything that happened.”
She recounts how Oliver asked her out Thursday afternoon, emphasising how I played a role in the story and recounts yesterday’s movie date. I see why Eve’s confused — the situation doesn’t make sense to me either.
“So now you want to know whether you two are romantic or friends?” I clarify.
She rubs the bridge of her nose. “Okay, now it sounds silly when I say it like that because it’s obviously just friendship, right? I’m reading too much into this because my mind is clouded by my emotions.” She frowns and scrunches her nose in disgust. “Ew.”
“How is that ‘ew’?” I ask.
“Having any emotion of any kind is ew,” She deadpans.
I tip my head back and laugh. I agree — emotionsareew. Unfortunately, I’m super emotional. “Okay, okay,” I say after I’ve calmed down. “I think your question is genuine. The answer has got to be more complicated than ‘just friendship’. What we know is that he was jealous because he thought you were interested in someone else.”
“But is jealousy inherently romantic?” she asks, half to me and half to herself.
“I need to use words likeinherentlyin my English essays,” I say. “But I don’t think so. You can get jealous over friends. I know I have, and I’m don’t just mean Henry. Sometimes you worry your friends will leave you for someone else.”
She raises a brow. “Surelyyoudon’t worry about that.”
What does that mean? Maybe Eve thinks that all of my friendships have been fine and dandy. “Not all friendships last forever,” I tell her.
We fall into silence because that thought is depressing as hell.
I clear my throat. “The important points about this situation, though, is that he’s a guy, and so he’s more possessive. Guys are more possessive than girls. Then there’s the whole layer of you being friends.”
“I don’t know if we are friends, though. We sometimes hang out, but that’s because he’s related to Ruby.”
“I think you have a narrow idea of friendship. Anyway, let’s say that he thought of you as a friend. If he thought there was something romantic between us, then that’s changed his perception of you. Before, he might have thought of you as a little sister.”
“Gee,” she says.
“But now that would have changed. Damn. I’m sounding halfway articulate, aren’t I?”
“You are.”
I stretch my arms and I look around at the landscape and realise we’ve already walked to the bridge. I suppose talking about boys and romance leads to faster walking.
“Remember what I said on Monday?” Eve says. “Well, now I have proof. Making people jealous yields tangible results.”
I think of yesterday. My desire for Henry simmers under everything else, but when he mentioned Alison, that desire bubbled to the surface, exploded, burned.
