Automatically I shake my head, and I hate that it’s my knee-jerk response. To deny love. To deny that someone could possibly love me. Even when I know, deep down in my heart, that they’re in love with me.
“We’ve always been this way. We’re like ivy, you know? We grew together—” Pulling my hands from hers, I gesture in the air, my fingers undulating and intertwining. “We’re so wrapped up in each other, I don’t know if we could ever unravel. If being back here has shown me anything, it’s that eight years apart hasn’t done anything but make us wish we hadn’t gone our separate ways.”
Laine leans back, the back of her head resting against the armrest. She stretches out her legs until she’s taken over the length of the couch. I inch my way farther into the cushions to give her more space.
“I feel like we’re settling in for a long winter’s nap.”
“I’m tired,” Laine admits. “But I’m more interested in hearing about this love triangle of yours.”
I scoff, but I know she’s right. “Love triangle sounds sordid. Like I’m hooking up with both of them. I don’t think that’s what this really is.”
Laine snorts. “Oh yes it is. And it’s even juicier than the soap operas your mom watched. It’s the friend element, you know?”
Suddenly my brain turns into Monet, painting the picture for me with skill and precision. I see the three of us, Brady and I with our dark hair and Finn, dirty-blonde and wild-looking.Beyond the pale!We’d chant what the old lady called us, because the day after my scorpion sting, Brady asked his mom what the saying meant, and we wore it like a badge.Outrageous and intolerable. Outside the limits of acceptable behavior.If we weren’t beyond the pale before that, we made it our mission to encompass the words. We raced our bikes down hills, jumped from the slanted roof of Brady’s house into the pool below, and walked barefoot on flaming hot concrete in the middle of summer. Looking back, our behavior probably doesn’t qualify as beyond the pale, but back then it felt that way, and I guess it doesn’t really matter if it was true, as long as we believed it to be.
“What are you going to do?” Laine’s face is worried, her eyes scrunching. “You have to choose.”
“I can’t.” I shake my head so adamantly that my hair falls in my face and tickles my nose.
“Maybe not right now. Maybe not tomorrow. But someday soon.”
“I can’t choose.”
“Which one of them are you in love with?”
Brady. Finn. Brady and Finn.
“Both. I love them both.”
“I know you love them both.” Laine places her soft, warm palm on my forearm. Her eyes hold pity, as though she’d never wish this decision on anybody. “But who are youinlove with?”
For this question, I have no answer. I want them both, I can’t imagine a day without either of them. Maybe I’m selfish, but the eventuality of not having one of them keeps me from choosing. Because what would happen to one, if I chose the other? I’d break our triangle. Our friendship has kept me afloat all these years.
“Do you think it’s possible for me to be in love with both?”
Laine tips her head up, then lowers it down slowly. “Yes. But I don’t think it’s fifty-fifty.”
I open my mouth to argue, but Laine stops me. “You might think it’s even. It’s clear you can’t stand the thought of hurting either one. But it’s not even. It can’t be. Maybe you don’t know who the scale is tipped toward, but I think your heart is well aware. And one day, maybe your heart will deliver that message to your brain. And hopefully it’s not too late either, because Brady and Finn are good men, and you know who like good men?”
I look at her blankly.
“All women. That’s who. All women like good men.”
I blow out a hard breath and gaze out the front window.
Maybe Laine’s wrong. Maybe Brady and Finn aren’t in love with me. Maybe one is and one isn’t.
Except I’m certain that’s not true. In my heart, I know they are both in love with me. They wouldn’t have come back here if they weren’t.
I need to talk to them, but how? How do I start a conversation like that? And when? Soon. But not tomorrow.
Tomorrow’s focus is the funeral.
17
Then
“We did it!”I squeal, finding Finn in the crowd of polyester gowns. I throw my arms around him, squeezing tightly. When I pull away, I frown at what I see.
