Derick and I orbited in the same social circle in high school when I wasn’t working. I skipped most of the house parties for Wiley’s shifts, but daytime trips to the Jersey Shore or afternoon trips to the Willow Valley Mall usually included a cast of nine, with Derick playing the male lead and me playing the mousy wallflower.
Somehow, we always ended up walking just behind the pack, making inside jokes and stealing away for private scavenger hunt games of “who can find the weirdest object.” A purse shaped like a banana. A phone case with Grandma’s Got It Going On above a photoshopped picture of Betty White in a bikini. One time, I even slapped down seven quarters for a water-gun game just to win a stuffed pug the size of a beach umbrella. I won that round. We christened him Mega Pug, stuffed him into the trunk of Derick’s shiny two-seater, and wrote up a fake contract for joint custody.
I whisk back to reality when Mateo waves a hand in front of my face.
“It’s the same guy,” I admit, experiencing a series of heart shocks. The same high-voltage ones that hit me when I saw Derick’s name for the first time in my inbox.
Without thinking, I send Derick a small, pathetic wave. He begins to stand, but his father, charting the trajectory of heated eye contact, whispers something acidic that forces Derick back down. Sheepish. The look that follows has half-formed apology written all over it.
The edge of the white linen tablecloth gets balled up in my frustrated fist, nearly sending the full drinks sliding into my lap.
Maybe this is my superpower: electromagnetism. Except instead of supercharged metallic objects, I attract distressing, emotional situations at every turn.
“I sent him a confessional email too.” I let that hang in the air.
“There were other emails?” Avery asks a little too loudly. Our parents’ heads snap in our direction. We smile our innocent, still-naive-enough smiles, so they return to their discussion about tax returns or hot-water heaters or the right brand of kombucha or whatever.
“There were four total. They were my almost-kiss emails. One for each boy I almost had my first with and then, just, didn’t.” I sip my wine to steel myself. “Mateo and Derick and then Cole, who was president of Film Club when I was a high school freshman, and Alfie, my eighth-grade summer-camp crush. Cole’s failed to send, Alfie’s is in limbo somewhere, and, well, you know the rest.” My tale of woe feels unreal. I’m glad I’m sharing this burden now though; baring it alone would break me.
“Cole? Really? He was a dick,” Avery says.
“He was nice to me.”
“Because you worshipped the ground he walked on.” She grabs another piece of bread. I wish I could refute the claim, but she’s right. Freshman Me was enamored with his knowledge of classic cinema and his art house tastes. He was a beanie-wearing, skateboarding marvel. No wonder I organized all the room reservations, booked all the screenings, and took down all the meeting minutes without hesitation.
“Don’t throw stones, babe. Who among us has not been crushed by a crush on a fuckboy before?” Mateo gives Avery a wicked look, rich with backstory, before turning back to me. “Anyway, what did Derick say in response to the email?”
I give them the SparkNotes version before adding, “I thought part of our friendship, back in the day, was because we always kind of knew the other was…”
“Baptized in a bathhouse of homosexuality?” Mateo asks.
“Where do you come up with these things?” Avery scrunches her nose at him.
“I like to think it’s divine intervention.” He does the sign of the cross and then bows his head like the former cherubic altar boy he is.
I crack a laugh. Thank God his stage whisper doesn’t travel down the table. The sound of clinking forks covers it up as the platter of fried calamari gets set down. Squid wouldn’t sit well with me right now. Rejection and mortification are building a home and garden in my stomach, a new pair of partying permanent residents I’d aggressively like to evict.
Avery rolls her eyes, taking a big glug from her copper Moscow mule mug. I take her cue and allow the bubbles in my sparkling rosé to imbue me with a false sense of lightness.
Across the way, Mr. Haverford rises and heads toward the restrooms. Derick’s eyes return to our table in a series of darting glances. The conversation between the rest of his family continues around him, but he doesn’t say a word.
Ignore him.
“Maybe I can work at Rosevale for the summer. The film department is always looking for people to digitize the archives,” I say, trying to change the subject.
“You can’t be for real,” Mateo says. I’m a weeping willow bent under his snarky side-eye.
“What am I supposed to do right now?”
He pauses for a second, gears whirring. “Own up to it. Tell him he’s an ass for ghosting you. See what happens. Let life be life.” It’s a repetition of his birthday bathroom advice. I should get that printed on a shot glass for him as a Christmas gift. “Who knows what will happen from there? After all, some of the best apologies end with a kiss.”
Mateo’s right, yet an apology isn’t theBack to the FutureDeLorean he seems to think it is. It won’t allow us to travel through time and space to fix the lost and broken trust. Would I even want to do that anyway? Derick said in his message he never thought of me like that.
Though, I guess before there were feelings or flirtation, there was friendship. True and strong. If I’m going to work with him all summer, I need some semblance of closure on that.
With his dad safely out of sight, I text Derick on impulse:
Meet me in the gazebo past the veranda
