This was Brandon’s idea of a fun outing, so Mateo is pretending to be all Bear Grylls to impress him. “Hold on, Mateo, I think you just stepped in deer poop,” Brandon says.
“Ew, fuck nature!” Mateo looks down horrified. He begins scraping the bottom of his baby-blue Adidas on a nearby tree trunk.
I slip my water bottle back into the side pocket of my backpack as we continue our uphill trek. A myriad of monarch butterflies have come out today, dancing on the breeze and playing hide-and-go-seek in the milkweed. I wish I could float through life like that.
Avery tries a new walking pattern that she thinks won’t loosen her laces but really just makes her look like a gazelle with a bum ankle. She catches up to Brandon as I fall in beside Mateo.
“This must be what it’s like to be onI’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!” he whispers. A real whisper. Not the usual stage whisper he uses when he doesn’t actually care. I love that Mateo projects himself into the person he wants to be. He sees fame and fortune (and perhaps dubious reality-show appearances) in his future, and I’ve always admired that ability to manifest confidence in the present.
“At least nobody’s going to be able to make a meme out of your deer-poop moment.”
“There’s no such thing as bad press, babe.”
I try to smile, but it comes off a little wobbly. I’ve missed this. Not only have I been avoiding Derick for days but I’ve also been tiptoeing around Mateo. As my best friend, I want his comfort, but as a receiver of one of my emails, I want to pretend he doesn’t exist after my big scene on the rooftop.
That’s stupid, I remind myself. Mateo will always be my friend before anything else. I can talk to him about anything,askhim anything. Which is why I finally let myself take a deep breath and say the words that have been on the tip of my tongue for a long time now. “Why didn’t you ask more about your email?”
Mateo glances over at me, unsurprised. It’s like he knew I’d been stewing over that. “I’m a drama king, babe, but I’m not a narcissist.” He flips his imaginary long hair in faux offense. “Besides, I know those feelings are in the past, and even if they existed in the present, I’d destroy you.”
“Destroy me?”
“Emotionally speaking,” he says. “Also, there were some”—he clears his throat for dramatic effect—“narrative inconsistencies wedged in there.”
“Care to enlighten me?”
He stops and squares our shoulders into one another, so I can’t dodge his eyes. “You pulled away from that kiss, Wren, in that basement of the Pride House. Nobody spilled their drink on you. Nobody cursed you out. You pulled away so hard and so fast, you spilled your own drink on yourself. I felt terrible for weeks that I’d misread the moment, but you seemed unfazed by it, so I just let it go. Little did I know you were harboring some fanfic version of the events in your mind and your email.”
Part of me knew this all along but wasn’t ready to confront it.
The first thought that came to me on July fifth was:You rewrote the stories. I thought those emails were a way to preserve the memories of what almost was, but instead I was retooling them to shirk the blame. Onto the other person. Onto the situation. Onto fate and the universe and the higher powers that be. I thought the Great Screenwriter in the Sky was getting a good laugh out of messing up every perfect moment, but instead, I was reacting in earnest to a gut instinct I haven’t yet sorted out.
The situation with Goldie should’ve showed me that.
“You did it again with Derick, didn’t you?”
Brandon peers back at us. We’re the only four on the trail, given that it’s ungodly early and a weekday, so he can hear everything Mateo is saying.
It’s weird thinking about it now. Every box on my kiss-before-the-credits checklist was marked. On paper, the Fourth of July had the winning cinematic formula, and yet the rolling camera captured a considerable misfire. I hope all that metaphorical footage gets left on the cutting room floor to be swept away and forgotten about.
I nod with the full weight of realization.
Some invisible security system I didn’t know I had was tripped when Derick leaned in to kiss me. I haven’t admitted this, even to myself, but now I know I keep my heart heavily guarded in a glass case. My body’s a whole damn museum.
“Hey,” Mateo says, squeezing my shoulders and setting us back on our path. “Everything’s gonna be okay. You know that, right?”
“Yeah,” I reassure him. “I do.” I’m just not sure when.
The trees break at the top of our trail. Dozens of buffalo graze in a lush, light-green field behind serious fencing. They’re tagged but happy, healthy, roaming in a place away from hunters. Some are lying and basking in the sun. Others are standing and munching. Mateo and Avery race over to begin their selfie spree.
I spy a bench on the opposite side of the road. My calves are killing me and my head is throbbing, so I go take a seat and look out over Willow Valley. My exposed sunburned shoulder blade presses into something cold. I jerk around to read it. It’s a small, silver plaque that reads:Donated by the Haverford family. I roll my eyes.
Of course. No matter how fast I run or how far I hike, I can’t get away from him.
Brandon approaches, running a tan rag over the top of his head with one hand while holding his hat in the other. “Can I join you?”
I scoot over.
The view is breathtaking. My hometown may be blink-and-you-miss-it small, but it’s still a conglomeration of gorgeous rolling hills and houses, cornfields and riding stables. I take out my phone to snap a picture. As I squat on the seat of the bench, I think like Derick would, worried about the right framing, how to tell a visual story within the composition.
