For the next two years, Trey was a constant in my life, a source of suffering and happiness. I suffered when I saw him go out with other girls, and I was happy when he noticed me, even if he only saw me as his best friend’s little sister.
The summer I turned fourteen, the four of them went to Vancouver to college.
I thought my feelings would fade with the distance, but they didn’t. I was still in love with him, in secret, for the next four years, and all the while I heard rumors about him going from girl to girl, from bed to bed, and I even saw him do it myself when he’d come back to visit or for the holidays. His charm was a weapon, and he used it without caring about whose heart he broke, whose life he destroyed. Even then, as I witnessed who he really was, I was incapable of hating him, of truly hating him.
Deep down, I wanted to be the girl he disappeared with every night instead of being the one who watched him disappear.
Then a day came when things changed. And I really did end up hating him.
“Where’s my coffee?” Frances asked.
“What?”
I was so caught up in my own thoughts that I didn’t realize I was back in the bookstore.
“I thought you were going to get me a coffee.”
“I was! But, like, there were so many people out, and it was hot. And it’s lunchtime. A coffee would have taken away our appetite, and I was thinking we could go to Schwartz’s for one of those delicious sandwiches. What do you say?”
“It’s only eleven,” she told me with suspicion.
I hung my bag on the coatrack by the window and smiled.
“We could push lunchtime back an hour. Let’s go crazy!” I exclaimed.
She laughed, and that sound made me feel better.
The bell chimed as the door opened, and when I turned around, there was Trey with a paper bag in his hand. The scent of coffee filled the room.
“You left this behind.”
I was so surprised he’d followed me that I didn’t know what to say. Trey looked at me, and I looked at him.
Frances cleared her throat and emerged from behind the counter with her brows knit. She smiled at Trey—not so much at me.Traitor, I thought, but I couldn’t reproach her because I’d never told her about us. Not her, not anyone else.
“Hello. I’ll take that. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” he replied.
“We’ve met before, haven’t we? I think I recognize you.”
“Yeah, I used to come here with Hoyt. But that was a long time ago. When we were kids.”
“Yeah, I remember you now. Your name’s Trey. You were Hoyt’s best friend.”
“I still am, I think,” he replied timidly.
Frances nodded, smiled, and glanced over at me. “Sophia liked you. She used to always say,See that boy? One day he’ll be proud of who he is and that scowl will disappear from his face. That handsome little face.”
“Seriously? Why would she say that?”
“Son, have you looked in the mirror?”
Trey tried not to smile, at least not too openly, and I found that disarming. He was letting down his guard, and that helped me pull myself together.
“I meant the part about being proud of who I was.”
“Who knows? Sophia saw things in people most of us overlook. Do you feel proud of who you are?”
