His voice was low. “What happened to us? What did I do? Why did you run?”
The pain in his voice nearly buckled her knees. She shook her head, fighting back the tears she could feel behind her eyes. “It doesn’t matter.”
“What do you mean, it doesn’t matter? This is theonlything that matters.”
She stayed quiet, studying his face as he stared at her earnestly. His face was awash with desperation.
“Kelsi, please,” he begged her, voice cracking on the words. Dylan crouched down slightly so they were eye to eye.
She was irrationally enraged by his pain. How dare he act like he was the broken one? “You broke my heart!” she screamed at him. It felt good to finally say that to him after all these years. “You broke my heart, and then you left. You left, without saying anything. Just like my dad did.”
He sucked in a breath and took a step back, running a hand through his hair aggressively until it stood on its ends. “What do you mean? How?Youkissedme, and the next day you were gone, ignoring my calls, my texts, having your mom turn me away when I came over. You brokemyheart. How did I break yours?”
Kelsi closed her eyes, and she was right back at the night everything changed—the incident.
The night before graduation, everyone was celebrating at their favorite local dive bar. They had finished exams and gotten their final grades back. All that was left was the graduation ceremony the following day and the bar exam two months later. This would be their final hurrah before burying their heads in review books for the next sixty or so days.
Fueled by Jell-O shots, courtesy of student government, Kelsi felt braver than normal, and when Dylan pulled her outside of the bar to get some fresh air, she was tired of waiting for him to make the first move. She opened her mouth to say something, she didn’t even know what, but before she could speak, the two of them were interrupted by the bar’s door opening behind them and two of their classmates tumbling out, fully entangled with each other.
Dylan laughed as the pair stumbled toward an idling ride share, barely separating enough to get into the back seat. He turned to face her as the car drove away. “Well, I didn’t see that coming.” His eyes twinkled, and before she could think better ofit, she raised herself up on her tiptoes and kissed him. It was a soft, barely-there whisper of a kiss, but she felt it down to her bones. When he remained still beneath her touch, she pulled back and steeled herself before opening her eyes and looking at him.
He stared down at her with surprise, and what she thought was a little bit of awe, in his face. Although, that could definitely be the Jell-O shots talking.
“I didn’t see that coming, either.” He smiled slowly at her, raising his hand to cup her face.
“I love you,” she blurted.
His face froze in shock.
They were once again interrupted by the bar door opening behind them. This time Dylan’s roommate, Grady, stumbled out, looking a sickly green before he stumbled toward the bushes and puked into them, moaning.
Dylan rushed over to Grady, half supporting his friend’s body as he continued to heave into the bush. He looked at her, grimacing over his shoulder at the disgusting sounds coming from Grady. “I better get him home, but can we talk tomorrow? Meet me in the library after the ceremony?”
She smiled, feeling like she was floating, high on kissing him and finally confessing her feelings. “Of course.”
Now, standing in his hotel room years later, she shook the memory of that night out of her mind and scoffed. “You obviously don’t even remember what happened after I kissed you.”
“What do you mean? What else happened? Grady was puking in the bushes outside the bar, I had to leave to take him home,you said we would talk the next day at graduation, but you left before I could find you.”
“I found you at graduation,” she said quietly, turning her back to him so she no longer had to look at the hurt and confusion on his face. She was trying to stay angry at him, but it made her heart ache.
He shook his head. “No, you didn’t. I didn’t see you at graduation.”
Her anger quickly returned. “No, of course you wouldn’t have. Not with your tongue down Brittany’s throat.”
When she’d gone to find him that day, she’d been so nervous but hopeful. She thought that maybe they would fall into each other’s arms, that their friendship might morph into something more, but she walked into the library and saw Dylan with his lips locked on his on-again, off-again girlfriend. Her heart had shattered into a million tiny pieces, and she’d walked numbly back out of the building to where their moms waited. She told them she wasn’t feeling well, and her mom took her home. She’d stayed in her bed for a week, not caring to get up to shower or eat. Her mom had never been so worried. She kept asking if she wanted to see Dylan and all Kelsi had been able to tell her was that she didn’t want to see him, not then or ever again. His calls and texts had poured in and gone ignored.
She knew every time he showed up at her house, too. Her bedroom overlooked the driveway, and when his truck pulled into the drive she would listen as her mom’s conversations with him floated up to her through the bedroom window. She kept it cracked so she could hear his voice.
She’d been so stupid to let herself get caught up in his orbit, but she was young, and he was her best friend. It was inevitable.
He stilled completely. “You saw that?”
She whirled around to face him fully. “Yes, I saw. I bet you didn’t plan on that. Whatwasyour plan? Go back to your ex and tell me later that we were better off as ‘just friends’?” She curled her fingers in sarcastic air quotes. “I left before you had to bother. Message received, loud and clear.”
He looked stricken.
Kelsi stared at him for a moment, waiting to see if he had anything to say in response, but he stayed silent. Her shoulders drooped, and she turned toward the door again. She begged her tears to stay behind her eyes until she could get to the comforting privacy of her car. Or, better yet, to Abby’s place, where she’d have her best friend, ice cream, and a bottle of wine.
