I take a breath, wiping my sweating palms on my jeans. “Weird?”
“Yeah, we were both so drunk I almost feel like I took advantage of you or something.”
“You didn’t take advantage of me. I wanted the same thing,” I say quickly, not wanting him to spend another fraction of a second thinking I didn’t want this. That I didn’t wanthim.
He nods before saying, “I think about it a lot.”
My heart is beating so fast, it feels like it might leap out of my chest. “I do too,” I admit, albeit a little too enthusiastically. Suddenly his next words seem like the most important ones I’ll ever hear and all I can do is take in a breath, one almost too fragile to hold.
“And that’s why I think it can’t happen again,” he says. “We’re better as friends, and I just don’t want that to go away.”
I blink, as the feeling of electric anticipation turns into the sharp sting of loss, even though nothing tangible was taken from me. We are just as we once were. We are friends.
“Okay, yeah,” I say, because I don’t know what else to say. I could tell him what I really want to say. I could tell him that I think about him all the time. Even before what we did last summer. That all the alcohol and all the other guys are just a distraction. But instead, I lie. “I agree.”
Friends. I can do the friend thing; we’ve been doing the friend thing. So why does it hurt so bad to hear him say it?
He clears his throat. “I’m sorry about your ex. Annica told us what happened.”
“It’s fine, I’m fine,” I say, a little too clipped. I don’t want to talk about Jonah, not with Wes. I stand from the bed. “If that’s all you wanted to talk about...” I trail off.
“Are you... coming to the bars?” he asks, standing up with me.
“No, I think just home actually. I’m trying this new thing this year where I’m not a total disappointment.” But the real reason is that I can’t go out after this conversation and pretend to be happy. I can’t drink and dance knowing I’m now the victim of unrequited feelings.
I tuck a loose strand of blond behind my ear. He tracks the movement. He told me this summer that he loves my hair, especially when it’s down and long like it is now; he said it drives him crazy. He said that. Friends don’t say those things to other friends.
His eyes meet mine again as his lips turn down. “You know, just because you made a few bad decisions doesn’t make you a bad person.”
I feel my eyebrows rise slightly. He pities me. Not only does he not want me, but he feels bad for me. And all I feel is embarrassment.
“Thanks, Wes, I’ll see you,” I say, leaving his room before this conversation can get any worse.
I take out my journal when I get back to my apartment and flip to the last page. The one with Wesley’s name, and nothing else. I didn’t see or speak to him for the remainder of the summer, but the night after we slept together, I opened my journal and I wrote down his name. I didn’t have anything else to add because I didn’t feel brokenhearted over what happened, and I certainly didn’t want him to be dead to me. I still don’t. I sit with the pencil poised to write, but I pull it away. I consider ripping out the page entirely, but it’s only the beginning of the year.
There’s still plenty of time for him to break my heart.
Chapter 3
The sound of platform boots stomping around the apartment wakes me up the following morning.
My eyes are barely open when my phone begins to buzz with an incoming call from Adrienne. The click of her shoes comes to the doorway of my room and the buzzing ceases. “Oh! You’re here,” Adrienne says. “I thought you’d be out.”
“No, I’m here.” I start to sit up, yawning. I check my phone, thinking Wes would have texted or called last night. I half hoped there would be a long message waiting for me this morning about how he didn’t mean what he said. But there is nothing.
Adrienne already has a full face of makeup on her olive-toned skin. Her long brown hair falls in waves over her black leather coat. “Can you be ready in twenty?” she asks, before going into her room.
“For what?” I call out after her.
She pops her head back into my room. “Jonah’s calling hours. They’re today. I told our moms I’d drive us both back to Cedar Falls. I have to grab some things from home anyway.”
“Oh.” I rub my eyes. “I didn’t know you were going to that.”
“He was my friend too.” She frowns, then disappears from my room again.
“So tell me about your summer!” Adrienne says as we get on the highway westbound to our hometown. It’s an hour drive to Cedar Falls.
“Oh, well there’s not much to tell. My license was suspended, as you know—”
