She snorts, a sound that’s more bitter than amused. “Hah. Wouldn’t that just be it. The universe finally deciding to collect on twenty-five years of mutual destruction.”
Sitting here now, with the storm raging outside and nowhere to go and nothing to do but wait, it feels like now or never. Either I tell her the truth or I carry it around forever.
“Speaking of shitty things we’ve done to each other,” I say, and the words feel heavy leaving my mouth. “I have to apologize to you about something.”
She looks up at me, confusion flickering across her face, and for a moment I’m struck by her. Those lips I’ve kissed, that have also screamed at me in hallways and parking lots and across gym floors. That face I’ve hated in equal measure to wanting her, sometimes in the same breath. All these years, all this fucking history between us. How differently it might have gone if Danny Miller had never opened his damn mouth, and if I hadn’t been stupid enough to believe him.
She tilts her head, studying me like she’s trying to figure out the angle. “Apologize for what, specifically? We have a pretty long list to choose from. You might need to narrow it down.”
I take a sip of the mezcal, letting the smoke and heat settle in my chest, buying myself another few seconds. “I was at a party back home in Dark River a few weeks ago and ran into Margo Miller. Danny Miller’s little sister. Do you remember him?”
She squints, thinking, clearly not expecting this particular trip down memory lane. “Oh yeah, he was on your boxing team or whatever. Thought he was god’s gift to Dark River athletics.” She shakes her head. “Damn, I haven’t thought about him in years”
“Me neither,” I say, though I sure as hell have been thinking about him lately. “Margo told me that Danny lied to me back in high school. When he said you were planning to sabotage my scholarship application, I believed him because I thought he was being a friend, but he made the whole thing up because he had a thing for you and wanted me out of the picture.”
She watches me with an unreadable expression, not moving an inch, and the silence stretches between us until I can hear my own heartbeat over the rain.
“I’m sorry, Brooke.” The words feel inadequate, too small for years of damage, but they’re all I have. “About the scholarship and you losing out on all that money and opportunity because of me, instead of a fair fight between us like it should have been. You tried to tell me that you hadn’t done anything, but I was so filled with righteous fucking anger that I couldn’t hear it. I thought you’d betrayed me, and I was too stubborn and too proud to ever consider that I might be wrong.”
She stares at me for a long moment. I brace myself for the explosion, for nearly two decades of fury to come pouring out like a dam breaking, for her to tell me exactly where I can shove my apology in vivid, detailed terms.
Instead, she starts laughing.
Softly at first, just a huff of air that could almost be disbelief. Then harder, her shoulders shaking, until actual tears are streaming down her face and she’s gripping the edge of the table like she might fall off her chair. The guys at the bar glance over with curious expressions.
“Uh.” I shift in my seat, completely at a loss. “Are you alright?”
She waves me off, gasping for air, completely unable to speak.
I expected anger. I expected vindication. I expected maybe a drink thrown in my face and a detailed list of all the waysI’ve ruined her life, delivered at top volume with footnotes and citations. I did not expect... this. I have no fucking idea what to do with this.
“I’m sorry,” she finally manages, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m sorry, it’s not funny. It’s really not funny. It’s actually deeply fucked up when you think about it.” She takes a shaky breath. “But also it’s genuinely the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life.”
“It is pretty absurd,” I admit.
“Danny Miller.” She’s still laughing, softer now, shaking her head like she can’t quite believe what she’s hearing. “Danny Miller with the terrible frosted tips and the Limp Bizkit t-shirts and the chain wallet. That Danny Miller is the reason we’ve spent twenty-five years trying to destroy each other?”
“The very same.”
“Oh my god.” She presses her hands to her face, then drops them and looks at me with something caught between wonder and horror. “He used to do that thing where he’d flex in the hallway mirrors when he thought no one was looking. I caught him kissing his own bicep once. I thought I was hallucinating.”
“He told me his spirit animal was a wolf,” I say, and now I’m laughing too, the absurdity of it finally hitting me. “Unironically.”
“Stop.” She’s doubled over again, wheezing. “Stop, I can’t breathe.”
“He also had a bumper sticker on his car that said ‘No Fear’ and another one that said ‘Bad Boy.’”
“Dominic, I swear, if you don’t stop.” She wipes her eyes again, her mascara smudged now, but she doesn’t seem to care. “We really went at each other, didn’t we? All those years and energy. All that hatred. And it was all based on a lie some teenage boy told because he thought it would give him a shot with me.”
“A lie I believed without question,” I say, and the laughter fades a little. “Because I wanted to believe it. Because it was easier to be angry at you than to deal with... whatever else I was feeling.”
The words hang in the air between us.
The laughter fades slowly, leaving us both staring at each other across the scarred table. The rain is still hammering against the windows, the soccer match still droning on the TV, but the air between us feels different now. Lighter, maybe. Or just unfamiliar.
Brooke takes a sip of her mezcal and sets the glass down carefully. “Well, while we’re confessing things.” She traces the rim of her glass with one finger, not quite meeting my eyes. “I talked to Miles Webb last week.”
CHAPTER 22
