You don’t know what else to say. You don’t know if you forgive him. You don’t know how you feel about him or Tyler.
Except you do. You’re angry.
“You didn’t even give me a chance,” you say. “Neither of you did. You didn’t let me try to fix it or make it up to anyone. We were best friends for years, and you acted like it meant nothing. Like I was toxic because of one mistake. And yeah, it was a bad one. Yeah, I messed up. But I didn’t deserve to be cut out like that. With no way back. That wasn’t cool. That wasn’t fair.”
Cooper’s eyes get bigger and wider as you go. You feel like a helium balloon that sprang a leak, your voice getting higher and higher, your breath getting thinner and thinner, until finally you run out of words and fall silent.
You think he’s going to turn around and ditch you again.
Instead he looks down at his Jordans. His school ones, because he wouldn’t risk scuffing his nice ones.
“You’re right,” he mutters. “You’re right. We messed up, too. You didn’t deserve that.”
You wait for it to feel better. For his admission to unlock something inside to make the past six months make sense. But it doesn’t.
It still hurts.
“I’m sorry, Dayton,” he says, looking back up. “I want to try to make it up. Tyler does, too. You think we can try again?”
He holds out his fist for you to bump.
A peace offering.
A chance to fix things.
You stare at it, but you don’t move.
You’re not sure if you’re ready to bump it back or not.
You still haven’t heard from Brody, so you ask your dad if he can give you a ride over to check on him.
“I can’t just drop everything to be your driver,” he says. “Ask your brother.”
You don’t want to. Marshall doesn’t like Brody. But to your surprise, he agrees without complaint.
“You want me to wait for you?” he asks when you pull up outside Brody’s house.
You don’t know. You don’t know if Brody will let you in. Or even talk to you. You stare out the window at his house. It’s a normal color for a house, unlike the bright peachy orange of your own. Apparently it was like that when your family moved in—you were a baby back then—and your mom liked how it gave the house character, so it’s still that weird color now.
Brody’s house is gray-green, and all the neighbors more or less match: gray-blue, gray-red, gray-gray, even a gray-purple on the corner.
Maybe your mom had a little bit of a point.
You grab the door handle. “Maybe wait at the end of the block? I’ll let you know?”
Marshall bites his lip and nods. Before you get out, he stops you.
“Hey.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m proud of you, you know.”
You roll your eyes, but Marshall keeps looking at you.
“I’m serious.”
Warmth settles in your stomach. “Thanks.”
