Three minutes in,my heartbeat’s finally returned to normal. I’d feel like an idiot, but I’m too relieved, all of this still a little alien to me. I can’t shake the feeling that most people got this out of the way as teenagers and would understand what they’re doing by now, not almost fucking it up in a high school hallway.
At seven minutes, it occurs to me that we could have also done this in my car, which is parked outside. I’m slumped against the lockers in the spot she abandoned, and it’s kind of uncomfortable.
At nine or so, I’m drawing up a mental list of places we could move together that aren’t Sprucevale. Where Beth will never corner her in a restroom and Matt will never swing by my house and I’ll never get accosted in a grocery store for being offensively single.
At twelve, I start to worry that shedidget arrested for trespassing or something and maybe I should go try to explain the situation, or at least also get arrested in solidarity. Or something.
At about twelve and a half—but who’s counting—she comes around the corner, shoes squeaking a little on the linoleum, and stops.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey,” I say, looking up. Her eyes are still a little red-rimmed and puffy, and the lighting in here isn’t doing anyone any favors, but my mouth still goes dry and my heart feels like it trips over something. “Feel better?”
“Kinda,” she says, comes over, and slides down the lockers next to me. “Sorry for getting into an argument with your dad and telling him he was going to die alone. And for getting mad that you didn’t tell me you weren’t talking any more. And for being the reason you’re not talking, and for being a being a mess and crashing into your life like that cartoon of the Kool-Aid Man—”
“I like Kool-Aid,” I interrupt, and what I mean ismost of that’s not true and I don’t mind the restand what I mean iseverything is brighter when you’re herebut it’s not what comes out of my mouth.
Andi, for her part, blinks at me for several seconds.
“No, you don’t,” she finally says, and I put a hand on her thigh.
“No,” I admit. “But I like you.”
Andi slides her hand under mine and tangles our fingers together.
“I like you too,” she says. “And I’m sorry I made you think I was breaking up with you. I really didn’t mean to.”
“Yeah. I think that one’s on me,” I say, and look down at our joined hands, at the way the pads of my fingers fit between her knuckles, the bones right below the surface. It’s incredible, how delicate humans are, how easy they are to break. I slide my thumb over her skin and it feels like a small miracle, Andi here with me, putting her complicated, breakable hand in mine like it belongs there. “And you’re probably right that he’s going to die alone.”
“Doesn’t mean I should have said it.”
“Well.”
“He’s still your dad,” she says, tapping her index finger against my knuckle.
“He’s my father.”
Andi raises an eyebrow at me, but leaves that thread of conversation alone.
“When did they…” she gestures with her other hand. “Cut you off?”
I snort becausecut me offsounds like I’m a rich kid whose parents stopped making the payments on his yacht.
“About two weeks ago,” I say. Her hand tightens, but she watches me like she’s waiting. “Not long after the matchmaking proposals started rolling in. I asked them to stop trying to set me up with someone else and they… declined.”
“I told you I don’t care,” she says, and there’s a note of panic in her voice, her fingers squeezing mine. “I’m not worried, it’s not like I think it’s going to work—”
“I care.”
“Oh.”
I settle my head against the lockers and they make a softclangof metal on metal and I try to find some words for why I hated it so much.
“They act like you don’t matter to me. Like you’re inconsequential and unimportant and—like I might not want you just because they toss some other girl in front of me. But I don’t wantsomeone. I’ve never wantedsomeone. I wantyou.”
Andi thunks her forehead against my shoulder, so I kiss the top of her head.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
