Christ, I guess this was the curse of having friends who knew you. I groaned. “You really want to set me up with a girl, don’t you? That’s why you saw her at my place and bailed on dinner plans?”
She grinned. “Yeah, guilty as charged.”
I sighed pointedly. She wouldn’t hear it. It was for my own benefit anyway. “I appreciate you taking pity on me and helping out, but I’m not looking for a relationship.”
“I’m not taking pity. Haven’t I known you as being terminally single for years now without doing anything?”
“Jesus, why don’t you tell me how you really feel?”
“I’m in support of this because it makes you happy,” she said quietly. “You were really happy when you were close with Daniela. And then when it went away, I wanted to see you get that back, but now seeing how you are with Alyssa, it’s like night and day. I’ve never seen you like this with anyone.”
“Well, I mean…” Christ, it wasn’t like I could fight her. I hadn’t had a lot of dating experiences, so I’d never felt anything like what I did with Alyssa. Of course, I doubted I’d feellike it with anyone, butthatwas the crush talking. Probably. Hopefully.
“I’m pretty sure she likes you too,” she said quietly. “If you’re not already together, you should go for it. If you are… you can tell me.”
Well, no other way out of this now. I switched to signing, and I said, “I’m moving away.”
“What?” She blurted it out loud, louder than I think she realized, and I saw out of the corner of my eye as Alyssa and Daniela looked over at us. Abby sprawled out on the grass next to Alyssa, close to the fire, and I scared myself with how badly I wanted to wrench Alyssa away and keep her to myself. I signaled for Cat to lower her volume, and she took it as a personal offense. “What are you talking about? When? Where? What?”
I signaled harder for her to lower her volume, and I signed in small, frustrated gestures. “I think I’ve done all there is for me to do in this place.”
I could see the moment her heart shattered written out on her face, a desperately sad look in her eyes, still gleaming with—I don’t know, some hope maybe it was a mistake, that maybe this was just a big joke. “You mean, leaving Paxton Ridge, leaving Vermont, leaving us.”
“I never intended to live here forever,” I said, defensive now. “I just think it’s time for the next stage of my life.”
“This is because of me, isn’t it?” she said, still speaking out loud, her voice cracking. “It’s because of everything with Drew and because I couldn’t keep my stupid mouth shut—”
“Cat,” I said. “It’s not your fault.”
“Would you be doing this if we hadn’t had that falling out?”
I hesitated. Her eyes shimmered, and my stomach dropped. I hadn’t thought she… disliked me, I mean—I knew we were friends, but I’d never imagined it would be quite like this, that she’d be immediately tearing up just at the thought ofme leaving. “It’s not your fault it happened. It’s because of how people treated you.”
“It’schanging,” she said, her voice thick, as she gestured to the others. She really was losing volume control… people were looking now. Alyssa and Daniela both looked concerned, and I didn’t need either of them coming right now. “Tonight’s been great. We’ve all been hanging out, being friends… is that not enough?”
“I’ve been—it’s—” I fumbled for the signs. “I wantedyouto have your connections and your people again. I felt like this place doesn’t have anything left for me, but I know it means a lot to you—”
“So that’s why you’ve been talking to people again? Reaching out to Daniela again, getting close with Alyssa…”
“I didn’t expect anything to go the way it has with Alyssa.” I guess that was confessing to how I felt about her. Shit, what difference did it make now? “I just meant to go to a few events at the Birdhouse, talk to some people. Put myself in the line of fire. I figured it didn’t matter if people got mad at me, I was on my way out.”
“And you never told me?”
“I was—” I groaned, wiping my hand over my face. “I meant to tell you. Just… I figured you’d try to convince me not to.”
“Well, fuck me if I care about you and don’t want you to leave.”
“Cat—”
“No, it’s fine. Where are you moving to?” She pulled her knees up into her chest, her eyes explicitly on my hands and not my face. “Off somewhere fun? You’ll have to send postcards. Unless you just don’t want to talk to any of us anymore.”
“It’s not like that. I care about you a lot as a friend, and I just…”
“No, it’s fine. I’m a mess, it’s only natural everybody gets sick of my bullshit and goes to leave. I mean, listen to me right now. Talk about whiny entitlement.”
“Cat—”
“Where were you thinking? Somewhere close by? Somewhere we could visit?”
