There. All covered up.
“At ten o’clock?” Iggy asked as I padded over to the bedroom, running my fingers through my hair as I followed him inside.
This room was clearly Iggy’s sanctuary. The rest of the cabin was Home Beautiful Magazine style, but this was different. Notworse, but different. Warmer and more intimate, full of things that yelledIggyloud and clear to anyone who knew him.
Like the collection of interesting rocks lined up along the windowsill. Iggy had always collected those. When we were little, he’d collected so many that his pants were always falling down on him because of how weighed down the pockets were.
“Reggie and boundaries aren’t the best of friends. Why are your blankets so heavy?” I asked as I lifted the corner, setting it down and then raising it again to make sure I wasn’t just imagining things.
“One of them’s weighted,” Iggy said, climbing in the other side.
“Why?”
“It’s soothing. Feels like a hug. Try it,” he finished nodding at me as he curled up. “I dunno what it’s like when you share it.”
“You’ve never shared it?” I asked, surprised. I knew he’d broken up with Liam, but there had to have been…someonebetween then and now, right?
Iggy shook his head. “You’re the first person to share this bed with me.” He smiled a tiny, triumphant smile as I wriggled to get comfortable, letting the heavy lavender-scented blankets settle on top of me. “Finished the cabin over the summer.”
He was right. The weight of the blankets seemed to replace the weight of the world. Just like a warm hug from someone who loved you.
“Well, you’re the first person I ever shared a bed with,” I said, watching him shuffle closer. “When we were kids.”
There was only an inch or so between us now, the two of us meeting in the middle of the twin mattress.
“I owe you an apology,” Iggy said.
“For what?”
“Last time I saw you. We fought. It… I… I didn’t mean what I said. I’ve wanted to tell you that for years.”
“Iggy, I don’t evenrememberwhat you said.”
All I remembered was that it’d been a stupid argument. If it hadn’t been the last time we ever saw each other, it would’ve just been the kind of short-lived fight friends have sometimes. We would’ve forgiven each other.
It’d been something I’d said about Liam not being good enough for him, and he’d barked some insult back at me and stormed off.
I’d left for college a few days later, and Iggy hadn’t even come out of the house to say goodbye.
Thathad hurt, but whatever he’d said was lost to me. It didn’t matter. I would’ve given anything to be friends again, and this felt like a second chance.
I didn’t want to screw this one up.
“Well, in case you do remember, I’m sorry,” Iggy said. “I was wrong. About a lot of things. You were right about Liam.”
“Didn’t give me the right to be a butthead about it,” I said, smiling wryly.
“I thought you didn’t remember what I said?”
“I don’t, genuinely.” I shifted under the covers, making myself comfortable. “But it was your favorite insult.”
“I haven’t said that inyears. You might be the last person I ever said it to.”
“I’m honored.” I said, chuckling. It was so good to be close to Iggy again.
Somewhere along the line, we’d ended up snuggling so close to one another that my forehead was pressed against Iggy’s now, like we’d done when we were kids sharing secrets under the blankets.
I missed him.
