Addingto the mess? The fact Wesley lives three hours away. And, oh yeah,there’s the minor detail of his maybe-girlfriend. Seeing Wesleyagain has been incredible, but I can’t help feeling as if this walkdown memory lane is littered with emotional grenades andI’mthe one who’s goingto end up hurt.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
OnFriday morning, I get sucked into work and it eats up most of myday. I was initially irritated, considering I was supposed to havethe week off, but one of my real estate company’s biggest clientsspecifically wantedmeto work on a time-sensitive—and very lucrative—deal. Let’sjust say it was an offer I would have been a fool to refuse,whether I was on holiday or not.
When I arrive homeFriday evening, Stella is on a video chat with a few of her onlinefriends. I wave to her and head down the hall to my room, but shecalls me back.
“Someguy named Elliot dropped this off,” she says, brandishing a purplejewel case. It takes me a minute to put the pieces together; I wasin such a daze yesterday afternoon after Wesley left my parents’place, I’d set the CD down somewhere and completely forgotten aboutit. I wonder if personal deliveries are usually part of Elliot’sjob description.
I thank Stella asI take the CD, and tell her I’ll be in my room. After a quickshower, I don my pajamas, despite the relatively early hour, andclimb into bed with my Discman. Even though Wesley told me to readthe CD insert right away, I do what I did the other night: set thecase aside, put my earbuds in, and hit play.
The first threesongs surprise me: “I Try” by Macy Gray, “With or Without You” byU2, and “Nothing Compares 2 U” by Sinéad O’Connor. They’re allsongs I like, but I can’t attach a special significance to themrelated to Wesley.
“Always” by Bon Jovi is next, and it has me sitting upstraighter in bed. The next several songs have my mind spinninglike a Tilt-a-Whirl. I grab the CD case and scan the list of songs.Other than the first three songs, with their themes of longing andtortured feelings, the rest are undeniably love songs: “Truly MadlyDeeply” by Savage Garden, “I Love You Always Forever” by DonnaLewis, “She’s the One” by Robbie Williams, “Inside Out” by BryanAdams, and on and on.
When the finalsong ends, my heart is racing. There’s no real reason for it; I’mjust sitting here in bed. I’ve barely moved a muscle in the lasthour. My mind is still doing mental gymnastics, trying torationalize Wesley’s song choices. It could be that they weremostly popular songs when we were growing up; that was the theme ofthe first CD he gave me, after all. It was full of Spice Girls,Savage Garden, S Club 7, TLC, Aqua, a variety of boy bands, andother singers I’d been obsessed with as a preteen andteen.
With shakinghands, I finally pry the insert out of the CD case and readWesley’s note.
To myButtercup on her thirty-fifth birthday.
Icould make you a million CDs. Songs we listened to and lovedgrowing up, songs that remind me of you, songs I think you’d like.It was nearly impossible to narrow it down to twenty-two, and Ifeel like I didn’t begin to do you justice. To do us justice. Buthere are twenty-two songs to celebrate thirty-five years of one ofmy favorite people on this big blue and green marble. Thirty-fiveyears of laughter and tears, thirty-five years of ups and downs.Thirty-five years of loving you, Evelyn Simone Hathaway.
All mylove, always,
Wesleyxoxo
I’m reading it forthe third time when there’s a knock on my bedroom door. I panic,not wanting Stella to see me like this. I snatch a tissue from mybedside table and swipe at my face, but there’s no use. I’m ateary, snotty mess.
“Comein,” I croak.
The door opens andStella steps inside, her expression bemused when she sees me inbed. “I was worried you were sick and had gone to bed ear—” Hereyes widen when she notices my futile attempt to stop the flow oftears. “What’s the matter? Are you okay?”
“Ithink your brother is in love with me?” The words come out squeakyand wobbly. In the next second, I’m laughing and sobbing at thesame time, only vaguely aware of Stella dashing across the room tomy bed. “Stella, I think your brother is in love withme.”
When she doesn’tspeak, I blink the tears from my eyes so I can study herexpression. “Why don’t you seem surprised? Saysomething!”
“I…Idon’t…I can’t…” She groans, fisting her hands in my comforter untilher knuckles turn white. “I promised him I wouldn’t sayanything.”
“Doesthis have anything to do with why you two were arguing onThanksgiving?”
She nods, her lipspressed tightly together. I squirm on the bed, impatient for anexplanation. Finally, she sighs. “You need to talk to Wesley.” Istart to protest, but she holds up a hand to cut me off. “This issomething he needs to tell you himself, Evie. I’m sorry. Pleaseunderstand.”
Herbeseeching tone is the only thing stopping me from bombarding herwith questions. I always told the McGrath siblings not to put me inthe middle, so it would be unfair to put Stella in the middle now.Even though I really,reallywant to.
She must sense mycapitulation because she picks up my phone from the nightstand andhands it to me. My heart is still pounding out an erratic beat,reverberating through my pulse points. With a shaky finger, I hitWesley’s number and listen to it ring. And ring. When it goes tovoicemail, I hang up and try again with the sameresults.
Withouta word, Stella slides her phone from her pocket and calls Wesleyherself. Unlike me, she leaves a message when she reaches hisvoicemail. “Wesley James McGrath, stop ignoring my calls and texts.Call me back.Now.”
Her firm toneshocks me so much, it takes a few beats for me to realize what shesaid: ‘stop ignoring my calls and texts’. “When was the last timeyou spoke to him?”
She sighs. “Lastnight.”
We stare at eachother in silence for a long moment. I expect she’s waiting for meto ask more questions. When I don’t, she waves a hand toward theDiscman in my lap. “Can I listen to the CD? Is it weird that I wantto live vicariously and try to forget my own love life is adisaster?”
I huff out a laughas I peel back the sheets and pat the bed in invitation. Stellacrawls in next to me, inching in close so our sides are pressedtogether from shoulder to hip. I hand her one of the earbuds, alongwith the insert from the CD.
I wouldn’tnormally share something so private, but Wesley knows how closeStella and I are, and that we’re currently living together. I’msure he knew it was inevitable that one or all of our friends wouldsee the message he wrote.
