Arden nodded her agreement. “Let’s stick with the people at this table. IRL.”
I took this as my cue to launch into the remarks I’d painstakingly prepared. “Okay, first I want to apologize to all of you. Not just for ruining Winter Formal, although I also feel really bad about that.” I looked at each of them in turn. “I’m so sorry. You’re the best friends I’ve ever had, and I feel terrible that I repaid you by being underhanded. And I betrayed you most of all.” I turned to Terry.
She stiffened. “Why me?”
“Because I talked you out of dating Alex, when it turns out he’s actually a nice person.” A better woman might have enumerated his sterling qualities, but even that much of a concession made me want to roll around on the floor gnashing my teeth. There was a difference between selflessness and masochism.
“That’s okay,” Terry said. “I didn’t want to go out with him anyway.”
My first reaction—profound relief—was followed by a paradoxical urge to argue. “Why not?”
“I’m just not interested.” She shrugged. “In any of them. I never was.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Lydia asked Terry.
“I was going along with the crowd, since you guys were into it.”
Arden gasped. “This is like that story about the girl who cut off all her hair but then the guy sold his watch and they had nothing for Christmas. Not that we’re talking about books right now.” She mimed zipping her lips. “New rule. From now on, everyone has to be straight up about what they want, or don’t want. Like with me and Lydia, and how I secretly felt guilty that I had a boyfriend and she didn’t, because I kept thinking it would bother me if it was the other way around.”
“It did bother me,” Lydia admitted. “Which made me feel stupid. But I felt even worse when it seemed like you were totally obsessed with me being single, like it was a massive head wound.”
Terry nodded. “And the boyfriend would be like stapling your scalp, so you don’t bleed out.”
“That is one hundred percent not how I thought of it,” Arden assured us.
Lydia shrugged. “I know thatnow.”
“Because we got it all out in the open,” Arden concluded, with the same inflection typically given to the phraseand they all lived happily ever after.
“And—you and Miles?” I crossed my fingers for another miraculous reconciliation.
“He sent me an email.” Arden lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know what will happen. I’m not sure I like the way he made me feel like a burden. I want someone who wants me.”
“And who you want,” I said, easing into my next point. “Whoever that might be. Because it’s okay to want things thataren’tthe things you think people want you to want.”
Lydia squinted at me. “You lost me there.”
“Sometimes people want someone ... ” I searched for a tactful way to phrase it, “unexpected.”
“Like you and Alex?” Arden suggested. “Because I didnotsee that one coming.”
I winced. Naturally I knew he was beyond my reach, but did we have put it out there so baldly?
“I pictured you with someone way smarter,” she continued, and now I felt bad for Alex. People probably underestimated him all the time because of his looks. Or maybe that was just me.
“Actually, I was talking about Terry,” I said, demonstrating my newfound commitment to full disclosure. “And I hope I speak for everyone here when I promise that if she ever wanted to tell us about feelings she might have for a certain someone, we would fully understand. Even if it was more or less hopeless, at least for now.”
Lydia looked questioningly at Terry. “Do you have any idea where she’s going with this?”
Terry shook her head.
“Let’s just say I’ve noticed you admiring this person,” I hinted.
“Oh my gosh, are you talking about yourself?” Arden imitated my eyebrow-raising.
“No,” I sighed. “It’s obviously notme.”
“Obviously,” Lydia echoed. “Crystal clear.”
