There’s another part of why that I’m a little less comfortable thinking about.The part where it hit me, harder than it should have, when Kevin and I talked during that finale about a month and a half ago, about how the band is doing great now, and then he’d said, “But what about the future?”
The future. Where he’s still a rock star living states away from me, going on tour—probably more and more as their band gets even bigger—and thronged by so many women that I still feel stupidly insecure about, even though Kevin and I are just friends. It’s his life, and it’s important to him, and I respect that he’s probably not going to be ready to leave it for years, at least. But I think he was right that first night: it’s not a life conducive to a real relationship. Especially not with a girl who has months where she can barely drag herself out of bed, let alone along on rock tours, and who is trying desperately to scrape through her two-year degree before she officially reaches her mid-twenties.
And now the thought of trying to make a relationship work through all that doesn’t just seem near-impossible, it’s terrifying. Kevin and I have grown so close in the months since we’ve met, closer even than I’ve ever been with Leigh or Miranda, closer than I feel with my parents, my family. If we tried to really be together and it didn’t work out, then it wouldn’t be just losing a boyfriend. I’d be losing my best friend.
I can’t do that. I can’t take that risk. Honestly, I don’t think that at this point he would want to, either.
Ted climbs into the car and puts his keys in the ignition. It takes a few tries forTed’s car to start up, which isn’t unusual. But then his ancient Honda grudgingly gets going, and we start the drive back to my house. Occasionally I’ll stay over at his place, but not tonight. I’m coming off of a bit of a flare-up, where I spent the last week or so needing to sleep even more than usual, and he’s got work early tomorrow.
I shiver, waiting for the heater to start up and thinking about that Emily Blunt movie,Wind Chill, that I watched with Kevin a few weeks ago, just after Christmas, about two kids who get stuck on the side of the highway in a snowstorm. I smile, thinking about the way Kevin insisted on calling every twist in the movie and only got half of them right—though some of his ideas were better than what actually happened.
I smile even more when I think about the Christmas gift he sent me, which I opened that day—the script ofParanormal Activity, the first movie we watched together, signed by the actors. I don’t think my gift to him—a framed picture of Alec and Jillian showing off her engagement ring on theStarving with the Starsreunion show, complete with big photoshopped words across the top, “Maya was right”—was even close to as awesome. But he did laugh pretty damn hard about it.
Ted sees me smiling and reaches over to take my hand, pulling my thoughts back to right now.
Which is good.Ted has been amazing at helping me work on getting past the idea that Kevin and I could ever be more. I needed this, even ifTed doesn’t know it. I needed to move on from the desperate hope that I’d thought I’d already closed the door on months before.
When Kevin and I had that conversation about his band’s future, I’d been on exactly one date since meeting Kevin, with a guy who showed me about a hundred pictures of himself playing football in high school—high school!—and I hadn’t been eager to jump back into the dating pool. But I knew after that phone call I needed to. And so whenTed—who was cute and nice and already someone I knew wasn’t trying to relive his glory days—asked me out after a study group later that week, I agreed.
We had a good time and went out again. And again. He kissed me on our second date, and we slept together on our third—the first guy I’d kissed since Kevin, and the first guy I’d slept with in much longer.
I hated that it all felt like a betrayal, somehow—toTed, because I couldn’t stop thinking about Kevin. And to Kevin, because . . . I don’t know why. Kevin and I are just friends, and we both know that.
I almost ended things withTed right then, and I told him I wasn’t sure how serious I could be. But he shrugged and said it didn’t need to be serious if I wasn’t ready for that. And, really, I got the feeling he wasn’t, either.
So we kept seeing each other, falling into a comfortable routine. He knows about my chronic fatigue, and he doesn’t mind that our official dates are usually limited to about twice a week. He’s busy, too, working retail full time to help support his single mother and younger siblings while going through college at the same snail’s pace I am. A couple weeks ago, I stopped over at his house one day to drop off a textbook he’d forgotten in my car, and his little sister asked him if I was his girlfriend. He looked at me, with an eyebrow raised. “She is if she wants to be,” he said.That same casual air as before.
Neither of us was seeing anyone else—honestly, neither of us had the time (or in my case, energy) to.
“Sure,” I said, and that was that.
I likeTed, and I like what we have—it feels safe, easy. I’m moving on, the way I need to be. Disentangling my romantic feelings for Kevin with my best friend feelings for him. Keeping those as separate as they need to be.
“I still feel like I should’ve taken you out someplace nicer to celebrate,”Ted says. “From everything I’ve heard, Botkins’s tests are brutal.”
I’d heard that, too, and I’d been panicked about this test—the first one of the new term, and way sooner than tests are usually given, especially tests as intense as this one. Mr. Botkins’s lectures are a nonstop spewing of facts and formulas, and he doesn’t take well to questions or being asked to repeat himself.Ted’s not in this class with me, so I didn’t even have his incredible note-taking skills to rely on.
And yet I got an A minus—which, from hearing my fellow students’ griping, was potentially one of the highest grades in the class.
“Yeah, well, we can save the nicer place for when I actually pass the class,” I say with a smile, though probably I’ll talk him out of that then, too.Ted works crazy hard for every dollar; I don’t want him to feel like he needs to spend his money taking me to fancy restaurants. “Assuming that I actually—”
I cut off at feeling my phone buzz in my pocket. “—manage that,” I finish, pulling my phone out.
I grin the second I see it’s from Kevin; I know he was busy at the recording studio this afternoon, but I’ve been dying to hear back from him. He’s spent a not-insignificant amount of time this last week hearing me stress about this test and also quizzing me, even though he knows about as much about molecular biology as I know about chord progressions.
The message is a long string of celebration emojis, and the words,Way to kick that test’s ass.Ms. Caroll would be proud. My whole body feels warm, even though the heater in the car has barely kicked on.
Ted glances over. “That’s a lot of emoji excitement,” he says. “Let me guess—Leigh?”
My friends metTed the week after he officially became my boyfriend.Ted liked Leigh a lot, and the feeling was mutual—maybe especially because he was open to having a full, animated conversation about the importance of reusable water bottles. Miranda, on the other hand . . . She was friendly enough, but it was clear she wasn’t on board with the wholeTed thing.
I asked her about it later, but all she said was, “He’s fine. He’s just . . . I don’t know. I mean, he’s nice.” But there was still disapproval in her voice.
“Ilikenice guys,” I said.
“I know,” she said, giving me a look like she wanted to say more. But then she changed the topic, and I never asked her aboutTed again.
I realize I haven’t answeredTed for a beat too long. “No,” I say. “Kevin.” I feel the same awkward twinge whenever I talk about Kevin withTed—which isn’t that often.Though it’s more than I’ve talked aboutTed with Kevin.
