Misery.
The word felt like a knife through the heart.
“…by showing me where this baby was.” He took a huge bite of pie, and then smiled his without-teeth smile. Sarcastic Nick. I hated Sarcastic Nick. “So all’s well that ends well—”
I grabbed the pan from him. “Nick, no,” I said, pulse pounding. “I’m not talking about dessert.”
“Why not? I could seriouslyliveoff dessert.”
“I know,” I said, a few tears falling. I hugged the pie pan close.“I know you can, and that’s…” My voice turned thick. “One of my favorite things about you. I have so many…”
Nick straightened up from the car, face now solemn. “I do too,” he said. “I have so many favorites.” He fiddled with his fork. “Favorite things about you.”
My heart fluttered.Here we go, I thought.We’re doing it, we’re fixing it—
“That’s what makes us good friends,” he continued, plastering on that stupid no-teeth smile again. “We’re such good friends.”
Such good friends.
My heartbeat slowed down so fast that the world went a little fuzzy. “Yeah.” I barely felt myself nodding. “We’re such good friends.”
Charlie never returned to the party. He didn’t come back for the board games, or to claim leftovers, and not even for the serving of the farewell hot chocolate (with candy canes, to welcome the Christmas season).Good, I thought as my mom and I loaded the dishwasher later.I don’t want to see him anyway.
Because part of me regretted it, regretted answering his call and leaving Nick on the golf course so I could rescue his twin from Mr. Magnusson’s classroom. I hated myself for it, and right now, it was easy to hate him too.
Such good friends.
But I kept checking my phone, a complete hypocrite. I kept waiting for him to call, or for a text to pop up—to hear something about his conversation with Luke. Because seeing his smile earlier…
Midnight: nothing.
12:30 a.m.: nothing.
1:00 a.m.: nothing.
Which left me to my own thoughts.Why didn’t you fight?I chastised myself.Why did you agree with Nick, instead of shaking your head and telling him the truth?
I sighed and rolled onto my back, to stare up at the ceiling, glimmering with a galaxy of glow-in-the-dark stars. My dad and I’d spent a whole afternoon sticking them up when I was little, and before freshman year at Bexley, I made my interior-designer mother promise not to take them down while I was away at school. I still loved them, always reminding me of when I visited the Carmichaels on the Vineyard. One of Nick’s and my favorite things to do was go night kayaking, disappearing out on the Oyster Pond. Everything was pitch-black, except for the stars above us. Pure magic, in my eyes.
But tonight, my stars kind of haunted me, brought me back to the sixth hole. “You have no idea how much you mean to me, Nick Carmichael,” I whispered to myself—what I’d wanted to say tonight.You’re the love of my life…
I’ve known it for a while now. More than anything, I want to marry you someday. I want us to play street hockey with our kids in the driveway and teach them to bike mountain trails. I want to be that old couple who wins every bocce ball match at our Florida condo complex. And that’s why I can’t be your girlfriend right now. We’re too young for it all to begin.
At 1:30, after I’d finally fallen asleep, I woke up to my phone vibrating on my pillow. “Hello?”
“Are you awake?” Charlie asked.
“I am now.”
“Oh, sorry…”
“No, don’t apologize. What’s up?”
I heard him sigh. “Is there any way you can come over? I know you’re probably still in a food coma…” His voice trembled. “But I’d like to talk.”
“Don’t worry.” I was already out of bed and pulling on my fuzzy boots. “I’m coming.”
“Is this about Luke?” I wondered once I’d crawled underneath Charlie’s covers and, like he did whenever I was upset, wrapped my arms and legs around him. “What did you guys talk about?”
