I lean back in my chair and watch as Ellie’s face tightens, then slowly releases into a soft smile, her dimple just barely peeking through. “Ahh,” she whispers. “Very clever, Mom.” She tucks a loose strand of hair into her bun, aiming her smile at the floor. “That’s sweet.”
“Yeah, it really got me good.” I press my tongue against the back of my teeth, then cautiously add, “It felt like…an apology?”
Ellie’s eyes flutter closed, and she nods as she processes. “Right. Which is why you emailed me. Because you thought I apologized.”
“Right.”
We sit there, blinking at each other until I break the silence with a strangled sigh. “So are you…not apologizing, then?”
“Of course I’m apologizing,” she says. “I’m sorry I left like that. I was thinking about what you said about all relationships needing a little space. I thought it’d be best for both of us.”
“So you ditched the opening and left town without saying goodbye?”
“You walked away first,” she points out. “I didn’t think you wanted me showing up on your big day like nothing happened.”
“And when I called you afterward?”
She looks down at her nails, which have been painted a fresh shade of blue. “I needed space too. What you said about me being just like Mary…that really hurt.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It wasn’t fair.”
“It wasn’t wrong either,” Ellie mumbles. “Not entirely.” Moving on from her nails, she picks up her mug. A fresh distraction. “I knew you liked me, and it was so easy to pretend we were together that I just…I got carried away. But I never meant to give you mixed signals. I was really into you.”
My stomach twists. “Was? Past tense?”
She rolls her eyes and takes a sip. “What do you think? I drove three hours to see you, didn’t I?”
“I thought you drove three hours for a chaicoffski,” I say.
Her cheeks burn red. “Among other things.”
“And…only because your mom pulled the strings.”
Ellie rubs her lips together, her septum ring twitching in response. “You know what that means though, right?”
“No?”
“It means my mom likes you enough to try to smooth things over between us,” Ellie says. There’s a tiny bit of mischief dancing in her voice. “The plan worked.”
“The plan worked,” I repeat under my breath, but my mind is still snagged on the wordus. There was never really anusin the first place, but the way it sounds falling off Ellie’s tongue feels familiar in anunfamiliar way. Like the feeling I had sittingin the office earlier. Content. Hopeful. Like I’m on the right track.
We’re both quiet for a moment, letting the din of the shop take over—the clack of laptop keys, the growl of the espresso machine, the soft indie song I could probably identify if my mind weren’t otherwise occupied. I jiggle my leg, trying to shake up the courage to say what I know I need to. Ellie could walk out the front door and never come back again. I could fail my accounting exam and stay stuck in Geneva, and she could graduate and move straight to New York. Our paths might never cross again. I know there’s a possibility I’ll never even think about last weekend again, that it could be some stupid thing that happened when I was twenty-one that I’ll look back on and roll my eyes…but if there’s even a chance that I could’ve had something great here if I’d only said something, I’d never forgive myself. I need to speak up.
“I’m…” I stop, sigh, start again. “I’m not in love with Kat, okay?”
Ellie startles, finding her place on the other side of an abrupt conversation shift. Her mouth falls open, and for a moment I think she’s going to defend herself. I’m ready for another fight, but instead, Ellie’s voice hovers beneath her breath, like she doesn’t even want to hear herself speak. “I know,” she says. “It was never about that, really.”
I lift a brow. “No?”
“Of course not.” She practically hides behind her mug. “You were right,” she admits. “I was jealous.”
“You don’t have to be jealous of Kat.”
“I’m jealous of both of you,” she corrects me, then shifts inher seat like she can’t quite get comfortable. “I know you don’t remember much of high school,” she says, “but I do, and it mostly sucked. People think they have good memories from high school, but they don’t. They mostly have bad memories, but with good people. That’s the only thing that makes it fun, laughing through the bullshit with your best friends that you get to see every day. Without that, most things are just…bullshit.”
“Kinda dark,” I tease.
She glares back at me. “I’m serious. When things are bad, Kat will always have your back, and you’ll always have hers. I’ve only ever had that from Mary.” She pauses, then adds, “And some of my boyfriends, I guess.”
