I shake my head. “I’m not, cap.”
He’s quiet for a second.
“It’s not the worst thing in the world. Being on this side of the fence.” He says it to the floor. “I didn’t think Lucy was going to go for it. Not really. After all the shit with my sister, with everything that was already in the way — I figured she’d pass. But I had to push. If I hadn’t, it wouldn’t have gone anywhere. That’s the part nobody tells you. The girl’s not going to do it for you. You’ve got to do it.”
I don’t say anything for a long moment, and Benson doesn’t say anything.
“I’m not good at this,” I admit, not recognizing my own voice. I don’t even know why I’m saying it.
“Good at what?” he asks.
I don’t know how to answer that, because the honest answer iseverything. I don’t text her back. I can’t handle being in the same room as her. And now that I know she has a boyfriend, I don’t even know what to do with it. And I think, to my dismay, that this is the real fucking problem. It’s not even about Melly, even though those blue eyes do something to me, it’s actually about me and how I don’t know how to doanythingemotionally.
I say nothing.
He nods like he heard it anyway. “Alright,” he says. He’s quiet for a beat. “Why don’t you make a deal with yourself, man?”
I look over at him, waiting to hear what he means.
“Be friends with her first. Push through whatever animosity you have going on. Don’t try to do the big thing. Just — try the small thing.”
I scoff.
It comes out before I can stop it.
He holds up a hand. “Look. If she’s batshit crazy, bro, don’t do it.”
I blink. “She’s not crazy, man.” It’s out of my mouth before I even realize I’m saying it, and honestly, I don’t think it’s the full truth. Stalking is pretty damn crazy, but is it bad if it made me feel good about myself?
See?
I’m fucked.
“Okay,” he says.
I add, “She has a boyfriend.”
He nods and looks down at his hoodie. “That’s perfect friend-zone material.”
The thing that has been loosening since the penalty box at Lowell Forum tightens right back up. The fist around my ribs comes back, and the anxiety rises up through my chest the slow way it always rises — the way it rose Friday night when I watched her tilt her face up to Chase’s mouth across the kitchen — and I sit on the edge of my bed in a hotel room and think about what Benson has just said.
Be friends with her.
I can’t be friends with Melly Sorcha.
It’s never been like that between us. There’s no version of us in a coffee shop talking about the weather. There’s no version of me sitting across from her with my hands on a table and asking her how her semester is going. There’s the way she used to look at me in the cafeteria when we were fourteen, and there’s the night at my friend’s house when we were seventeen, and there are theyears of texts I never answered, and that’s the whole map of us. I don’t have a friend mode for this girl. I never did.
Benson is watching me think. “I’m just going to say one thing,” he says.
“Okay.”
“You’re the only one in your own way here.” Then he stands up and crosses the room to the bathroom, leaving me with my thoughts. He stops at the doorway with his hand on the frame and looks back at me, “Also.”
I look up.
“The girls are going as angels to the Halloween party on Saturday. Melly’s going as a good angel. With Lucy and Penelope.” His eyes widen. “Lucy showed me the outfit. Fuck, dude. You better prepare yourself.”
My jaw is tight enough to ache.
