“We could go to the restaurant you and Dad always went to.”
“I think I’d like that.”
Damon grabbed a knife and started cutting the vegetables. It’d taken years for them to finally be able to talk about his dad without tears.
The night of the car crash was the worst of his life. It’d been after Elliot and Damon’s sixth-grade graduation. Damon’s parents had taken them both to a gaming arcade to celebrate. A drunk driver swerved into their lane.
His mom had a broken pelvis and almost lost her ability to walk. Damon and Elliot got away with nothing but a couple cuts,even though Elliot had been on the driver’s side in the backseat. No one understood how he hadn’t died. That side of the car was completely smashed in.
No one understood a lot about that day. Like how Elliot, at twelve years old, had been able to get Damon’s dad out of the totaled car.
The image of the paramedics carrying a kicking-and-screaming Elliot away from Damon’s dad’s body was seared into his brain. Elliot kept fighting them and shouting about how he could save him, how he could fix him.
All Damon did was stand there. He didn’t even try to help. He didn’t even check on his mom.
Elliot had been the one to shake him out of it. He’d wrapped his arms around Damon and apologized over and over. It’d made Damon feel so guilty that, in that moment, he was capable of feeling okay. That he felt better because his best friend was holding him.
How could anyone feel okay standing only a couple of feet away from their dead father?
But Elliot always made Damon feel better. No matter what was happening.
A broken arm.
A broken heart.
Elliot could always fix it, or at least, make it easier to bear.
“We can invite Elliot too,” Damon’s mom said. “I haven’t seen him around in a few days?”
It was her subtle way of saying she knew he was moping around.
“We got into a fight.”
“About what?”
Damon sighed, cutting the tomato with a gentle hand. Was he supposed to keep it a secret? Had Elliot told his parents?
Damon worried his lip. “I found out a secret he’d been keeping from me. Kinda forced him to tell me. I don’t think I reacted the right way, and I don’t know how to apologize for forcing him to tell me when I feel like crap that he didn’t tell me in the first place.”
His mom made a humming noise. “Elliot is a private person,” she said. “Remember how it took him two years before he could answer a question at the dinner table without blushing and stuttering?”
Damon smiled. He’d forgotten about that. Elliot had been so nervous around his parents. Around any authority figure really. He hated the first day of school because he didn’t know how the teacher would expect him to behave.
“I thought that I was different,” Damon said. “I thought we didn’t keep secrets from each other.”
Damon’s mom turned off the stove and put a hand on his arm. “I’m sure he wished he could tell you but was scared. Whatever it was, it was probably hard for him to talk about.”
After they finished having dinner, Damon tried again to type out an apology, but he quickly gave up.
It was probably better if he did it in person, anyway.
Chelsea mentioned at lunch that she’d talked to Elliot about asking Madison to prom. Damon had hummed distractedly at first, and then tried to grill her about what else she talked about with him.
She’d gone into great detail about the plan she’d made for Elliot’s prom-posal. Damon spaced out when he realized she wasn’t going to tell him anythingElliothad said.
He probably should have paid more attention to Chelsea’s prom-posal plan so he wouldn’t have been so surprised by the scene he stumbled upon as he turned the corner of the hall.
A crowd gathered around Madison’s locker. There were origami hearts taped to the outside. She plucked an envelope off the locker and cleared her throat, loud enough that everyone in the hall could hear her.
