Page 115 of Okay, Cupid

“Huy gave this to you?” She looks down at it.

“How’d you know?”

“He’s the only freak I know who still listens to cassette tapes.” She taps a button, and the player pops open, the tape he made for me on full display. “He would make you a mixtape.” She shakes her head. “Cheesy ass.”

“It’s sweet,” I tell her.

“It is.” Neve bites the inside of her cheek. “He’s had his eyes on you since day one.”

I turn to her. “What do you mean?”

“She means that it’s a miracle that you didn’t notice that he was drooling over you the second he saw you.”

“Alice!”

“You beat around the bush too much,” Alice tells her before she focuses back on me. “You had to be pretty obtuse to not notice, and Jude, my friend, you’re sitting at a pretty firm 120 degrees.”

I look at her in confusion.

“Like the angle? Jesus.” She throws her head back.

“Oh, right … I get it,” I tell her, even though I don’t. “It’s whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

“Why?” Neve asks, putting her hand to my back.

“Because I can’t be who he wants me to be. It’s impossible. And now I’m moving, and it’s just not going to happen.”

“I don’t think he wants you to be anything, Jude,” Alice says to me. “At least, he doesn’t want anything other than you.”

I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter.” And I know that they’re trying to help me out here, convince me that this is a path worth going down. But it isn’t. And they can’t understand why.

“When are you leaving?” Alice asks.

“No idea.”

“Well … I think at the very least, you should have a conversation with him. So that you don’t end this friendship with a bad taste in your mouth. Get some closure.”

“Bold coming from the girl who ignored him for three years.” Neve snorts.

“He ghosted me first!” Alice argues. “But Neve is right, kind of. I know what it feels like to let those feelings linger for too long. They’re not kind; they’ll make you hate a person when they don’t deserve that. And yeah, Huy could’ve talked to me first, but I could’ve made the first move too.”

Then she laughs.

“What?” I ask her.

“Nothing, it’s just funny that it took you starting at Hearst for me to do anything about what happened between Huy and me. It’s like you’re our little guardian angel.”

“Right …” I try to laugh along with her, but it’s forced.

If only she knew how close she is to realizing the truth. It should be a relief that their friendship is fixed at the very least. Maybe I can sleep easier knowing that much.

There.

Some proof, finally, that I’m not a total fuckup.

The girls hang around to help me pack, and by that, I mean they watch me as I fold the majority of my clothes, packing them away in a box before I go for the few books scattered around my room.

Eventually, though, they have to leave. And they promise to see me soon, even though this may very well be the last time they recognize me. I try not to cry, because my eyes hurt, and I’ve done enough crying for the rest of my life in a single seventy-two-hour period. I hug them both as tightly as I can before I have to let them go.