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“Are you crazy?” I reached across the table and snagged her hand. “Shan, I’m beyond grateful. That was so awkward.”
“Really?”
“Really, really.”
“Oh.” My bestie sagged in relief. “Thank god.”
“I’m mad,” Lizzie chimed in, holding a hand up.
“You’re always mad?” I rolled my eyes. “What’s new?”
“Claire, that was your perfect chance.” Leaning back in her chair, Lizzie folded her arms across her chest and glowered. “Jamie’s a nice boy. You could do a lot worse.”
“Then you go out with him,” I shot back.
“I don’t want to go out with him.”
“Yeah, well, neither do I.” I laughed, completely unaffected by her incessant probing.
“Only because you’re wasting your life waiting around for him,” she grumbled, gaze flicking to the rugby table. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, what is wrong with the big eejit now?”
“I think he saw Jamie asking Claire out,” Shannon offered, gesturing across the room to where Gerard was glaring at his uneaten lunch like it had mortally offended him. “He looks so sad.”
“He’s not sad, Shan,” Lizzie explained with a frustrated sigh. “He’s sulking.”
“Sulking?” I turned around in my seat and watched as Johnny tried to coax Gerard with a spoon of yogurt. “Oh god, he does look sad.”
“Yeah,” Lizzie agreed hotly. “But only because another boy dared to play with his toy.”
“Hey,” I warned, smile fading. “Don’t call me a toy.”
“Why not? That’s exactly what you are to him.”
“As opposed to you using me back there to hurt him?” I shot back, feeling a surge of heat rise up in my belly. Contrary to my appearance, I was no doll, and I had no intention of being used in Lizzie’s game to get up on her nemesis. “Because I know what you were trying to do back there.”
“I was trying to help you.”
“Don’t fight, guys,” Shannon admonished quietly. “Come on. We’re all friends here.”
“I don’t need you to help me,” I argued back, ignoring Shannon’s attempt to diffuse the situation. “I’m perfectly capable of navigating my own love life, thank you very much.”
“Fine.” Lizzie rolled her eyes unapologetically. “Do whatever you want, Claire.”
Sometimes, I wished I never started speaking to her after she got with my brother. At least that way, when they ended it would be over. But I felt horrible for thinking that way. Especially when the girl I’d grown up with from the age of five to thirteen had been so amazing. We had eight years of pure friendship before everything went to hell. I couldn’t erase that, and I didn’t want to.
“Thank you,” I replied with forced cheer in my tone. “I intend to.”
29
I Can’t, But Can You?
GIBSIE
I don’t know how to make it right.
With my head bowed, and my shoulders rigid with tension, I stared down at the crumpled letter in my hands later that evening.
Why I chose to always focus on that particular line, I would never fully understand, nor did I want to. Reading these words didn’t make anything better. It never had. But I didn’t need to hold the letter in my hands to remember what was written in the lines. Every word was scored on my conscience.
