“No, I mean likereallytell her. Tell her you don’t want it to be temporary.”
“But I do,” I lied.
“You don’t,” she said. “I knew it as soon as you started going on and on about her on the drive up. That’s not the Oliver I know. You’re flustered and you don’t know what to do about it.”
I stepped over a large tree root, before bringing my eyes back to the horizon. “She’s kind of like…the right person at the wrong time,” I said. “Except instead of that, she’s thewrongperson at therighttime. The two of us are nothing alike and want different things, yet we happened to end up in Key Ridge at the exact same time, causing this little glitch in the universe.”
“If she was so wrong for you, then you wouldn’t be strung out like this.” Lila’s words got choppier as we made it to an uphill portion of the hike.
I wondered how Frankie was doing trailing behind. I’d thought a few times of joining her in the back, but I couldn’t handle a rejection from her right now. I figured she needed some space and I’d give it to her. For now.
“I know you’re right in theory,” I started, “but it’s her dream job. There is nothing keeping her from chasing that, just like there isn’t anything that could get me to move to New York.” I laughed at even the idea. “How fucking crazy would that be? Could you even imagine me there?”
Lila sighed dreamily. “Sounds like an adventure.”
Unease stirred inside me as I took in her words. She was serious.Me?In a big city like that?
“I would be bored out of my mind,” I said.
Lila snorted. “Right, because that’s what everyone always says about New York. How boring it is.”
I glared at her. “You know what I mean.”
“I’m just saying, love is a pretty big adventure. One you probably don’t want to cut short.”
My first instinct was to scoff. “Love? I never said anything about that.”
She had the nerve to smile. “I know, but you also wouldn’t be obsessing this much if it wasn’t love, or something close to it.”
“You’re way off.” I threw my hand in the air and waved off her comment.
“If you say so,” she singsonged.
I pulled my water bottle out of my backpack and squeezed it lightly in her direction. Water spewed out of the top and landed on her arm.
“Hey!” She looked at me with mock horror before laughing. “You’re so immature.”
Before she could reach for her own bottle, I took off running.
“Get back here!” she yelled.
I slid in between Elise and her friends and sprinted a few feet up the trail, running more from her words than Lila’s retaliation efforts.
Love was big. Love was heavy. It wasn’t a word I had ever used before. Not when it came to a romantic partner. I wasn’t even sure I knew what it meant. Did I love Frankie? The idea seemed insane.
I mean, did I love spending time with her? Obviously. Did I think about her when she wasn’t around? Of course. Was I dreading our time together ending more than I’ve ever dreaded anything in my entire life? Abso-fucking-lutely.
But that wasn’t love.
Right?
TWENTY-SEVEN
Frankie
I doubled over,gasping for breath for what felt like the ninetieth time this hike. We’d started this as a group but everyone was out of sight by this point. Everyone aside from Harrison. I’d tried to force him to go on ahead, but he wouldn’t hear of it.
“I hate hiking,” he’d said, waving off my comment as if it were ridiculous.
