There were times I was with Foster when I would wonder how strong his feelings for Penelope were, but at the same time, I never got the impression that he cheated or crossed a line with any other girl. Once baseball season started though, as usual, we saw less and less of one another. We both had absurdly busy schedules.
When it ended, Foster called me. He didn’t say much. Just that it was done, that Penelope deserved better than what he could give her, and that he was going to focus on the draft.
I said the right things, things I probably didn’t even mean. I wasn’t sorry. Instead, in the back of my head, I wondered what Foster would do if I asked her out. Sure, I’d have to wait the appropriate amount of time. Then I reprimanded myself, reminding my heart that Penelope was now off the list if I wanted to continue a relationship with my brother.
After I hung up with Foster, I sat in my apartment for an hour, staring at schoolwork I wasn’t doing, convincing myself to leave her alone.
I didn’t call her.
I made it four days. Not like I was marking off a calendar or anything. Okay, I was.
On the fifth day, I called her to see how she was doing.
She told me calmly that Foster had broken up with her. Gave me her version of it, which didn’t put Foster in a good light. Apparently, they were down to seeing one another once a week for a meal that Foster usually rushed through. I could tell she was holding back on some details, trying to respect that he was my brother. But I was also her friend, or kind of friend, although we never shared intimate details about our lives with each other anymore.
I should have hung up.
I didn’t hang up.
And I let our friendship morph into something closer to what we had shared in high school. I allowed myself the small pleasure of being her person.
Three weeks into a grueling baseball season, I spent every available second on the phone with Penelope. Lying to teammates about who I was calling or texting and why I couldn’t go grab something eat.
We arranged for her to come to my apartment one night. I convinced myself that we were just friends. That I could be both of their friends. Eventually, after the season was over, I’d tell Foster that we were friends, and he’d have moved on by then.
The minute I opened the door to let her in I knew I’d been lying to myself.
She looked so good, just like she did tonight, except her blonde hair was longer.
“Hey,” she said, and I opened the door wider. She had her school bag with her, so I figured we’d be studying. “This is weird, right?”
“Yeah. A little.”
“I don’t want to put you in an uncomfortable situation with your brother. Maybe I shouldn’t have come.”
That was the moment I could have avoided the inevitable betrayal. But the truth was, I didn’t want her to leave.
“No, we can be friends. We were before him.”
She came in and sat on the edge of the couch, her legs pressed together, her hands in her lap. “Does he know?”
I brought her a beer and sat down next to her. “No. With baseball season and the draft coming… I don’t want to?—”
“No, I get it.” She was quick to shut down the topic.
We sipped our beers, and it was so awkward at first that I thought it was never going to work. As much as I still wanted her, anything more than friends wouldn’t be possible. We’d never be able to push the Foster-sized boulder from between us.
The awkwardness stopped at some point after dinner and a few beers. But the few beers turned into a few more, and we started to play truth or dare.
“Truth or dare?” she asked me.
“Truth.”
“Did you love Aurora?”
We’d moved on from how many people have you slept with and who is your celebrity crush. The questions were getting more intimate, and the anxiety and stress were dissipating the more we drank.
“I think I thought I could. And I think I loved her, but I wasn’t in love with her if that makes sense.”
