Then he just said, “No.”
I pressed up on my tiptoes. “Just hear me out.”
But he pulled his hands out of my grip. “I’m not giving you a hickey.”
“Love bite,” I corrected.
“Either one,” Cooper declared.
“I would do it for you,” I said. “I would do it for youin a heartbeat.”
“Bad idea,” Cooper said next.
“Genius idea,” I corrected. “Didn’t you hear Harmony saying how this one little change transformed her life?”
“You wantHarmony’sadvice on transforming your life?”
But I was liking this idea. “No wonder mini golf was a total fail. Slutty dresses are a dime a dozen! We need the semiotics of social signaling to make me a Person of Interest.”
“This is a terrible idea,” Cooper said.
“Maybe. But what if itworks? Operation Conquest is already tanking. I can’t get any traction with this guy. He’s forgotten metwicein two days! I think Harmony’s onto something. Nobody’s forgetting her!”
“Yeah, but not in a good way.”
“I need to level up! The clock is ticking! I’ve only got seven days left.”
At that, I turned my head, leaned in, and pulled my collar aside, saying, “Just do it. Real quick.”
Cooper stared at my neck in horror.
“No,” he said again—and then he turned and strode away.
I chased after him. “Hey!”
But his legs were longer than mine. I had to jog.
“Cooper! I need you!” I called after him.
“Not for this, you don’t,” he called back.
“Hey!” I said again. “That’s all? Just a flat no? Are you refusing to help me right now?”
Cooper kept striding.
But I kept bobbing along behind him.
The wind was loud in my ears, and before I knew it, I was yelling.
“You said you were on my team, Cooper! You said, and I quote, ‘I’ve been on your team since day one.’ Isthisthe kind of team player you want to be? Is this the kind of one-handed-golf-glove energy you want to cultivate in your life? I’m telling you I need you—for real. My mom is totally preoccupied, and Ashley’s marrying the douchiest guy on the planet, and Pete’s an idiot—a sweet idiot, but still—and my dad has never, not once, given a shit about me. So you’re it, Cooper. You’re all I’ve got. I’m sorry, but that’s how it is! You’re not justonthe team—youarethe team. You’re the whole thing.”
Never mind thatzeroof those people were viable alternatives for this task. Saying all of this out loud—shouting it, really—forced me to feel it. The more I chased him, and the more I begged, and the more he didn’t turn around or even slow down… the more heartbreaking it all started to feel.
I heard my voice waver, but I kept going. “I don’t have anybody else I can turn to, Cooper! You promised to help me—and I trusted you! Are you really going to make me chase you like this? Are you really going to just walk off and leave me here?”
I know I’d been trying to pretend like the last four years of Cooper ignoring me hadn’t happened. I know I’d been insisting to myself that our newly reactivated friendship was as solid and dependable and safe as ever. But it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. And pretending was harder than I thought. I’d been talking about my family being disappointing—but I was also talking about Cooper.
My friend who had moved away without telling me. My friend who had gone radio silent for years. My friend who might just have been the worst heartbreak of my life.
