Why didn’t he tell me?
Better yet, why is he telling her?
Is this what he’s been rambling about in the car when I was ignoring him?
“You two friends now or something?” I hate how jealous I sound as the words leave my mouth.
She sighs and picks up a strangely shaped object, staring at it like it’s the most interesting thing she’s ever seen.
“Ingrid,” I say.
“It’s complicated, Wilder.”
“How?”
She lets go of my waist and stands in front of me.
“You spend four years talking to someone every day,” she begins. “Seeing them at school. Hearing about their family problems one day. Their hopes and dreams the next.” She stops for a second and runs a hand over her face. “He’s the first boy I ever saw naked and… the first one to leave me heartbroken.”
She wasn’tthatheartbroken, if memory serves.
“I don’t want to fight with him,” she makes clear. “I want us to co-exist peacefully. Without the sarcastic comments and drama. And it sort of feels like we’re there.”
“But?” I raise an eyebrow, ignoring the sirens going off in my head.
“But I loved him and now I don’t.” She exhales. “It’s complicated. I still remember what it felt like to hold his hand and text him I love you every single night before bed.”
“So,” I say, confused, “you still have feelings?”
“No.”
“I don’t know what to do with everything you just said,” I tell her honestly.
She licks her lips. “I was just thinking how sad it is that two people can know each other foryears in a way that no one else does. Then, one day, you’re strangers. I…” she trails off as her fingers find mine. “I’m terrified, Wilder, that one day you and I will be strangers. And I think that would be a thousand times harder than trying to make sense of Cash and me.”
I swallow hard. “We’re never going to be strangers, Ingrid.”
Tears fill her eyes. “You don’t know that. None of us know that.”
Yep, she’s spiraling.
Over a guy who left her for Europe after his mom framed her dad for embezzlement and is now awaiting trial in a jail cell.
“Not every relationship ends,” I remind her. “What about Jason and Jill?”
She scoffs. “My parents are weird. They’re an exception. Not the rule.”
“But what if they aren’t?” I press. “What if they’re proof that if you work really hard at it, relationships can last a lifetime?”
“Isla always gets left,” she quickly adds. “What if…”
I hear what she’s not saying. What if I leave for New York and don’t take her with me?
“I’m not leaving you,” I say. “Not ever. Where I go, you go.”
She gives me a reassuring smile as I wipe a tear off her cheek. “Where you go, I go.”
I pull her close in the middle of the oddest gift shop I’ve ever been in and kiss her softly.
