“I’m okay. I promise,” I say, swiping at my cheek with my hand.
He nods, keeps watching me, then glances back at the restaurant. Finally he starts to walk in that direction.
And then I feel something, a realization, like a forceful kick to the chest. I loved this boy. Memory Zach isn’t real; if I rest my head against his chest, it’s my own heartbeat I’m hearing. When he speaks, it’s my voice, my own mind, I’m hearing.
But here is the real Zach. He still gives me butterflies. And if I let him walk away…
“Zach!” I call. He stops and turns around.
I take a couple steps toward him. “Do you want to…” I swallow. “When your shift is over or something, maybe we could hang out?”
I watch the blood drain from Zach’s face. He glances quickly at his fingers, then back at me, and I feel my heart plummeting.
“Or we couldnot,” I say, trying to make my voice light, trying to save face.
“No, it’s just…,” Zach says, glancing down, glancing back at me again. “Just that…Lindsay and I are still together.”
All the air falls out of my body.
Oh.
“Oh God,” I say, my whole face burning now. “I’m sorry. God. I swear I didn’t know.”
“I’m sorry, Addie,” Zach says, not for the first time today, and I nod, even though I don’t know for which part he’s apologizing. For breaking my heart in the first place. For me not remembering any of it. For still being in love with Lindsay, after all this time.
BEFORE
Late November
It’s the night after Thanksgiving, eight days after I found Zach and Lindsay in her car, and my chest still hurts from the thought of it. From how stupid and blind I was.
But I miss him.
I miss his full, joyful laugh. I miss his hair between my fingers. His breath, even cigarette-y, against my cheek, against my mouth. I miss being in his arms, the feeling of his body next to mine.
For the first couple of days, I turned my phone off. I wouldn’t listen to his messages or read his texts, and I asked my mom and brother to send him away when he came over.
But allowing myself to listen to one, just one, message was like falling into a vortex. Soon I was listening to all of them. Some three or four times.
He kept saying the same things.
I’m sorry, Addie.
I screwed up.
If you would just let me explain.
It wasn’t supposed to happen. I swear it was the only time.
Sometimes I played them for Katy and we thought of the worst names we could for him. She called him Zach-or-Mac-or-Jack, trying to make me laugh. I did, but it felt hollow and false.
The last message is from Tuesday, three days ago—the longest he’s gone without trying to reach me—and I wonder if he’s given up. Has he accepted that it’s over? Have I?
Do Iwantit to be over?
Foolishly, I call him now while I’m lying awake in bed. He picks up after four rings, sounding out of breath, like he raced for his phone.
“Hello?” he says. I breathe into the phone, don’t answer. My heart fluttering in my chest.
