“What did you say?” I ask.
“I told him I didn’t recognize me either. But that I was interested in finding out who I am now.” She shrugs. “And he wasn’t.”
She’s not crying anymore, but her expression is still melancholy, a little far away.
“Hey,” I tell her, squeezing her hand so she’ll look at me. When she does, I say, “I’m interested in who you are. Always.” I nod toward the house. “And I know of a few other people who are too. I think that’s how you know who your people are,” I say. “They want to keep getting to know you through everything. Every change. So I’d disagree with you.” Laurel raises an eyebrow. “I think youhavebeen keeping a pretty big, terrible secret. The person who was supposed to choose you over and over again gave up partway through.”
Laurel’s face goes cloudy at this, and I worry I’ve gone too far. But instead she says, shockingly, “I’m so sorry.”
I lean back a little, examining her. “For what?”
She draws in a breath. “I’ve been doing that with you,” she says. “I’ve pulled away from you so much because of what happened, and it wasn’t even your fault.”
“It was at least a little my fault,” I say. “Everett and I lied to all of you for a really long time.”
“But none of us were making the effort anymore at that point,” she says. “We’d all stopped trying, except for you. And I blamed it all on some idiotic pact we’d made years ago, that didn’t evenmatter.I just let myself be mad at you, and you were trying so hard to make up for it. Both of you.”
“Both of us?” I ask. “I thought you and Everett were BFFs this whole time.”
Laurel rolls her eyes, scoffing. “Yeah, no. I’ve given him so much shit over the last few years—more shit than you,” she says, which surprises me, especially with how she’s acted around him, what Davi said at her wedding. “We were just in the same city, and I was flailing, and even if I was mad, I needed someone to hang out with that just knew... me. You guys know me.”
“Every version of you,” I say. “Past, present, and hopefully future.”
“Can we even do that?” she asks. “We all drifted so much. We just let it happen.” I can see the worry written across her face, and it occurs to me that it might be where so much of what she said last night came from. It was less aboutwantingthis to be over and more about thinking that it was inevitable.
“I think it will look different,” I tell her. “We’re never going to be those kids who showed up here two days after graduation again. But that doesn’t mean we matter any less. There’s just a lot more life for all of us to share with each other now.”
Laurel smiles at this. “I like that,” she says. “I want to share my life with you again.”
At this, I feel my forehead tighten just the smallest bit.
“What?” Laurel asks.
I chew on my lower lip, palms going clammy. I’m not sure thatthisis the moment to tell her about Everett, not even sure what there is, really, to tell her yet, seeing as our conversation was interrupted earlier. Nothing but the truth, I suppose, as plainly as I can put it.
“I don’t want to ruin getting the gang back together immediately,” I say.
Laurel’s face shifts, like she already knows. “Everett,” she says.
“I’m in love with him,” I tell her, simply.
She nods as if this is obvious. “So is he.”
“In love with himself?” I ask. I grin at the snort it draws out of her, some ghost of Laurel past emerging to join all the new pieces of her.
“Who knows,” she says, waving a hand. “But no. With you.”
“And you’re okay with that?” I ask. “Even after...” I let the unspoken hang between us. Even after everything. Even after we lied, and things fell apart, and the last five years and this week happened at all. But I realize I’m not so much asking for her permission this time, as just finding out what she thinks. We’re too old for a pact like the one we made. And if the point is to love each other no matter what, then here is this new thing too. The fact of Everett and me.
“You don’t need to ask me that,” Laurel says.
“Still,” I say. “I want to know how you feel about it. I want to do it right this time.”
Her mouth twists. “I just want things to work out,” she says. “I want you both to be happy.”
“I know,” I say. “I want that too.”
“Pretty scary being totally uncertain about things, isn’t it?” Laurel asks. “Letting go?”
