“Time out,” she says, muting the call. I roll my eyes.
Her parents always gave her a timeout whenever she got too upset toreasonably discussthings, and she’s kept doing it ever since.
I hate it when she does it. Hating it even more now, because I know what she’ll say. And I know she’ll be right about it.
She comes back. “Tell me everything.”
So I do.
More or less.
No specific details, of course, but she gets the big picture.
Afterwards, she just stares at me.
“This is wrong, Seth,” she says, slowly shaking her head. “This is just wrong. You’re being selfish.”
I scoff. “Hecame on tome.Heaskedme. It was all his idea—”
“But he doesn’t know how you feel about him, Seth! He has no idea that you’ve been pining after him for years, and that is just wrong! He’s in the dark here, and you’re just letting him stay there. You’re taking advantage of his fear of getting sick, and using it for your own satisfaction. Don’t you see that? Honestly?”
I drop my gaze to the floor, shame coloring my cheeks because of course I see that.
“And what about your friendship? You seriously think you can survive this, and come out on the other end, and nothing’s changed?”
“I—” I shake my head.
“And what about you, Seth?” she pleads. “Why do you keep doing this? Why do you always think that you’re not worthy of something more than hook-ups with unavailable guys? When are you—”
“Shut up,” I say, but there’s no heat in it. I shake my head. “I don’t know what you want me to say, or do. It is what it is.”
“It doesn’t have to be what it is. You could tell him.”
"Tell him what?” I snap. “That I’ve been obsessing over him for years, like a fucking stalker? Hoping he’d want me back, but now that he does, I’m too scared to even let him fuck me? That now that I’ve got everything I ever wanted, I don’t want it?”
“This is not what you’ve always wanted, Seth. You don’t have to settle for—”
“Yes, I do, Lou! I do. This is as good as it’ll ever get for me. Why don’t you see that?”
She glances away, shaking her head and when she looks back at me, there’re tears in her eyes. “I hate how you talk about yourself,” she says, bottom lip trembling.
I just shake my head, locking my eyes to the floor.
“Are you in love with him?”
I shake my head, frantically. “No.”
“Seth—”
“I said no.”
We’re quiet for a while. I bounce my leg, scratching my eyebrow. Chewing my lips and hating everything about this.
“Look, I promised him nothing was gonna change. That in the end, we’d still be us, and I’m not gonna break that promise. He’s my person, Lou. You know I was a fucking wreck after you left. I was not in a good place, and then—”
“And then Kaden. And you called me and told me you were in love, that he was the man you were going to marry—”
“Oh, my God!” I drag a hand down my face. “I was eighteen!” I yell. “You can’t hold that against me now, Lou.”
