“Hey,” I murmur. “Uh, is this a bad time?”
I can hear shuffling on the other end, as if he’s sitting up in bed and giving me his full attention.
“Not at all! I just wasn’t… I mean, I haven’t heard from you. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I assure him. “I guess I wanted to, I don’t know, hear your voice?”
It’s silent for a moment—a very long, anxiety-filled moment as I listen to the sound of his breathing.
But then he sighs, and it’s a mixture of relief and sorrow. “I’ve missed you, too, buddy.”
Something inside of me breaks like a dam crumbling, and it takes everything I have not to cry. We may have been best friends for years, but ninety percent of what Julian has seen from me is lustful violence and desperate love. Notthis. Not misery.
“H-how have you been?” I question, and just from that alone, I think he can hear it in my voice. That I’m not okay.
“Good. I’ve beenreallygood. How are you? I heard you’ve been, uh, spending time with Barfred? The cook here at Chastain?”
I tense where I’m lying, my grip tightening on my phone, and turn my gaze from the stars. I can’t handle their glow right now.
“I am. I mean, I was. Uh, I did.” The words leave me in a broken hurry, as if I’m admitting a great crime and a horrible travesty at the same time.
“What happened?” he asks.
At the very same time, I attempt to change the topic as I say, “How’s Atlas?”
There is another moment of silence. We listen to each other breathe, to the silent buzz of our cellphones, and I suddenly feel a bit less hollow.
“Always cutting me off, aren’t you?” Julian jokes.
“Can’t help it, you know that,” I shoot back.
He chuckles softly. “Atlas is good. He’s sleeping right now; he had a long day trying out new workout routines with Cameron.”
“Cameron?” I repeat. “I didn’t know he was friends with Atlas. Isn’t Atlas like, super reserved? Just like his brother?”
I can still picture him on the cliffside, hesitant and skittish. I never would have imagined him hanging out with someone else so freely.
Memories of Cameron at Chastain during Atlas’s party suddenly resurface, but I can’t very well focus on them because they remind me of Nate. Of being pressed to that shed and—
“Yeah, well, Atticus and Cameron are dating, and he was coming over every day for a while, but now he lives with us. Atlas and Cam have gotten along pretty well,” Julian explains.
Atticus?! The eldest Chastain son? I’m… I guess I’m not that shocked. It appears everyone is getting their happy ending… everyone but me.
“That’s good,” I murmur.
“Landon,” Julian suddenly says, his voice serious in a way I hardly ever hear it. “What’s going on with you? What’s going on with Barfred? He’s been acting… angry.”
I could combust with how much information is stuffed inside of me, with how much I’m keeping from him. I don’t know where to start, where to begin while repairing this bridge, when so many lies are scattered everywhere.
I guess it’s easiest to start from the beginning.
“Julie, I… I’m depressed.” The word leaves me as a whisper, a petrified admittance.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Julian offers easily. “Are you taking medicine? Did something happen that I don’t know about?”
And that’s the hard part, isn’t it? Explaining thatnothingmade me this way, I’m just—what is it that Nate said? Playing life on hard mode?
There is every possibility Julian rolls his eyes or brushes me off after I explain it, but I don’t see another choice.
