I try to ignore the tingling in my gut. “Why did you tell Morgan there was no story here?”
The corner of Greg’s mouth turns up, and I realize I just admitted to eavesdropping. “Didn’t want her talking about you.” He laughs and shakes his head. “I missed you, Ruby. We were friends for a long time. That doesn’t just go away.”
It’s weird for him to be earnest. The Greg I remember wouldtry to avoid it whenever possible—deflect with a joke, distract me with a tired smile and a change of subject.
“I know we’re not close like that anymore,” Greg says slowly. “But it’s nice having you back here. And this is a fucked-up situation, and if you think this will help—” He points at the notebook clutched to my chest. “You’re not alone here, okay?”
My vision is blurring, heat and moisture pooling in the corners of my eyes.
“Let me help you with this,” he says. “Please.”
How fucking dare he, when it’s so much safer to be mad at him? Who does he think he is?
“Hey.” Greg pulls my trembling shoulders closer, folding me into a hug. He must still use the same lemon zest soap he liked in high school. The familiar smell wraps me up, warmed by his own scent underneath, sun and salt and something I can’t name. Some things really don’t change.
“Shh, shh,” he says, because before I realize it, I’m crying into his shoulder, big, ugly, shuddering sobs. “Hey—hey, it’s okay, Ruby. It’s okay.”
I could barely respond to his Slack messages the other day, and now I’m getting snot on his T-shirt?
“Have you…talked to her more?” Greg asks tentatively.
I pull back and cross my arms with a sharp sniff. “No.”
Every time I try to type something, there are too many things to say, crowding inside my head, and I choke.
“I still don’t know how to talk to her.” I wipe my face aggressively, trying to recover my dignity. “It’s like she never left, that way.”
Greg chuckles softly, more air than sound. I feel like shit for how hard it’s been to talk to Mom, now that I have something so many grieving daughters would want: a second chance. But it feels less bad, standing in front of someone who knows us both well enough to laugh at that.
I let my head flop backward with exasperation. One of my curlers falls out and rolls away underneath the kitchen table, so Greg crouches to retrieve it.
He takes a few steps closer, depositing the curler in my open palm, and his eyes meet mine. Those irises I still know by heart. The particular pattern of black flowering out amid the dark brown, the placement of the gold flecks.
“Tell me how I can help?” he asks. “With your list.”
My heart swells uncomfortably, too big for the shrunken place it usually fills in my chest.
It reminds me of the time he came over in middle school, when Mom had just bought a new dresser from IKEA. One moment he was peering at it curiously, and the next he was sitting on our floor with all the parts laid out around him, assembling it for us.
Sure, Greg made a mistake ten years ago: kissing his best friend when he wasn’t that into her. Hasn’t the statute of limitations on that crime expired by now? I should be able to let it go.
“Okay, um…” My hand goes nervously to my head, and the curlers rattle. “If you really want to…you could come with me to this?”
I slide the crumpled invitation out of the notebook and pass it to him.
“Be my wingman,” I add too fast.
Greg’s smile flickers for a second as he looks at the paper in his hand. “Sure, Ruby,” he says, and that easy grin I remember comes back. “We can do that.”
Chapter
14
The lights in the gym swirl, multicolored. Around the room, people are loudly recognizing one another and embracing.
It’s strange returning to the scene of so many old insecurities—where I had PE and worried about how frumpy I looked in gym clothes, and where I stood around during dances, wondering who to talk to.
So many people from high school work at TKCORP, this might as well be a work outing. Minhee from Public Relations is catching up with Sergio from Data Analytics. Matt from Nuisance Abatement, Laura from Transportation Solutions, and Priya from Design are laughing in a cluster to my right. I’m vaguely on a “saying hi in the hall” basis with all of them, but the idea of making small talk still fills me with anxiety.
