“It’ll be Lewellen 2.0,” I say. “That life you couldn’t see yourself in? The clocking in and clocking out at some job you don’t want? Every day the exact same? That’smylife, Ethan. I would’ve stayed in Lewellen forever, but you left and it ruined the only place I’d felt at home.Youwere supposed to be my home but you felt trapped there, even with me. That’s what it would be like with us. You’ll feel caged and restless, and it won’t be enough. Maybe you won’t leave this time, butIwon’t be enough for you, and that’ll be worse than being alone.”
We sit under the weight of my declaration. Tears stream down my face. It’s so quiet that I can hear his staccato breaths, and when he looks at me again, a wave of calm seems to flow over his skin.
“You know what’s funny, Chuck? I just figured out why this has never worked. I actually wantyou, therealyou. Butyoudon’t think I want you. Even though you’re all I’ve everwanted.” His voice is quiet. Kind. Matter-of-fact. It’s such an Ethan way of saying something so devastating.
He nudges my chin up with his knuckle so that I have to look at those magnificent eyes. “It should be me. Us. Iknowyou, and that’s what scares you so much. You can’t put up a wall between us because I’m already a part of you just like you’re already a part of me. We’re too far gone for each other. You love me too. Even if you never say it, I know you do,” he tells me, vaulting us both into the unknown. He knows I won’t jump, so he’ll jump for me. But it doesn’t work that way.
The issue has never been whether I love Ethan Powell. He’s right. I’ve loved him so completely without realizing it. It’s whether I can keephislove, and how much it will wreck me when it goes away.
I step back from his hand. I feel its absence on my chin like a brand. “You’llhurtme, Ethan. You won’t want to, but you will. And then I’ll lose all of you.” Losing him after finally having him will taint everything beautiful that came before. Memories with my best friend will turn to something rotten. Surrendering our future is the only way to preserve our past.
His face is destroyed. Looking at it punctures my lungs, and I can’t take in enough air to say anything more.
“You don’t believe that.” Something about his words, the way his voice sounds, splinters off another piece of my heart, and I know I’ll never forget this moment. I’m in another Ethan Powell memory. A bad one, but they don’t all get to be good.
“You’re so infuriating. You know that? You’d rather be right than happy. Every time.”
I don’t say anything back. I don’t think he’s expecting me to. It wouldn’t make a difference anyway. He can see my every thought on my face, and I think I can see his too. There are nosecrets or hidden thoughts. He won’t do me the courtesy of providing plausible deniability as I break us. He makes me see all of him. It’s as open-hearted as it is cruel.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. The truth is I’d love to be wrong about us. I just know I’m right.
I’m not sure he’s heard me until he shakes his head and says back, “I’m not.”
His stiff expression blooms into something gentle and warm. Loving. It crinkles his face all the way up to his eyes. I’m equal parts relieved and shattered just looking at it, and it occurs to me that this might be the last time I see it. Everything about this weekend has been a series of firsts and lasts.
His hands shake, and I pull them into my chest on impulse. “I’m sorry,” I repeat. It’s so inadequate, I have to laugh, and it’s a sharp juxtaposition with the way I’m wiping my tear-stained face with the heel of my free hand.
I’m not sure who initiates it—I don’t think I can bear replaying it to find out—but our lips are touching in a heartbreaking kiss that’s sweet and slow and salty from our tears. I let it linger, long after the ache sets in, knowing this is it—the last time I’ll ever be this close to my best friend. The last time his hands will caress my cheek. The last time I’ll breathe in his air. The last time I’ll savor the taste of him.
We stay this way for a good long while, clinging to each other, memorializing the press of our lips, my heartbeat slowing to match his steady pulse. It’s devastating. It’s everything. I don’t want it to stop, and, still, I pull away.
He holds my face, his thumb trailing across my lips like he’s memorizing them. Then he drops his hands and climbs back into the van.
I watch him drive away, admiring his profile in the glow ofthe sun beating in through the windshield—the slant of his nose, the point of his chin, the smile lines etched in his cheeks—how he looks both the same and different at the beginning and the end. I don’t need a picture. I couldn’t forget it if I tried.
The van disappears into the horizon. When it’s gone, I walk straight to the laundry room without stopping and wash the weekend off my belongings.
And then I’m really alone.
Chapter 22
Babe the Big Blue Tots
Two and a Half Years Ago
The ax-throwing barwas my idea. I had no one to blame but myself for how terribly this party was going.
Like all bachelorette parties, the guest list was a collection of stray friends from various stages of my development: Stacy (new friend and work colleague), Rebecca (law school friend/nemesis), Olive (one of those friends of unknown origin who appeared on a group chat and was somehow inaugurated into my inner circle without my knowledge), and Laurel, of course. Though they all knew Laurel and me, they didn’t know each other. Or so we’d thought.
The guest-list snafu we couldn’t have accounted for was that Rebecca and Olivedidin fact know each other. They’d dated, actually. And it had ended badly.
“Youlostmy dog!” Rebecca shouted, throwing her finger in Olive’s face.
Olive swept it away with the implied intimacy of two people who’d once shared a toothbrush. “Hisashes!” Her ax whacked against the plywood target behind her with wild arm movements. “And Ifoundthem. But, noooo, we never talkabout the part where I searched a Kum & Go dumpster for a Ziploc baggie of Sherlock Bones!”
“And how did Sherlock get in the dumpster in the first place?” Rebecca asked.
Olive sucked her teeth. “This is sooo like you. You’re making the night honoring one of the sweetest women in the worldallabout you.” Olive’s declaration on my behalf was nice but fairly performative considering I wasn’t quite sure how I’d met her, and no one has ever accused me of beingsweet. It brought the whole friendship into question.
