Page 93 of Pining for You

He and Diya are standing side by side, looking like the almost-couple they are. And it would have filled my heart with joy just a few minutes ago, but right now I want to warn them. I want to say, Run, save yourself! Romance is a trap! The movies are a lie!

“We should get moving,” he says. “The roads are clearing up, but it’ll still take a while to get home, and we’ve got a timeline to keep! We’ll have to get creative with seating, but we’ll make it work.”

“Diya, why don’t you sit up front?” Cash suggests.

“That’s crazy, you two are bigger,” I say to him and Izaac. “One of you should sit up front.”

I’m sick to my stomach right now, and being crammed in the back with two dudes does not feel like a good move. If Diya sits in the back with Cash and me, there will be a little more breathing room, and I can hide.

“Oh, sure. I just thought Diya would sit up front. She’s such a good navigator!” Seichi laughs nervously. “But yeah, that makes sense.”

I feel a slight pang of guilt, realizing too late that he’s trying to be gracious about me stealing Diya from him, and that Diya would probably like to be up there with him. But then again, keeping them apart is probably for her own good if I’ve learned anything just now.

We wave a final goodbye and I climb into the back, eager to get into the vehicle and away from the scene of this heart crime. Diya climbs in beside me, casting a questioning look in my direction—one with maybe a little hurt in her eyes too. I turn away so I don’t have to face her as Cash gets situated on the other side of her.

“Wow, there’s so much less snow here!” Seichi says as he navigates us away from the building slowly but without issue.

“What’s it like back home?” Cash asks.

“Yeah, how’s the farm?” Diya adds.

“Oh man, it’s, like, apocalyptic. But my dad went up there to help Cooper dig out, and a bunch of the vendors brought heaters and snowblowers and stuff, so it’s getting cleaned up. I gotta say, it was a little tough to run off.” He laughs. “But I told my dad I was, like, really sick.”

“Well, we really, really appreciate it,” Izaac says.

“Wait, how’re you going to explain to him that you’re fine later?” Diya asks, concerned.

“I… uh… I mean, Christmas miracles are a thing, right?!” Seichi says. “Isn’t that what Bosley is always talking about?”

Oh god, please no. I can’t possibly right now.

But thankfully he continues talking. “Speaking of illness…,” he says, and hits Play on his stereo. “Got a brand-new playlist just for the occasion! And it is siiiiiiiiiick.”

I can’t even react to the corniness of the joke, and I’m not ready to contend with the fact that the Peanuts Christmas song, which usually fills me with joy, is just grating right now, or the potential that anyone might ask me what just happened up there with Eve.

So I lean my head against the window and pretend to sleep all the way home.

When we arrive back at the train station, Seichi rushes off to rejoin his dad, and Izaac’s Prius is a car-sicle covered in snow with sheets of ice beneath. There are mountains of recently plowed snow all around the lot that could swallow it entirely. Across the street, shop owners in the little strip mall are furiously shoveling, hoping to make way for last-minute holiday customers.

We spend a few bone-chilling minutes trying to pry the huge sheets of ice off the door until Izaac can get in and start the defroster.

“Brrr!” Cash gives a few dramatic, full-body shivers when we finally climb inside, then turns to Diya. “I’d have gone home with Seichi if I were you.”

“Hell no,” she says, clicking her seat belt in the back next to me. “I survived this whole freaking journey. I want Bennie’s tea, too.”

With every step down the stairs from Eve’s room and out to the street, I had a snowball of dread in my stomach, rolling around gathering twigs and dirt, leading up to this exact moment. The only thing worse than having just lived the experience is knowing that I’m going to have to relive it now. And since we’re back to just the four of us again, I have nowhere to hide from their questions, and the burning, festering fire of shame is all over my face.

“That is a post-make-out face if I’ve ever seen one,” Cash says, twisting his body in the passenger seat to look back at me, clearly misinterpreting the color in my cheeks.

“Please tell me you have a phone number written on your arm or in a notebook or tattooed on the inside of your eyelids or something,” Izaac says.

I don’t even know where to start. What happened wasn’t just disappointing. It’s not like I went up to Eve’s room and she gave me a book and said, Merry Christmas, I hope you have a nice life! It’s not even like there just wasn’t any chemistry between us, or that the kiss was bad. What happened was way more humiliating because we did have the perfect moment. My first kiss. On Christmas Eve! My dream come true.

Until, of course, I destroyed it with my stupid words about our stupid plan.

I can’t even blame Eve. She was right. It is unhinged that we went on this crazy quest to find her after spending barely an hour together. I told everyone that, yesterday at Pag’s. (Was that just yesterday?)

And it doesn’t make sense for us to get tangled in something together. She’s a very serious person with a very serious plan, which includes leaving the city, for good reason. And I’m supposed to be working on applications that will help me move to the city, for my own good reasons. I should have realized that the second she said it last night, stopped right then. I can’t be mad at her for seeing a reality I didn’t want to.