Page 63 of The Last Thing You Said

She stops and looks at me. “Well, it’s your turn now. One day . . .”

“Oh,” I say again. “Okay. One day—well, night, really—Trixie and her friend Lulu took the rowboat out—”

Emily cuts me off. “I know this one! This is the one where Trixie drops the oar in, right, and you come out and rescue them?”

I swallow hard. When will this pain in my chest ease?

Emily’s bobber goes under and she squeals. “Help me!” she cries, and she forgets about the story.

I don’t.

34 · Lucy

When Hannah wakes, I’m already packed.

“Let’s go for a walk,” she says, pulling on shorts and a T-shirt and her purple hat. “I’m starving!”

We walk to the campground convenience store, buy coffee and breakfast sandwiches, and find a picnic table close to the lake.

“So, how was it?” Hannah asks after she downs her first coffee and starts on the second.

I blush. “How was it supposed to be?”

She laughs. “That good, huh? Tell me he used a condom.”

I nod.

“Well, that’s a relief. Makes you wonder, though.”

“Yeah. Kinda presumptuous.”

“You know he’s going to want it all the time now,” she says. She laughs again, then grows serious. “Do you—I don’t know, do you regret it?”

I shake my head. “No. I wanted to do it. I wouldn’t have if I didn’t want to.”

“But?”

“He’s so sweet. He makes me feel like I’m something special, you know? It’s just . . .” I pause, and then, “It’s not his fault that he’s not who I want him to be.”

There’s a long moment when neither of us speaks. I wanted being with Simon to mean getting over Ben.

A chill washes over me.

I don’t know that I’ll ever get over Ben.

“What do you love about Ben? I mean, I didn’t know him before, but he seems like a moody little prick, if you ask me.”

“He wasn’t always like that, you know.”

“So you’ve said.”

I don’t even know where to begin. Why do I love Ben? Why do I breathe? Why do I eat? And then I remember that first day I told Trixie, and the first five things I loved about him.

“Well . . .” I say slowly. “I love that when he laughs really hard, he gets this one little dimple on the right side.”

Hannah looks at me and rolls her eyes. “I have never seen Ben laugh really hard. Scowl, yes. Laugh, no.”

“He used to laugh all the time.”