Page 70

“What?” she asked.

“The last game Amy wanted to play was Penis,” I mumbled, tearing the corner of a ketchup packet with my teeth.

“The game where you take turns shouting penis in a public place louder and louder until one of you gives up out of embarrassment? That’s like your number-one idea of hell.”

I nodded. “Yes. Yes, it is. I’m not very fun, unfortunately.”

She scoffed. “You’re fun. That game fucking sucks. What other torture did she subject you to? Did she like to text you ‘We need to talk’ too?”

I paused. “She did, actually.”

Briana rolled her eyes.

“She threw me a surprise birthday party last year,” I said. “She didn’t understand why I was so mortified, since it was just my family and Zander there and she got my favorite cake.” I shook my head. “I don’t like parties. I especially don’t like parties for me, and I definitely don’t like them when I don’t have a chance to mentally prepare for them. It was like my nightmare trifecta.”

Briana bit the tip off a fry. “What the heck was wrong with her? I’ve known you like three weeks and even I know you’d hate that.”

I pinched off a small piece of hamburger and held it under the couch. A moment later a soft mouth took it. “It’s not her fault. She always meant well. She’s just a people person, she likes parties. I was the one who always ruined things.”

I felt Briana studying me and I looked up. “What?”

“You know that it’s not your fault that you don’t like that stuff, right? There’s nothing wrong with you.”

I didn’t know what to say in response to that.

She pivoted to look at me straight on. “Have you ever heard that quote if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it’s stupid?”

“Yeah…”

“Sounds like Amy really likes hanging out in trees.”

I laughed a little.

“I will never judge you for how you climb a tree, Jacob. And you should know that you are an exceptional fish.”

She held my gaze, and I smiled and looked down at my lap. I didn’t know that I needed to hear this. But I did.

I put so much of the blame of what happened between me and Amy on myself, it didn’t even occur to me to look at it another way. And for just a moment, I allowed myself to believe that maybe I really was a fish put in a tree.

“All right,” Briana said, sitting back into the sofa. “Would You Rather. Are you ready?”

I pinched off another piece of burger and held it under the couch. “I’m ready.”

“Would you rather be a reverse centaur or a reverse merman?”

“Like, a man with a horse head or a fish head?”

“That is correct.”

I thought about it. “A centaur. I don’t love the idea of not being able to blink.”

“Or breathe. You’d have to live in the water. Things would be very shrively.”

I chuckled.

“Your turn,” she said, taking an exploratory bite of her burger.

“I need to Google questions. I can’t just think these up on demand,” I said, pulling out my phone.