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“What are you doing?” she asked, looking irritated.

God, she was lovely. She would have turned my head anywhere, even if I didn’t know her. Even if she hadn’t been imprinted onto my soul as a child and stayed there till now, I would have been intoxicated by a single glimpse of her face.

“I just needed a minute,” I said tiredly. “Not from you.”

She gave me a look.

“I missed you,” I said.

I saw the words hit her. A series of emotions moving across her expression. Something soft, something sad. And then finally something hard.

“Why did you cut me off?” I asked.

She looked away from me.

“I know what I did,” I said. “I know I fucked up. But it wasn’t anything we couldn’t get through.”

“It was for me,” she said, coming back to me.

“I moved. I went to school—”

“You left me. You broke every promise you made to me, moved two thousand miles away while I was taking care of my mom while she was battling breast cancer. You said you’d go to a state school until I could go with you and you lied.”

I looked at her, my eyes sad. “I got into Berkeley, Anna. It was my dream and it was a full ride.”

“Funny,” she said. “I thought I was your dream.”

We stared at each other.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” she said. “I suggest we leave before they make us eat something.”

Then she turned and went back to the kitchen.

5

ANNA

I WAS FOLLOWING JEREMY in my car.

I’d been a hair’s breadth away from just bailing on him, but in the end I went. Maybe it was honor. He kept his end of the bargain. Maybe it was the excuse not to eat food that would give me E. coli. Or maybe it was that I really did want to see his family again. They’d been my family for a third of my life, and I missed them. Or maybe I just wanted closure, because I never really got it.

He said he missed me.

The truth was, I missed him too.

I hated myself for feeling that way.

I always prided myself on being able to turn my heart off. I could break up with someone and be done. But that never applied to Jeremy. Maybe the reason why it applied to everyone else was because of Jeremy. Like nobody else really had all of me, so it was easy to take back what little I gave out.

I called Celine.

“Hey,” she said. “How was Pancake Disco?”

I scoffed. The pancake portion of the evening felt like years ago.

I told her everything. When I was done, I could practically hear her gawking.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.