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Other bars, loud with laughter and music, lined the street, and I passed groups of students flying high with the successes of the night. The triumph of the UCLA Bruins was everywhere; here, they didn’t paint the town red, but blue and gold.
Why had I worn my new wedges? The back of my heel chafed enough that I could picture the blister tomorrow, and it made me limp and lose momentum. Stupid. I was so, so stupid.
“Tamar. Tamar!”
I didn’t turn around until he caught my wrist, and then affected surprise when he spun me to face him. “Oh. Abe. Hi.”
We’d lived down the street from each other for most our lives, and I recognized most of his expressions. It wasn’t difficult: Abe’s friendly face had always been the definition of an open book, and now I easily read frustration and chagrin.
I swallowed, wanting to head this off before it started. “I am so sorry I interrupted you two—”
His eyes were dark pools of empathy, framed by disarmingly long lashes. “Tamar. Stop.”
I did, but only for a second. “What?”
“I didn’t mean for you to hear that.”
I raised my hands, which conveniently pulled my wrist out of his grip. “No worries. I mean, it was a little awkward, but when am I not awkward, right? I mean, remember that time in tenth grade—”
“Tamar.”
I stopped.
Abraham licked his lips, and my gaze switched to his mouth. I’d imagined kissing him so many times. The force of those daydreams felt as real as memories, except they were tinged with pain from wishing too hard.
“Tamar.” He loo
ked like he didn’t know where to begin. I didn’t want him to. I didn’t want him to keep saying my name with that strange note, either. “I don’t want you to feel bad.”
My gut twisted. My head felt light and my throat dry. I might just float off any second. Or maybe fold up into a neat little package, tiny and flat and easily packed away and hidden.
My heartbeat accelerated.
His steady eyes never left mine. “But you know—you know we’re not—”
“I know you think of me as a sister,” I said rapidly. “You just said that.”
Unhappiness crossed his beautiful face. “That’s not what I meant.”
No. No, he didn’t think of me as a sister, because why would he ever bother thinking of me?
My feet tingled, like they did whenever I stood at a height. I associated that tingle with danger. My body’s sign to get out of a dangerous situation.
I had two choices. I could say something.
Or I could smile and walk away.
It would be so much easier to do the latter, but I was afraid it would cause a cancerous sore inside me, a knot of regret and disappointment in myself that would linger and fester until I could think of nothing else.
So I took a deep breath and kept my own gaze as steady as his. “Abraham. I like you.”
He closed his eyes. His dusky lashes lay still against dusky skin and the high cheekbones that would have looked foolish if the rest of him wasn’t so relentlessly masculine, like a statue at the Getty Villa. “Tamar, don’t.”
I took a tiny step closer. “I really like you. I have always liked you.” Now that I’d started, the words tumbled out over each other, gathering force. They battled with oxygen for room in my throat and came out garbled and breathless. “And I guess I thought that you would realize it if I just waited long enough, if I was there, and I listened and I did all the right things. And you make me laugh and you are so smart and brilliant and gorgeous and every time I look at you I can feel it in my chest and I love you.”
He opened his eyes. They were the same deep brown of my own, the color of polished oak, and pain filled them. “Tammy...”
Disappointment settled in the pit of my stomach. “You don’t feel the same way.”
