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“But you didn’t.”
“No. I’m sorry.” His brows knit together, and he looks pained for a moment. “We’ve had a lot of good times, though, right? It wasn’t always horrible, being my friend? Was it?” His voice cracks, and it nearly breaks me in half.
“No!” I say quickly. “God, no. Most of the time, our friendship was the best thing in my life.”
“That’s what I’ve been worried about. Like somehow this fight canceled out every good moment between us.”
“It didn’t. I swear.”
He fidgets with his bracelet again. He hasn’t said anything about my missing charms, but when we first got here, his gaze lingered on my wrist for a few moments before I tugged down my sleeve.
“You and the dance team, you’ve been getting closer, right? I see you in the cafeteria. You look . . . different with them than you used to.”
“Yeah. We are. Montana and Liz are pretty great.”
“I’m so glad.”
“How’s Chase?”
He gets this sunny expression on his face. “Good. Really good. We’re back together, and it’s going well. Slow, but good.”
I echo him: “I’m glad.”
We’re all small talk now.
“Do you . . . have anywhere to be?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Why? Eager to leave already?”
“No”—and he looks a little shocked that I would assume this, even as a joke—“I—I have something for you.” With that, he pulls out his phone.
“I already have a phone, but . . . thanks?”
A roll of his eyes. “Listen.”
He taps the screen a few times, amps the volume. The piano notes are familiar at first, but I can’t place them—
Until, suddenly, I do.
The song Peter wrote for me all those years ago.
When he loved me but I wasn’t there yet.
The first time we fucked up the timing.
“Peter,” I say, my voice breaking his name into three pieces. “You didn’t have to do this.”
“Shhh,” he says, shushing me so we can hear the adorably juvenile lyrics he rerecorded just for me. “This is where it gets good. And when I say ‘good,’ I mean mortifying beyond words.”
I’m crying now; I can’t help it, and I’m not sure if I’m sad or happy or both.
Without worrying about what it means, I lean in and hug him tightly, his phone mashed between us, the song still pouring out of it. I inhale that good Peter scent like always, but it does not destroy me. It only aches a little, being this close to him. And when his arms come around me to pull me closer, I don’t have to beg my heart to slow down.
I’m not sure who we’ll be when I get back from San Francisco. I’m not sure if he’ll still be half of Peter-and-Chase, or a fifth of his band. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to hug him with this kind of ease or if he’ll still want rides from me. I’m not sure if he’ll text me in the middle of the night because he needs to play me a song he just discovered, or if I’ll hear his melodies when I’m dancing.
But he will always be Peter and I will always be Sophie, and no matter who else we become, our history and our scars will always connect us.
“It’s not that bad of a song,” he says into my ear. “Is it?”
