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“What?” I ask, positive he’ll say something about her skating skills. “I’m sorry this isn’t as fun as Sophie thought it would be.”
“Nah,” he says. “It’s not that. It’s the two of you. Don’t take this the wrong way, but . . . it’s strange seeing you together. You guys are really different. If you lined up everyone at school and asked me to pick out your best friend, I can’t imagine choosing her and going, ‘Yes, you two are definitely best friends.’?”
“Oh.” I’m not entirely sure how to respond to this. “Well, we’ve been friends for a long time. We grew up together, right across the street.” Suddenly I’m overwhelmed with the need to defend her.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t even say anything, especially after what she did.” He stares down at the ice. “I’m—I don’t want you to think I’m jealous or anything. I swear that’s not it.”
“No, I get it.” I watch her go past again. “Maybe we had more in common when we were younger.”
It’s not something I’ve allowed myself to say out loud, but as soon as I do, I regret it. Gratitude. That’s how I should feel about Sophie. Our connection isn’t obvious to an outsider—which, in a way, is what Chase is—but it’s real to me, and to her.
There’s something else, though, something that takes me a few moments to identify—a pang of missing. Like I miss Sophie even though she’s right here, gliding along the ice in her gray beanie, fiery hair peeking out from beneath it.
We last another half hour before clomping off the ice and heading to a nearby coffee shop, where we snag a few chairs near the fireplace.
“How exactly did you guys become friends?” Sophie asks, holding her hands next to the fire to warm them up.
“English clas
s.” Chase takes a sip of a drink that’s probably more chocolate than coffee. “Peter helped me with medieval literature. And then I heard him play piano, was mesmerized, and somehow talked him into playing with the band.”
“Right, you really had to twist my arm.”
“It was all an elaborate scheme to get you to go out with me.” Chase slings an arm across the back of my chair, fingertips grazing my sweater. “You’ll never know.” All I want is to move closer to him—and it’s not that I’m shy about displays of affection in public, given our first kiss was in a bookstore—but something in the way Sophie glances at Chase’s arm on my chair and then very pointedly away turns my body to stone. I don’t want to act like we’re rubbing it in her face that we’re together, not when she’s looking at me like that. We all need more time to figure out how to navigate this.
“What kind of music is it, exactly?” Sophie asks.
“Hmm. Sort of like the Clash meets Death Cab with the voice of Debbie Harry,” he says. Sophie gives a small shrug as though indicating she doesn’t know them. “With a little Rufus Wainwright thrown in. I take it you’re not as much of a Music Person as Peter?”
“Um, no, I definitely am,” she says with an odd laugh. There’s probably no greater insult than someone saying your taste in music isn’t great or you don’t know enough about it. “I’m not sure if Peter told you, but we used to have a band. Well. Kind of.”
She puts an odd emphasis on the “we.” I wonder if Chase hears it, or if I imagined it. We used to have a band.
Chase furrows his brow. “You did?” He looks almost hurt, like you didn’t tell me? “What do you play?”
“It wasn’t really a band,” I say quickly.
“Peter played the piano while I choreographed dances,” Sophie says. “So . . . not a traditional kind of band.”
“Oh,” Chase says. “Still. That sounds cool.”
“It is,” Sophie says, keeping it in present tense, though we haven’t played together in months.
For a few moments, we sip in silence.
“Do you guys do anything for Christmas?” Chase asks.
“I’m Jewish,” Sophie says.
“Oh—I’m sorry.” Chase flushes. “I guess I meant Peter, since your mom’s not Jewish. . . .”
“We have a tree,” I say. I helped my mom decorate it last weekend. “And we do the present thing.” When is my family not doing a present thing? “But it doesn’t really have any religious significance.”
That’s true of all holidays, essentially: We celebrate everything, but nothing means very much. Though I’m hopeful going to temple will change that.
Sophie’s still frowning, fidgeting with her hair.
“I don’t like it when people assume,” she says quietly. “Look around us.” There are stockings dangling from the ceiling, our cups are printed with green and red patterns, and “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is playing from the speakers. “It’s impossible not to be bombarded with it in December. I can’t help feeling excluded all the freaking time.”
