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And about five million texts from Ciara, gushing over her date with Trey. I do my best to throw myself into my friendship with Ciara, joining in her gushing about Trey’s insane gorgeousness and the way he holds open doors for her. I try to get excited about the possibly of meeting his college friends, and going to parties with them soon. I dote on Mom and watch a ton of television and try to stop wondering why Emory hasn’t texted.
Most of all, I tell myself that the knot in my chest is not exactly the same as it was when Nate dumped me.
On Monday morning, I traipse into first period English class a few seconds before the late bell rings. Though I try to pass it off as being fashionably late, I’d slept through both of my alarms, and now I feel like I’m in a fog as I make my way to my desk on the far side of the room. Emory is in his usual desk, right next to mine, but I don’t look over. If he’s playing it cool, I am too.
Mr. Wang launches into a lecture on Greek and Latin root words just seconds after the bell rings. I take out a notebook and open it to a new page, pretending that I’m psyched to take notes. Emory leans over, placing a hot cup of coffee on my desk. I look over at him, seeing an identical cup in his other hand. He’d stopped at the coffee cart.
“Thanks,” I say, meeting his eyes for the first time since he’d kissed me on my front porch.
He nods, one of those infuriating upward head motions that guys do so well. It doesn’t tell me a thing about what he’s feeling. But I guess that’s the point with Emory Underwood—he’s never feeling anything. At least nothing he’s going to say out loud.
“How was your weekend?” I ask as we get swallowed into the current of students after first period.
He hitches his backpack up onto his shoulders. “Boring. Yours?”
“Same,” I say. This is so weird. And although I’d spent all weekend dreamily lusting after Date Night Emory, now I’d give anything to have things to back to normal between us. Friends. People who can laugh in the hallways and have simple conversations as if there’s not a dying elephant filling the space between them.
“See ya,” he says as we reach the staircase that takes us to two different classes. He does that stupid head nod thing again.
“Yeah,” I say, watching as he disappears around a hallway. “You too.”
Ciara grabs me after physics, looping her arm into mine. She smells of perfume for once, instead of nail polish. “I am going crazy,” she says, drawing in a deep breath and letting it out in a long sigh as we walk toward Ms. Meadow’s art room for lunch.
“Crazier than usual?” I tease.
She gives me a sarcastic shake of her head. “No. Crazy in love.”
“Blasphemy,” I say, putting a hand to my chest. “How dare you say the wretched L word.”
“You’re right. I’ll change it to lust. It’s a better, less committal L word.”
“So I take it things with Trey are still going well?”
She smiles, her eyes twinkling with what can only be described as a mixture of both L words. “Let me do the talking, okay? Bas will flip his shit if he knows too much.”
I mime zipping my lips closed and follow her into the art room.
My favorite chair in the circle of desks is open, so I toss my backpack into it and head over to get some pizza, all while keeping an eye on the door for Emory. I’m dying to know what he’ll say about our fake date night.
“Hurry up,” Bastian says, shooing us away from the pizza. He’s wearing dark blue skinny jeans that appear to have an ironed crease down the center. They match his navy Polo shirt. “We have a ton of ground to cover today. Ciara said she has no less than a fifteen-minute speech on her progress and Sequoia had an intense family dinner at China Inn where her ex’s family saw her and started some drama. And Trish,” he says, his eyes going wide while he points at her. “Sit up straighter. You’re not going to slouch your way out of this meeting again. I refuse to let you slip through the cracks.”
Trish flicks the golden hair out of her eyes, staring at Bastian for a full five seconds before she shows any emotion. Her mouth opens as if she’s going to say something, but then she closes it and wraps her fingers around the front of the desktop, pulling herself into a sitting position. She hasn’t taken any pizza today. The dark circles under her eyes make me think that food probably isn’t on her mind.
“Emory’s not here yet,” I say, taking a seat next to the notably empty desk next to mine. “We all know he won’t want to miss Ciara’s fifteen-minute gush fest.”
She sticks her tongue out at me, and I return the gesture. Bastian writes something in his notebook and then looks up at me as if just remembering that I had spoken. “Oh, guess I forgot to tell you guys. Emory won’t be here anymore. He quit the support group.”
“What?”
Xavier tosses his hands in the air. “What can you do, Isla? I mean, you can lead a horse to water …”
Bastian nods. “But you can’t make him stop breaking hearts.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The next month passes by with each day a mere clone of the one before it. Sure, the leaves on the massive live oak tree in our front yard turn brown and trickle down to the grass, making Dad constantly hint that I should help him rake them up. Mom’s sliced open hand is mostly healed and school progresses as teachers dole out a new, boring lesson each week.
But events on Emory Island are stuck in an infinite loop. He brings me coffee each morning, gives me that smile that must mean good morning, or hello, or here’s some coffee.
