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The boys were furious. As angry as me. Angrier, maybe.
We all left him, even Jonah. The only ones who stayed with him were Paili and Perry. It turns out that after we left they all did lines together, more and more. BJ’s reactive when he’s sad about me — he has a knee-jerk response — makes himself feel better for a minute without caring whether it’ll make him feel worse in a more permanent way. And when BJ was at his foggiest, Perry got the three of them shots, and then he put his arms around them both and said, “You guys should kiss.”
BJ said he frowned, shook his head. And Perry, drunk and high too, I suppose — I hope — pushed BJ and Paili’s heads together and chanted, “Kiss kiss kiss kiss!”
BJ said he smacked Perry’s hand away and came back to our room to find me, that he thought about telling me it all that night but I wasn’t there. I’d gone to his brother’s room. I didn’t talk to him for a week.
I stare over at Perry on the street, my eyes getting glassy now.
“I don’t want to be your friend, Perry.” I shake my head. “I’m not quite sure you were ever mine.”
And then I walk away.
“I didn’t know he wrote you letters,” Henry says as he jogs after me.
“Yeah.” I nod. “Lots.” I flash him a tight smile.
“What did they say?” Jo asks.
I shrug. “Different things. Apologies, explanations, confessions, regrets. Some venting, I guess. That one about Paris and Paili, I think he was just trying to get it all out in the open.”
Henry’s brows furrow. “Did you ever write him back?”
I shake my head.
“Why?” Jonah frowns.
I purse my lips, try my best not to cry but my bottom lip shakes all the same without my permission. “It felt like if I responded to him, it would crack open a door I could barely keep shut as it was.” I wipe my eye. Shutting it was the hardest thing I ever did, and I obviously didn’t even do it very well.
Henry reaches over, brushes a tear off my face.
I sniff, try to look brave as I ask them my most worrisome question. “Do you think if I’d written back that maybe he wouldn’t be with Jordan?”
Both Henry and Jonah’s faces sort of pinch and frown, their mouths falling open as they try to say no I know they think the answer is yes.
I nod without them saying anything.
Jonah takes his sleeve around his hand and wipes my nose, giving me a gentle look. “He’s canning it with her, remember?”
Henry hooks his arm around me. “Home stretch, Parks.”
Parks
21:42pm
Hey
Hi.
You okay?
The boys told me.
I’m sorry.
You didn’t help me move.
I know.
Next time you move, I’ll do it all
Are you okay though
Thank you for not kissing her that night in Paris.
I know I never responded to your letters
But thank you.
x
