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Taura and Jonah shift uncomfortably next to one another.
Beej rubs his hands over his mouth.
“It’s not — it’s you and me.”
“So?” I shake my head, my heart starting to pound. “We still cheated?”
He sighs. “Sort of.”
“Sort of!” I yell as I stand up.
“Guys—” Jonah says, flashing us a quick smile. “I was joking.”
I shake my head at him. “No, you were right—”
Jonah shrugs like he’s guilty. “Parks, I was just trying to get a rise out of you.”
BJ stands up and sighs, tired.
“Consider her risen,” he says, then he reaches for my wrist but I move it away from him.
I stare at him and it feels like under my feet, the ground is shifting. Like I’m in an earthquake and I can’t find anything to hold on to, and I definitely can’t find a table to hide under. How could he think that? After everything? I stare at him not like a stranger, but actually just like he’s the same boy I’ve worried these last few years that he might be.
“Do you really not think this is a big deal?”
“Honestly, Magnolia?” He stares at me, brows low. “I don’t, no. Because I love you, and you love me and we belong together—”
“Except that you belong to someone else right now!” I yell and everyone else seated at breakfast stares over at us.
I look up at him, my eyes welling up.
I don’t want to cry. I can’t cry here — there are too many people. In my peripheral vision I can already see a few phones out, filming us, snapping photos.
I take a few deep breaths and feel the question bubbling up inside my brain, I’ve wondered it so many times. Picked it up, held him under a microscope and peered through trying to work out whether it was an anomaly or not.
Not, I guess.
“Is this what you do?” I ask him but it barely comes out. “When you have a girlfriend?”
BJ’s whole body deflates. His shoulders slump, his head falls back and his heart sinks on his face.
“Stop,” he tells me. He looks afraid I think.
“Answer me.” I grab his wrist, holding it tightly. “When you’re committed to someone, is this what you do?”
He looks at me, exasperated. “Magnolia, you are the only person I’ve ever been committed to in my whole life.”
I stare over at him, my bottom lip trembling. “And yet.”
“Fuck—” His head drops backwards and he shoves his hand through his hair, before he looks over at me with ragged eyes. “Are you fucking joking me?”
“You don’t think it’s a big deal—” I wipe my eyes. “It’s a big deal to me.”
“Parks—” He grabs my face again. “I understand that, but you have to understand, it’s not the same. Me and Jordan, me and you? It’s isn’t the same thing.”
“BJ, you’ve had two girlfriends and you’ve cheated on both of them.”
His hands drop from my face and he takes a step back from me, pushing his tongue into his bottom lip.
