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“I know.” I lean in, brushing her shoulder with mine. She leans into me, shutting her eyes, and the gentle pressure, the feeling of her letting me physically support her, makes my stomach squeeze.
“I don’t know what else I would do,” she almost-whispers, as if afraid to let out the secret.
“I know.”
For as long as I’ve known her, it’s like I’ve known two Fayes. The one who comes to my games, who texts me after I take a bad hit on the ice, who brings my niece barrettes andA to Z Mysterybooks for my nephew. The one who is loyal and quick-witted and funny and sexy as hell. Then there’s the one who goes to medical school, who spends her weekdays preparing for a battle she’s determined she’ll lose, who drinks tequila on Fridays as if she’s just come home from war.
Her chin wobbles.
“Don’t cry,” I whisper, turning to straddle her stool. Coiling an arm around her back, I pull her into my chest, and she lets me.
“This is so stupid.”
“It’s not.”
“I’m not destitute. I’m in fucking medical school. And I’m whining about how my teacher was mean.”
“You’re not whining.”
“We’re at a bougie bar drinking ten-dollar IPAs and an untouched dish of twelve-dollar melted cheese. This is a first world problem.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s not real.”
I wipe my thumb across her cheek as she takes a deep breath.
“You have options, Faye.”
She snorts. “You sound like a crisis counselor.”
“And this sounds like a personal crisis.”
“I’m not sixteen and pregnant, Zeke. I’m in medical school.”
“And if you don’t want to be, you don’t have to be.”
She blinks up at me, as if the thought has never actually occurred to her. Maybe it hasn’t? Then she shakes her head.
“It was just a bad day.” She dips a chip into the cheese.
“Faye—”
“Help me eat this before it turns into a brick.” She pops the chip between her pink lips and moans as she chews. I lean back into the bar and pick up a chip, attacking the appetizer I shouldn’t eat simply because the girl I shouldn’t want asked me to.
Then she smiles.
And I eat some more.
10
faye
Two things wake me up.
But I’m barely coherent enough to recognize them for what they are.
“Shush,” I hear Zeke whisper from somewhere near the door. I can feel the daylight hitting my face as I lay on my back, refusing to open my eyes.
I barely remember coming back to Zeke’s apartment after drinking and eating my fill of beer and queso fundido.
