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And maybe, on Sundays, you.
Whoa.
Where did those thoughts come from?
The palms of my hands grew sweatier, and I clenched them into fists as I said, “I told you. Timothée Chalamet.”
He smirked, and I felt his smile deep within my heartbeats. “That’s it? No one else?”
“Nope.” I picked up my pace as I tried my best to shake off my nerves. I couldn’t look him in the eyes because he could read me the same way I was able to read him. I couldn’t allow him to take in the new development chapter about the odd sensations I felt whenever he stood around me.
Besides, whatever I was feeling for Aiden was a temporary thing. It had to be. He was my best friend, after all, and I would never want to jeopardize that by, oh, I don’t know, falling in love with him.
Still, I thought about it a little. Okay, I thought about it a lot. I thought about what it would be like to fall in love with a guy like Aiden. They were pointless thoughts, though. I’d read enough romance novels in my life to know how those things went.
Guys like Aiden ended up with girls like Cara. Never with girls like me. I was forever going to be the best friend side character, while Cara received my leading hero.
Aiden upped his pace to keep up with my strides. “So about that party…”
8
Aiden
“There’sno way in heaven, earth, or hell I’m attending that party,” Hailee said as we walked home. It was quite a bizarre first day for me. The number of photographs people asked me to take with them—teachers included—was odd. My jaw hurt from smiling so much. It was even odder that I was being asked by the people who mocked my first acting ventures when I was a dancing taco.
I vividly remembered hiding in the custodial closet and sobbing my eyes out from being bullied. Hailee was the one who found me, and she skipped the rest of her classes to sit with me in said closet. The only time she left was to go get us some lunch. By the end of the day, she had me laughing again, too, because Hailee had a way of making shitty days less shitty.
Now those same bullies were asking for my autograph. Life was odd. People were odder.
The one consistent thing? Hailee Jones saving me from the masses and pulling me into closets to remind me to breathe.
I gripped the straps of my backpack. “What? Why not? It’s on our bucket list.”
“I figured that would be one of the items we wouldn’t achieve.”
“But we will! We got a clear as day invite.”
“We?!” she remarked. “That was definitely a solo invite.”
I paused, pulled out my cell phone, and began texting.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
My phone dinged, and I smiled as I held the phone in her face.
Aiden:Can I bring a friend to the party, too?
Cara:Sure! Bring whoever you want.
Hailee rolled her eyes. She was a Master of Fine Arts when it came to her eye rolling. Her skill was unmatched. “She doesn’t know that the friend is me. It wasn’t as if I was personally invited.”
“Of course, she knows it’s you.” I wrapped my arm around Hailee’s shoulders and pulled her into a sideways hug. “You’re the only friend I’ve got.”
Being backin my hometown felt better than I thought it would feel. For the first time in a while, I felt like myself again. From the outside looking in, I had everything when it came to my acting career. From the inside looking out, I felt empty. Coming home was the first thing that made me feel like somehow everything would be all right.
I had a few secrets that had been eating at me since I’d gotten back to Leeks, secrets that I wanted to reveal sooner than later, but I wasn’t exactly sure how to go about it. Two secrets that would undoubtedly change everything for me.
Secret number one: I didn’t want to be an actor anymore. Being away from home for a whole year came with a heavy dose of homesickness that I didn’t expect. Sure, before the past year, I’d filmed things for a few months here and there, but being gone for such a long time was a lot harder on me than I thought. I missed my normal life. I missed my family and Hailee.
