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I closed my eyes and let out a breath through my nose, frozen in the thick tension in the air. Fighting with Rachel sucked, but I’d never left her house mad before. Now, I couldn’t imagine sitting there a second longer.
“I have a website to finalize,” I said stiffly, standing from the vanity seat and curling my hands into fists. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Rachel didn’t call after me as I walked out of her room, nor did she call after me as my footsteps clomped down the stairs. Each step I took caused unease to cramp inside me. My brain screamedgo back, tell her you’re sorry, don’t let her be mad at you!and I wanted nothing more than to listen. But what would I be sorry for? Finally confronting her about something that bothered me? For keeping it bottled up for so long?
I signed myself up for this, though. The confrontation had been brewing for a while, the things I’d bottled up rebelling against the lid. How could I fight with Rachel? But then again, how could shenotsee things from my side? When had our friendship become so skewed?
As I wrapped my hand around the front doorknob, a soft voice did register, and I stopped in my tracks.
“I’m just saying,” the warm voice began, and I recognized it as Cindy’s. “Josh told me you kissed her.”
No, no, no. The front foyer turned wavy as my pulse skyrocketed. I knew I should’ve opened the door, effectively silencing that conversation, but cowardice rendered my legs numb. The blood rushing in my ears was so loud that it was a wonder I heard Reed’s reply. “Josh?”
“I asked him if she ever said anything about you. Guess how shocked I was when he saidthat.” She didn’t soundangry, but then again, it was nearly impossible to gauge emotions from a whispered voice through a thick wooden door. “I don’t get why you didn’t tell me. Were you trying to keep it a secret?”
“Rachel doesn’t know,” Reed said. “Shecan’tknow, okay? Can you keep your voice down?”
“Why kiss her if you knew it’d get you in trouble with your sister?”
The world dipped beneath my feet as everything hung in place, waiting for his excuse. It’d been a question I’d wondered for a while—why? What made him stop me that night? What changed his mind? Once rooted to the floor, I free floated now, stuck on the verge of insanity.
When Reed finally responded, I knew, then and there, that I should’ve walked out to stop the conversation. Before my heart shattered. “It was a pity kiss,” he said, and God, even through the door, I could hear the indifferent tone in his voice. “She came up to me and asked to get her first kiss over with. It was before you and I were even really talking. That’s why I didn’t say anything.”
Boom. All along, I’d known it was true, but I hadn’t expected the dropping bomb to hurt so much. I hadn’t expected so much nuclear fallout.A pity kiss. And Iknew it—that was the worst part. My brain had told me, over and over, that he hadn’t felt the same as I felt about him, but my heart… My heart had been too stubborn to accept the truth when it’d been right in front of me.
Stupid hope.
I didn’t realize I hauled the front door open until I found myself staring at the equally shocked faces of Reed and Cindy, both standing on the porch. I couldn’t look at either of them, but there was no dodging the absolute all-consuming humiliation that settled over my skin like mud. “Didn’t mean to interrupt,” I said with a false tone of politeness, and without another word, I brushed past them, trying to keep my head up.
Pity kiss, pity kiss, pity kiss.
Who knew I’d be running away from both of the Manning twins, heart broken into so many pieces that I knew I’d never find them all?
* * *
The most wonderful time of year in the city of Brentwood was not the Christmas season—it was homecoming. A certain amount of insanity clung to everyone in the community during the week leading up to the big game, but Friday? If a surface didn’t look like blue and gold threw up on it, it was considered a felony.
Not a single person at Brentwood High wasnotwearing school colors to some extent. Maybe they wore a different shade of blue, and maybe the gold was celebrating a different brand than the Bobcats, but the two colors were prominent on every single student that crossed my path. Even me. Though I felt like someone had stuck their hand into my chest and ripped out my heart, there was no chance of menotdressing up.
So, I was this: A girl wearing a blue and gold Bobcats jersey she’d purchased at the spirit shop, blue shorts with gold glitter along the hem, and her pair of yellow shoes laced up tight. Looking merry, feeling miserable.
“I want you to see the house,” Mom said from the driver’s seat as she twisted the steering wheel around a round-about. As soon as I’d gotten home from the half-day at school, she’d corralled me into the car, not even letting me drop my backpack off in my room. “It’s in Jefferson, but closer to the border of Brentwood. You’ll still be eligible for the Brentwood school district, so don’t worry about that.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just stared out the windshield, turning my cell over in my hands.
“Two bedrooms, two bathrooms,” Mom went on, leaking into her realtor realm. “The backyard is a bit small, but we’re not much for outdoor people anyway, are we? But I think this could be a good fit for us.”
My phone chimed, but instead of the Babble staccato I’d always come to expect, it was the chime of a text message. Wildly, I yanked my phone up within inches of my face, holding my breath as I checked the sender.
Rachel
Don’t forget to send Maisie and me pics of the house!!!
Disappointment swamped me before annoyance took its place, and then guilt for that annoyance. Less than twenty-four hours ago, Rachel and I had our first fight in nearly three years, and yet here she was, pretending like it didn’t happen. Pretending like I hadn’t left mad. Like our friendship didn’t have a rift sliced down the middle.
“Not who you were expecting?” Mom asked, glancing at my phone.
Again, I didn’t answer. What would I have said, anyway? If I told her about my fight with Rachel, she’d surely ask me why. If I told her aboutwhoI was hoping it’d be, that would be opening another can of worms.
