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The sorrow istaking us over.
But I don’t know what to do about it, because for all my realizations about what I could’ve had with Landon, there is no forgetting exactly how our friendship ended: with him dismissing me.
Sure, he said he’d still like to take Rae to the dance, but she’s the innocent party here.Idamaged him, just as I did her.
I’ll never forget a single thing about how he looked before I left, which was like I’d crushed him and he absolutely could not stand being around me another minute.
So it doesn’t matter if I want to be with him. There’s no way he wants to be with me, too, after what I said then andhaven’tsaid since.
I glance up from the grilled cheese sandwich I’ve been picking at for the last fifteen minutes. I find Rae looking at the chair he always sat in, her eyes full of tears, her sandwich missing the smallest bite.
My throat constricts and my chest aches, and I ask weakly, “Rae, can I talk to you about Landon?”
*
It’s now been two weeks and one day since I last saw him.
It’s been two days and one hour since I confessed my screw-up to my niece and caused her to shriek, for the first time in her life, that she hates me.
She’s cried so much since then. She’s just cried herself into a nap, actually.
I’m crying, too, in my bed, missing her like crazy.
Missing him, too, because I’m not furious anymore. I’m desolate.
I miss the way he talked to me.
I miss the way it felt to be so close to him that there was almost no room for anything scary or painful or ugly.
I miss how steady he was.
His eyes and smile and tattoos weren’t the only things I liked about him. They weren’t the only things that drew me back in after I pushed him away all that time ago. I cared about the inside of him, too—and I only grew to care more for him, only found him more marvelous as time went on.
Now I’m here with what’s left.
Damn near nothing, that’s what’s left of me and Rae.
I haven’t even been able to salvage her plan to go to the dance with him, because every time I get near her, she starts screaming and crying for me to go away. She doesn’t want tolookat me, much less hear anything I….
Wait.
I choke on a sob as an idea comes to me.
She doesn’t want to be around me, but she wouldloveto be around him.
I haven’t answered his text yet because I haven’t known what to say, but now I do. If I tell him he should still go with her, if I get him over here to talk to her about their plans and how much they miss each other, she’ll know he still cares.
I don’t dare hope he’ll give a damn about seeing me, but it would make me happy just to get him to see her.
I find my phone and message him, hands quaking, heart pounding. Speaking to him after all this time makes me feel sad and nervous and embarrassed, but this is bigger than me.
He answers right away, just like he used to, and agrees to come see her.
In mere moments, there’s a plan for him to be here in half an hour. I don’t care that she’s napping—this can’t wait, plus she’s not going to wake up grumpy if she wakes up to him in the room. She’s going to be overjoyed.
I hurry to fix my appearance. From my rumpled pajamas to my tear-swollen face to my flat hair, I look the way I feel. I want to be at least halfway presentable for his visit even though he likely won’t care to look at me.
Except when he arrives and I open the door and see him for the first time in fifteen days, his green eyes look right at me.
