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Grinning, I glance sideways at her. “There’s my girl, always cutting right to the chase.”
She grins right back at me. “Would you rather me be any other way?”
I shake my head and chuckle out at the water. “Nope.”
“So, were you?”
While she waits for me to answer, she leans back against the wooden beam at the corner of the pier and stretches her legs out. I mimic her, leaning back against the opposite beam and stretching my legs next to hers.
Leveling my gaze at her, I contemplate if I should walk through this door she’s opening or slam it shut and lock it.
I push my hand through my hair to grip the back of my neck.
“No,” I admit, kicking that door wide open. “I had dinner with my agent to talk about an offer. A television show wants to use some of my art. Apparently, the main character is an artist.”
She leans forward, eyes owllike with excitement. “Wow, that’s amazing!”
I shrug. “We’ll see how it goes.”
“Alex, don’t be so casual about it. Your art is amazing. Lily told me about all the galleries, the private commissions, the magazine features. You know I’ve been following you on your page. It’s all so wild.” She moves her leg until it’s pressing against mine, leaving it there. “And very well deserved. Didn’t I always tell you you’d rise from the ashes?”
“The ashes ain’t so bad,” I mumble.
The toe of her pristine white sneaker nudges into my leg. “It’s not where you belong.”
“What about you? How’s your poetry and art going? Seeing anyone out in Cali?”
And the awkward asshole award goes to…
“I’m seeing lots of people,” she replies.
My stomach turns with a mix of jealousy and cheesy breadsticks. “Really?” I force out through clenched teeth.
“Yup.” Her lips curve, beautiful and coy. “Everyone I look at.”
I let out a laugh. “Smart-ass.”
“I’ve really missed you calling me that.” The wistfulness in her voice is a lasso around my heart. “Do you ever miss me?”
The dark, quiet space between midnight and sunrise is such an invitation for truths. I can’t bring myself to violate it with lies and bullshit.
“Honestly, Penny… I don’t know how I can miss you when practically every minute of my days and nights are invaded by thoughts of you. You never left.”
No one ever really leaves me. They all stay—my tragic, beautiful, lingering ghosts.
“Wow, Fox…” she says after a few silent beats. “I’m not sure if that’s incredibly romantic, or heartbreaking.”
I press my leg firmer against hers, needing to feel the heat of her body through our jeans. There’s been a perpetual chill in my bones since she left years ago.
“It’s both,” I reply.
“And now? Do you wish I’d just stayed in your thoughts?” The carefulness in her voice is like a hand slowly pulling the lid off a box of unknown contents.
Leaning my head back against the beam, I tilt my face up and sigh at the stars. “I really don’t know, Penny,” I admit softly.
She digests that for a few seconds, then with a lift of her chin says, “I didn’t answer your questions. My poetry and art books are doing better than I ever could’ve imagined. And I’m not seeing anyone out in Cali. I’m thinking about moving back here. This is where my heart is.”
Lily would be ecstatic to have her best friend back, and I think it would be good for her. But it might be torture for me—having Penny so close again, having to fight the never-ending war of hearts, confusion, and morals. Not to mention the things we’ve said. And done. The silent, subtle hints we’ve been sending each other with the pictures and poems. The little hearts and flowers on each other’s social media posts. We’ve been doing this slow dance for a long time, but I have no idea where we stand.
“Penny,” I say, low and tentative. “I’m so fucking sorry about what happened back then. I—”
She immediately cuts me off. “You don’t have to apologize, Alex. That’s not who we are.”
“I do. I feel like I should’ve said or done something to stop them from taking you away and putting you in that place. I feel like the whole thing was my fault.”
“Please don’t worry about it. It’s nothing a few years of therapy didn’t fix.” She lets out a sad little laugh.
“It’s not funny.”
“I never said it was,” she says softly. “It’s in the past, and I don’t blame you at all. There’s really nothing you could’ve done, and nothing you did made it happen. Our emotions were all over the place, it was right, it was wrong, it was overwhelming… and I was obviously a bit out of my mind.”
I wonder if she believes that. So many times, late at night when insomnia is the only thing keeping me company, I’ve let my mind wander to places it should never go. Places she led me to when I was lost. A place where I tossed logic and diagnosis away, and I believed that everything she said that night might be true.
