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“No, I’m good with water.”
She leans against the counter, eyeing me. “You’re Easton, right?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Nova’s always saying you and she are just friends. Is that really true?”
“We were more than friends.”
“Were?” Her brows rise. “You guys broke up?”
Jace glances at me as I try to decide how to answer.
“There was a misunderstanding. That’s why I need to talk to her.”
“What kind of misunderstanding?” Mara asks, her eyes narrowing. She doesn’t trust me. She’s on Nova’s side. I’m the bad guy, and I seem to keep making things worse.
“It’s a long story,” I tell her. “I don’t really want to talk about it. Hey, could you maybe call her and see if she picks up? She’s not answering my calls and I want to make sure she’s okay.”
Mara looks over at Jace. “I’ll go get your Coke.”
We watch as she fills a glass from the machine. She comes back over, sets the glass down, and goes back to the kitchen.
“Way to go, Easton,” Jace says, laughing.
“What the fuck did I do? I was just trying to explain what happened.”
“By calling it a misunderstanding?” He reaches across me for the maple syrup bottle that’s in the metal stand with the menus. “To a girl, a guy saying there was a misunderstanding means he thinks he was right and she was wrong.”
“That’s not what it means.”
“I’m telling you, it is. I’ve had this explained to me by just about every girl I’ve gone out with, because I, like you, have used the misunderstanding excuse many times, without success.” He pours syrup over his French toast then sets the bottle down.
“But that’s what it was, a misunderstanding.”
“Maybe, but if you call it that, girls think you’re saying they’re too stupid to understand whatever it is that led to the fight, or that you’re trying to cover your tracks and change what really happened. Like maybe you really didn’t want anyone knowing about this girl, but then you go and make up some story about how you kept her a secret to protect her, or whatever bullshit you come up with.”
“It’s not bullshit. That’s why I did it. If my parents found out about her, they’d try to keep me from seeing her.”
“How is that protecting her?” he says, shoving French toast in his mouth.
I pause a moment to think about that. “Okay, I guess it’s not, but if I wanted to keep seeing her, I couldn’t tell them about her.”
“Then you didn’t do it for her. You did it for you. You wanted to see her without having to deal with all the shit with your parents.” He glances at me. “I’m not blaming you. I’d do the same thing. I’m just saying, if this girl knows you well enough to see through your bullshit, you might want to just tell her the truth about why you were hiding her from us.”
Jace rarely says anything worth listening to, but this time he actually said something that’s making me rethink this situation with Nova. I really did think I was protecting her, but now I’m thinking Jace is right. Hiding her was more about me than her. I didn’t want to deal with my parents so I didn’t tell them the girl I was seeing was Nova. I didn’t want to have to stand up to them if they told me I couldn’t see her. It’s like I’m still that scared little kid, afraid if I stand up to my parents, they’ll send me back to foster care.
Is that really true? Is that what I’m doing? My parents would never give me up. I have no doubts about that, and yet I’ve been acting like it’s possible, trying to please my parents instead of fighting for what I want. How did I not realize this until now?
“You gonna eat that?” Jace says, pointing to my plate.
I haven’t touched my food. I’m not hungry. I haven’t been since Nova took off yesterday. I only had a few bites of Thanksgiving dinner. My mom kept trying to get me to eat more, but I couldn’t. I was too worried about Nova.
“I’m not hungry,” I say. “You want it?”
“You’re not even going to try it?”
“You sound like my mom.” I take a few bites. “Happy now?”
