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“I didn’t think of you like that back then because we were friends. Good friends, and I. . .really didn’t have a lot of those.”
He looks down.
“I didn’t have any, really. Not real ones.”
He looks back up at me.
“And then there was Lindsay, and, I don’t know. . .” He drops my hand and reaches for the book that’s now sitting beside him. “So, isn’t it kind of strange that I kept this all these years?”
He opens the book and pulls out a gold piece of paper.
No, it’s not paper.
My breath catches.
It’s an old, flat Twix wrapper.
“Is that. . .?”
“The first night you found me here, you gave me half of your Twix.”
“I remember.”
“I found it in my desk,” he says. “In this old journal.” He turns it over in his hands. “There’s actually a lot in here about you.”
“About me?”
He nods. “On that night, the night we met, I stuck the wrapper between the pages, and I wrote—” He looks down at the journal. It’s too dark to see now, so he moves it closer to a candle and reads. “Had the strangest night with Mack’s friend Emmy. She didn’t talk. She didn’t make me talk. But we sat on the dock at the pond. It was. . .nice. I don’t think she’s judgy like everyone else around here. I hope she’s there the next time I go to the pond.”
I can’t help it—tears brim in my eyes, and I smile.
“I think a part of me always loved you, Emmy.”
Did he just say love?
“You saw something in me that nobody else bothered to see. You’re kind. You’re. . .patient. You don’t keep some list of everything I’ve done wrong. Because of that, you knew me better than everyone, and I didn’t realize that until I moved back here.” He reaches over and brushes my hair away from my face. “But I don’t really want to be your friend anymore.”
I can’t think straight. “You. . .don’t?”
He shakes his head. “In fact, I can’t think of anything I’d rather be less.”
Tears cloud my eyes. I’ve dreamed of this moment for so many years, and now that it’s actually happening, I’m afraid I’m going to turn into a blubbering idiot.
I’m going to cry.
I’m going to melt into a puddle and slip through the cracks on this dock and into the pond where I’ll be lost forever.
“I want to know everything about you, Emmy. I want to listen to you unload after a bad day. I want to make sure you’re safe. I want to be the person you think I am because you see a better version of me than I do. I want to fall asleep on the couch watching stupid romance movies.”
I laugh through my tears.
“I get it now. I understand why someone would be a fool for love. That whole ‘when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible’ thing makes sense to me now.”
I blink. “Did you just quote When Harry Met Sally?”
He smirks. “I might’ve looked it up.”
I’m at a loss for words.
