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But even as I say it, I know I shouldn’t. That day wasn’t about me, so why do I keep wallowing in it?
“Are we going to argue now? About which one of us was more wrong?”
“No,” I say. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Look, we haven’t spoken in eight years. Your own sister didn’t even know we were friends.”
“Yeah, why is that?” he asks.
“Because you never told her,” I say.
“Neither did you.”
I pause.
“Fair point,” I concede, turning away. “But there was no way I was going to tell anyone, especially her. What would that have done to you, telling everyone that you were friends with one of the biggest nerds in the school?”
He laughs.
“You know that was never how I saw you, right?”
I face him, which is a mistake, because the way he’s looking at me now—that trademark intensity behind his eyes that I used to see in my dreams—instantly breaks down any defenses I was marshaling.
He leans in a bit closer, and I think how nice he looks with facial hair.
“Never.”
I angle slightly back. “It’s true. I was a nerd. Correction,” I hold up a pointer finger. “I am a nerd. And proud of it. I think it’s one of my best qualities.”
“Well, good,” he says. “I’m glad you’re happy with who you are. You should be. But I still didn’t see you that way.”
It’s gone this far, I might as well speak aloud the question pinballing around in my head. “Then. . .how did you see me? Like another little sister?”
He pauses, looking at me, almost as though he’s trying to work things out in his head.
“Emmy. We were. . .friends. I thought of you as a friend. A good one. Maybe the best one.”
That hits my heart. His best friend.
But not more than that.
“My only friend, at times. Is that bad?”
“I should get back before it gets dark.” I stand and start down the dock because somehow my cheeks are flaming again, and my humiliation has only gotten worse. I am proud of being a “nerd,” but it does sting sometimes knowing it cements my place in people’s lives.
“Emmy,” he says.
I stop and look at him.
“Are we still?”
“Still what?”
He takes a step closer. “Friends.”
He looks so earnest when he says it, I almost think he missed talking to me as much as I missed talking to him, though likely for entirely different reasons.
“Yeah,” I say. “Of course.”
He breathes out, almost like a sigh of relief.
