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“Listen…” He cocks his head to the side, his mouth tipping up in a crooked, dangerous smirk. He has a fading bruise on his jaw, I notice, and in the afternoon light, those eyes are so green, like leaves. “If you were so desperate to see me, you should have left me your number the other night.”
Say what?
My mouth falls open. “What are you talking about? Are you crazy?”
“I know I’m hard to resist,” he drawls, “but I’m kinda busy right now, as you can see. So go away.” His smirk fades. “I mean it.”
“Yeah, take a hike, chick.” One of his buddies swaggers over to him, slams his hand on Jarett’s shoulder and grins like the Joker. “Can’t you take a fucking hint? Guy doesn’t wanna know you. Come on, let’s go, dude.”
And Jarett just looks at me, chin lifted, long lashes lowered, his expression flat.
My God.
“I thought I knew you,” I whisper, my throat suddenly, embarrassingly clogged with tears. “I was so wrong.”
“Guess so,” he whispers back, and I don’t know if to laugh or cry.
Turning on my heel so fast I skid on the concrete, I march away, my vision blurry and my chest tight.
Good thing I never told Sydney how I felt about Jarett, or that I found him again.
Not that it matters, since Syd and me, we’re not on speaking terms right now.
And that makes it even worse. God, I wish we’d never had that fight. I wish I could just call her and tell her what happened. Of all nights, tonight I need her the most.
But I’m not making the first move. No way. Not happening. This is on her. She lied to me, and even when confronted won’t tell me the truth.
So it makes no sense that I find my phone in my hand just as the bus arrives and I climb up inside. My finger is scrolling down my list of contacts before I know what I’m doing.
Calling Sydney.
When the call connects, and I hear her voice, I have to turn away for the other passengers to hide my tears.
She picks up on the second ring. “Gigi?”
“Syd… Can we meet? Please.”
She’s my bestie, even if she lied, even if she didn’t make the first move. I’m the one calling, all but begging to see her, talk to her. It’s kind of humiliating. Kind of humbling, to realize how much I need her. Her support, her friendship, her presence.
To think I have no pride when it comes to those I care for, that caring for them makes me so weak.
Is all love that way?
“So, let me get this straight,” Sydney mutters, sprawled on her belly on my bed, mouth full of my mom’s world-famous butter cake. “The guy talking to you at the bar, the one you wanted to go back to, was Jarett? Jarett Lowe, from our school?”
“That’s the one.” I balance my plate of cake on my knees as I lean back against the headboard.
“The one you wanted to marry?”
“I never said that,” I scoff, picking at the cake, crumbling it on the plate.
Did I?
Nah.
“The one you wouldn’t ever shut up about,” Syd goes on, and I pause with a crumb of cake in my hand. “That you drew hearts and arrows with your initials in your notebooks.”
“Not true. Why are you saying these things?”
