“Really?” she challenges. “Then why are you crying?”
Another tear, and another. I’m crying because he drove off with no shirt and no shoes, because he never should have been there in the first place, because when he asked me why I came to get him, I should have told him how horrible this week has been without him, how I miss his smile, his laugh, the way he used to kiss me goodnight. How I still sleep in his T-shirt because I miss his arms around me, how I can’t even bring myself to wash it.
“Just drop it, Rowan.”
“No,” she argues. “This is ridiculous. I’m your best friend, and I know you’ve never been in love before but—”
“Stop,” I warn, feeling all the hurt inside me burn into anger, which feels more familiar, more safe. I cling to it.
Rowan sighs. “He loves you back, Dee. No one’s breaking your heart here but you.”
“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” I snap. I get up and walk down the hallway toward my room, but she follows me.
“Oh really? Why did you go to his mom’s tonight? And don’t give me the same bullshit reason you gave Joel.”
I close the door between us, but Rowan throws it open.
“Why the fuck do you care?” I shout at her. “Your life is perfect! You have a perfect guy and a perfect family and everything’s so goddamn fucking easy!”
“Oh, excuse me while I cry you a river, Dee,” she snaps back. “Joel is a GREAT fucking guy. And he ADORES you. So let’s all cry about it! Because that makes ANY sense.”
I head into my bathroom, but Rowan jams her foot against the door before I can close it. I turn around and glare at her, my cheeks hot with tears.
“I’m trying to help you,” she says, everything about her stony and uncompromising.
“You can help me by minding your own fucking business.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Leave. Me. The fuck. Alone!”
She bites the inside of her cheek to keep from lashing out at me, and I already know I shouldn’t have said what I said. But I don’t take it back, not any of it, and she finally says, “Fine. You want me to leave? I’m leaving. Call me when you’re ready to stop lying.”
“Lying to who?” I yell at the back of her head when she gets to the front door.
“Yourself!” she shouts back, and then the door slams behind her.
That night, when I cry in the shower, it’s not just because I miss Joel. It’s because I miss my best friend. Because I miss my old self. Because I miss a time that never really existed—a time when I was happy.
I change into pajamas and wrap my hair in a towel, not bothering to dry it before I crawl into bed with Joel’s T-shirt, breathing in his scent and wishing he were here with me to hold me close and tell me I’m not broken.
The closest I ever got to happiness was when I was on the receiving end of his smiles, his kisses, his secrets. When we held hands and made each other laugh. When he loved me.
Tears soak into my pillow when I remember him standing barefoot in his mom’s gravel driveway asking me why I came to get him. Rowan asked me the same question. I didn’t give Rowan an answer, and I gave Joel a lie.
Because I wanted to make sure you went home with Adam, I said.
But what I should have said was, Because I love you.
A heavy sob breaks free from some locked-away place inside me, and I hug Joel’s T-shirt tighter, letting myself say the words, even if they’re only in my head while I sob into my pillow.
I tell him I love him on Easter at the pool. I tell him I love him while we’re cooking dinner with my dad. I tell him I love him when he crawls in my bedroom window.
I say it while he cries in my arms on his birthday. I say it while I lie on his chest on the bus.
I cry myself to sleep, knowing it’s too late but saying it over and over and over again.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I WAIT SEVEN days to text Rowan. Seven days to sort through my feelings and figure out what I’m going to say. On Saturday morning, we meet at IHOP. I’m sitting in a booth when she slides into the seat across from me. Her long blonde hair is up in a messy bun, her blue eyes shining with worry she’s doing her best to hide.
“I missed you,” I say, and she abruptly stands back up and slides in beside me, capturing me in a bone-crushing hug.
“I missed you too,” she says against my hair. “I’m sorry I was such a bitch.”
I shake my head against her cheek, holding her just as tightly as she’s holding me. “No, you were right.”
She loosens her hold around my neck, like she’s just realized she’s hugging a stranger, and when she pulls away, she looks at me like one.
I take a deep breath, intending to tell her that I’ve realized I love Joel, but the words get caught in my throat.
“Right about what?” she asks.