Lightning cracks across the sky again and a loud clap of thunder silences her before I even have to say anything. I spin around to look at her. Her dress is soaked completely through, and her hair is now hanging dull and limp around her face.
“Didn’t want to hurt me?” I laugh. “By sneaking around behind my back? Sharing secrets with my best friend—”
“Sam’s my best friend too.”
“You lied to my face, Kimberly. For months.” I unlock my car door and rip it open so hard it almost swings back. “Consider me hurt.”
I get in the car and slam the door.
Berkeley. The word echoes around my head, every syllable a fresh stab of betrayal.
Berkeley. Berkeley.
She applied and she didn’t even tell me. She sent in supplemental essays and updated transcripts, and got in months ago, and she just sat there pretending. Pretending while we picked out dorms and classes and talked about road trips home for breaks, knowing all along she was never going to go to UCLA.
She told Sam.
Why didn’t she tell me?
I’m ready to get out of here, but she slides into the passenger side before I can pull the gearshift out of park. I pause for a moment, wanting to tell her to get out, but I can’t bring myself to do it.
We have to figure this out. The bracelet is still in my pocket.
I put my foot down on the gas and we take off through the parking lot and out onto the main road, the wheels sliding on the wet ground as we turn.
“Kyle!” she says, clicking her seat belt into place. “Slow down.”
I flick my windshield wipers on to the fastest setting, but it’s still not fast enough for the sheets of rain pummeling the now-fogging glass.
“This makes no sense. We’ve been planning all year. You, me, Sam. Our plans.” I reach up, swiping at the condensation to make a space big enough to see. My fingers hit the tiny disco ball slung around my rearview mirror, sending it swinging. It does make sense, though, in a Kimberly kind of way. I think of all the times she’s changed her mind at the last minute, leaving me and Sam hanging. Like when she ditched our freshman-year formal to hang out with the varsity cheerleaders, or dropped us in the middle of a group final to work with the valedictorian instead. Moments I bury deep until we’re fighting, like now. “You just decide, ‘Screw it! I’ll do what I want.’ Just like you always do.”
There’s a clap of thunder, and the lightning that follows reflects off the glittering silver of the ball, scattering it all around the car.
“What I want? I never do what I want. If you just listen to me for five freaking seconds.” She stops talking as we whiz past the street to my house, her head turning as it fades away. “You missed the turn!”
“I’m going to the pond,” I say. I just keep thinking if I can get us there, I can salvage this night. I can salvage this.
“Stop. No, you’re not. The pond will be an ocean right now. Just turn around.”
“You’ve been thinking about this for a while, haven’t you?” I ask, ignoring her. A tractor trailer barrels past us, sending a shower of water onto our windshield. I grip the steering wheel tighter, slowing down to steady the car. “You must have been. Kim, you could’ve just said you wanted to go to Berkeley, not UCLA. It’s not like I have the football scholarship anymore. I don’t care where we go, as long as we’re togeth—”
“I don’t want to be together!”
The words slap me right across the face. I jerk my eyes from the road to look at her, this girl I’ve loved since third grade. I don’t even recognize her right now.
We’ve “broken up” plenty of times in the past, but not like this. Small, dramatic fights that are over the next day like a stomach virus. She’s never said that.
“I mean…” She stops and her eyes turn away from me, widening. “Kyle!”
My head whips back to the front windshield just in time to see a blinking pair of yellow hazard lights in front of us. I hammer the brakes, and the car slides underneath us without slowing.
Suddenly I don’t have any control over the direction we’re going in.
I fight against it as I try to avoid a stalled car in the dead center of our lane, gripping the steering wheel tightly as I attempt to steer into the skid. The car miraculously regains traction just in time, and we swerve out of the way of the stopped car.
I pull onto the shoulder and carefully slow to a stop, my chest heaving.
That was close.
“I’m sorry.” I take a long, steadying breath, looking over at Kimberly to see she is pale, shaken, the sharp curve of her collarbone intensifying and receding as she struggles to catch her breath.
She’s okay.
But we aren’t.
I don’t want to be together.
“Are we…?” I start to say, the words struggling to come out, fighting their way to the surface. “Are we breaking up?”
She turns her eyes to me, and I can see the tears lightening the blue of her irises. Normally, I would wipe the tears away and tell her everything will be okay.
But this time I need her to tell me that.
“I need you to listen to me,” she says, her voice quivering.
I nod, the near accident wiping the anger away and replacing it with something even more intense.
Fear.
“I’m listening.”
I tighten my jaw as she gathers her thoughts, my hand already reaching up to feel the charm bracelet inside my jacket while my heart thumps loudly in my chest just above it.
“I’ve only ever known myself as Kyle’s girlfriend,” she finally says.
I stare at her, taken aback. What does that even mean?
She sighs, taking in my incredulous expression. She searches for the right words. “When you blew out your shoulder—”
“This isn’t about my damn shoulder,” I say, hitting the steering wheel with my palm. This is about us.