“Anything, ask away.” He wouldn’t just agree like this if he didn’t know I’m testing the weight of us before I see Evan. I probably shouldn’t take advantage, but I want to feel close to him, emotionally, right now.
“What’s your middle name?” Crap, I’m off my game and jumped the gun. I wasted a coveted question on something I could easily found out elsewhere.
“Dane.”
“Uh...” I know what’s he saying, and want to know his first name, but I can’t ask or he may count it as my second question.
He snickers. “Don’t want to burn a question, huh?” Scary ESP on this boy. “Okay, I’ll be nice. My name is Michael Dane Kendrick. I go by Dane, my middle name.”
“I like it, Dane’s a beautiful name. It suits you. Not that Michael isn’t great, too.”
He’s amused by my long-winded response. “Thank you, baby.”
The knock at the door comes and I have to let him go before my “deep” question...of course.
“Laney, please call me when you’re done talking to him, okay?”
“Okay,” I sigh, the dread building up inside of me. “Seriously, Laney, no matter what time, you call me.”
For a split second, the moment I see him, I forget that I’m mad at him. I forget we’re miles apart now. I forget all that I’ve done, become, and experienced without him. He’s so handsome, so familiar. He has bags under his eyes, which aren’t as sparkling blue as usual, but his slight smile still affects me.
“Hey, pretty.”
Look at him, my Tod, my best friend. The righter of wrongs, protector from evil, prom date, first kiss; standing before me in the flesh. Spending only a fraction of the time apart that we’ve spent together, I’ve let another slip in and divide us. How could I be so callous? How could I cast my forever aside so easily?
But it hadn’t been easy, and we had mutually agreed, no...I can’t keep doing this. I can’t feel guilty for feeling, for living; but I can feel guilty about only being completely honest with one of them. I’m about to fix it right now.
“Hey, come on in.” I scoot back to make room for him and close the door behind him. He sits on the couch and rests his arms on his knees, head in his hands. It takes him a while to gather himself and finally look at me where I sit at the opposite end of the couch.
“Laney, I’m so sorry...for so much. I’m sorry for what Kaitlyn did and for what she said last night. That drunk bitch followed me around all night, trying to tell me she loves me, but I didn’t give her the time of day, Laney, I swear. I hate her, you know I do.”
I want to believe him, if just for the sake of our friendship, but part of me doesn’t. “Why didn’t you leave when you saw her there?”
“Why should I leave? That bitch isn’t going to dictate where I go.”
No, just where I go. “Sometimes you have to be the bigger person and walk away, Evan. Staying just gave her the chance to keep following you, to keep talking to you. If it really bothered you, you would’ve left.” I cross my arms over my chest, eyebrows raised; challenging him to tell me I’m wrong.
He ponders on this a while before speaking. “You’re right. I know you’re right, but I was drunk and not thinking. I’m sorry, Laney, please forgive me.”
“I can’t be friends with you if you continue to allow her opportunities to be around you. I think of it as a direct betrayal.” Yeah, I can hear the hypocrisy in my words, but this is different—the base of everything is true friendship, and I haven’t betrayed that, and he shouldn’t, either. If you blatantly screw Evan over, well then, I’m done with you and I demand the same loyalty in return.
“I agree; it won’t happen again, Laney. I swear.” “Okay, then I’ll forgive you.” I relax my shoulders. I do believe and forgive him, but I had to make sure he knows how serious I am about my stance.
He moves close to me and puts his arms around me. I can’t help it, I breathe in his scent, soak up his feel and I think of what could have been.
“Can I stay with you tonight? I miss you so much, munchkin. I love you so much, I need to hold you.”
God, what do I do?
“I miss you too, Evan, all the time, but I can’t do the merry-go-round thing anymore. I’m making myself crazy trying to figure out you and me or me and Dane.” Oh shit, it just popped out. I didn’t want to tell him like this.
“Who the fuck is Dane?” he growls, his back bowing.
“I-I told you about him. I met him at school. He’s part of my group of friends, my roommate dates his brother, remember?”
“Vaguely. I don’t remember you telling me anything much. Now you have to figure you and him out? What’s that mean?” His face is red and his eyes narrow.
“Lower your voice, Evan, you’re gonna wake up Dad!” I angry-whisper at him.
“Sorry,” he says, much lower, “but tell me, Laney.
Tell me about Dane, right now.”
“I don’t know what to say, really. First of all, he knows about you; our past, our problems with distance, how I feel about you. He likes me and he wants me to be his girlfriend or whatever.”
“Have you fucked him?”