But these were thoughts that only came in the middle of the night, when I allowed myself to retrace that Saturday of Maya and Roger’s wedding, going over each moment for clues of how, in some way, I could have done things differently. It wasn’t like the way I’d savored my night with Ethan, everything perfect from start to finish. With this, I could see nothing but the places where I could or should have done something else, all the way up to that moment on the dance floor, when everything had gotten to be too much and I’d chosen to run. What had I been thinking, in that moment? Even now as I replayed it, I wasn’t sure. It was like Ethan suddenly being conjured was what it took to make it finally clear Ambrose and I were already too messy and strange to ever be anything else.
What I had with Ben, instead, was neat and tidy, easy. I saw it now, as we started across the parking lot, away from Jump Java, toward his car so he could go to work. It was the way we were reflected in the glass of the stationery store, his hand holding mine, how we walked in rhythm, not rushing or dragging, just right. Because of all those pictures, I knew just how we appeared. A good-looking boy, tall with broad shoulders, in jeans and a Jumbo Smoothie polo shirt; a girl wearing a sundress and flip-flops, dark hair in a messy bun, sunglasses parked on her head. When the reflection stopped, it seemed odd to me that we didn’t, as well.
“Of course I do,” Jilly said, popping open another tube of sunscreen. “And we still have plenty of time.”
I watched her, skeptical, as she squeezed a dollop into her open palm. “It’s already July fifteenth. You leave in a little over a month.”
“Exactly,” she replied, pulling Bean, clothed in a swim diaper and a sunhat, closer to her. As she began to slather on the cream with one hand while keeping her in place with another, she added, “From the way you’re talking, you’d think it was tomorrow.”
To this I said nothing, watching as Bean squirmed in her grip. Ahead of us, some kid leaping into the pool did a cannonball, splashing water everywhere. “You are coming to my birthday dinner, though, right?”
“Louna.” She looked at me. “Of course. Why are you being so weird about this?”
“I’m not the one being weird,” I told her, meaning it. “I’ve been with Ben for three weeks and you haven’t even hung out with us once. I met Michael Salem, like, immediately.”
“I know Ben,” she said, finally unleashing Bean, who immediately started across the beach chair between us. “Remember? We went to school together?”
“You don’t know him as my boyfriend.”
“Is he really that different?” she asked. “And besides, with all those pictures he’s tagging you in on Ume I basically feel like I’m hanging out with you guys anyway.”
Hearing this, I felt stung enough to sit back in my chair, busying myself with another coat of sunblock. I was just starting on my legs when Crawford, sitting fully clothed on Jilly’s other side reading a thick novel, said, “She’s right, you know. You are avoiding her.”
Jilly sighed, adjusting her bathing suit straps as she sat back on her chair. “Crawford, shut up. How can I be avoiding her? She’s right here.”
“Avoiding her with her boyfriend,” he said in his flat, nasal tone, not looking up from the page in front of him. “You told her you guys had plans last night and couldn’t do dinner. But you sat on the couch and watched TV all night.”
Silence. If shame was audible, however, Jilly’s face would have been at high volume. “Is that true?” I said finally. “You lied to me?”
“Yes,” Crawford answered for her.
“No,” she said at the same time, then sighed out loud, turning to face me. “Okay, fine. Maybe I’ve been reluctant to embrace you with Ben. But it’s only because I feel so awful about everything that happened.”
“She wasn’t working at the truck a couple of nights ago when you wanted to go bowling, either,” Crawford added from her other side. “She was just sitting around.”
Jilly whipped her head around to face him. “Will you stop?”
“Sure,” he said agreeably, turning a page as Bean, another bottle of sunscreen now in her grip, started over to his chair.
I swallowed, still taken aback by what I’d just heard. Finally I said, “I don’t get it. What do you feel so awful about that you don’t even want to hang out with me?”
“I don’t want to hang out with you and Ben,” she corrected me.
“Is that different?”
“Yes,” she said emphatically, her entire body heaving with the word. She sat back again, putting her hands to her face, then dropped them. “Look, Louna. If I hadn’t opened my big mouth about Ethan, you’d be with Ambrose. I screwed everything up for you. If I go out with you and Ben, it’s like I think that’s okay.”
“I’m saying it’s okay,” I replied. “Also, you didn’t screw anything up for me. Ambrose and I were never meant to be anything other than friends.”
“See, I don’t believe that though,” she said.
“Well, I do.” I sat up, pulling my legs to my chest. “I’ve told you a million times, you didn’t do anything wrong by telling him about Ethan. You were just looking out for me.”
“And I did it by giving him information he then threw back at you, scaring you off, and now you’re with some other guy you barely even know.”
“You were with Michael Salem after one night at a party!”
“Because he’s my true love! You barely even talk about Ben except when you’re pressuring me to make it so you don’t have to be alone with him!”
“You guys are yelling,” Crawford said.
He was right. Jilly sat back, smoothing her suit. I cleared my throat. Another kid did a cannonball. Splash.
“Not every relationship,” I said slowly after a moment, “is the hot, heavy love story. Some of them are just, you know, more mellow.”
“Mellow,” she repeated. “That’s what all those Valentines and love songs are about, for sure.”
“Why do you care so much?” I demanded. “All you wanted was for me to be back out there. I’m out. I have a boyfriend.”
“You’ll notice,” she said, “that you did not include happy in that list.”
“Ben is a great guy.”
“Not the same thing.”
I exhaled, frustrated. “You understand that most of the time I was with Ambrose, he was driving me nuts, right? That we are total opposites?”
“What I understand,” she said quietly, “is what I saw with my own eyes. He might have made you crazy. But when you were with him, there was a spark. It wasn’t ever just mellow.”
“Also we were completely wrong for each other,” I said. “That’s why it never would have worked out.”
“Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe not. And it’s that maybe that is killing me. Maybe I denied you what I have with Michael Salem. And sitting and watching you pretend you have it now with someone else . . . I just can’t do it. I’m sorry.”
“Come on,” I said now. “There was and is no chance for me and Ambrose. I haven’t even seen him since that night, and I’m with Ben now. I’m sure he’s moved on. You can, too. I promise.”
“Okay, fine. I’ll try,” she said. Then she sighed, loudly, as Bean crawled back over to her, pulling up on the side of her chair. “And I’ll go out with you and Ben, if that’s what you want.”
“It is,” I replied, thinking how simple and easy this sounded. Just as quickly, I thought of Ambrose that first day we met, his own honest response: I hate not getting what I want. I wasn’t what he wanted, though, not really. Just a fleeting thought for a moment, I was sure, despite what Jilly said. And I wanted mellow. Or, at least, I’d take it.
CHAPTER
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