Gael stared at her, incredulous.
He looked up at the sky, wishing he could believe her. But it seemed like in his life, there was always a big reason. Finally, he looked back to her.
“You know, you’re kind of an inspiration,” he said, eager to move the subject away from his parents.
Sammy laughed, turned her head ever so slightly to the side. “What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “You and John. It’s been three years, right? And you’re both in college and you’re still making it work.”
(Face palm.)
Sammy forced a smile. “I guess,” she said.
She stood up. “I really should get back to Piper. Good luck on the rest of the leaves.”
Gael watched her go in, completely unaware of what had just happened.
intervention
The next day at school, Gael was shocked to see Anika and Mason back at their old spots at the lunch table.
He stopped short. He did not need to deal with them right now. He had more than enough to process between Piper being angry, the discoveries about his dad, and his worries that Cara was already growing tired of him.
Of course, he could leave it to those two to know exactly how to kick him when he was down.
I feel a little bad even admitting this, but I didn’t try to stop them this time. I had watched, the night before, as Gael stared at his phone, desperately wanting to call the one person he’d relied on more than anyone when his parents were splitting up, the one person who’d been content to listen to him gripe and wonder and try to make sense of it all. He wanted to call Anika.
With my nudgings, coupled with his own resolve, he’d talked himself out of it. But still, he’d wanted to.
A little reminder that Anika was no longer in his corner wouldn’t hurt.
Okay, it would hurt, actually. Pretty badly. But sometimes hurt is necessary. It’s just an unfortunate reality of my job.
Anika smiled at Gael like nothing was the matter. Danny and Jenna were wearing fake, forced smiles of their own. Mason was the only one who avoided his eyes.
“Umm,” Gael said. “What are you doing?”
“We thought we’d join you guys for lunch. That’s cool, right?” Anika asked.
Anika had always been good at asking questions that weren’t really questions at all.
Gael crossed his arms. He looked to Mason, who was just staring at the table. “Umm, no, obviously that’s not cool.”
Anika sighed. “We were talking, and—”
“Who’s we?” Gael demanded.
Jenna cleared her throat and held Danny’s hand in hers. “Look, Gael, we get that you’re really hurt, and you totally have a right to be. But it’s not really fair to the group, you know? I mean, we’re all friends, and Danny and I didn’t do anything. And it has been more than a week of sitting apart. So we were thinking we could all start sitting together again.”
Gael scoffed. “Are you guys freaking kidding me? What, did you have like a team meeting about this without me?”
Danny squeezed Jenna’s hand. “We think you should come back to marching band, too,” Danny said. “We miss you in the sax section.”
Gael rolled his eyes. “Too late. Mr. Potter told me on Friday that I missed too many practices now to come back this semester. Such a shame, I really wish I could spend more time with all of you guys, together again.” Even Gael was surprised by the level of bitterness in his voice. There was silence for a moment.
“We’re just worried about you, Gael,” Anika said timidly. “We think it would be better if we were all friends again.”
Gael laughed, but underneath it, he felt like he might break down. It was one thing to deal with Mason’s awkward attempts at reconciliation. It was another to sit here, day in and day out, and pretend that everything was the same.
“If that’s what you all want, I’ll just eat by myself,” he said finally. He turned to head back out to his old trusty courtyard. It was pretty cold out today, but it didn’t matter. It was better than this.
And that’s what finally broke Mason’s stoicism. “No,” he said. “No, that’s not what I want at all.” He glared at Anika. “I told you this was a bad idea. Come on, we’ll go back to our table.”
Anika humphed. “Mason. I only agreed to change seats because I thought it would be temporary.”
“Whatever. I’m not doing this,” Mason snapped. And he pushed his chair out, the legs making an awful screeching sound, and walked away.
Anika sighed loudly, then followed him back to their table in the corner.
“Thanks a lot, guys,” Gael snapped, taking his usual seat and angrily pulling out his sandwich.
“It was Anika’s idea,” Danny said.
Jenna smacked him on the arm.
He shrugged. “Well, it was.”
Gael took a bite of his sandwich, but his eyes drifted toward Anika and Mason, where they sat with their backs to him.
Mason might be the worst best friend in the history of best friends, Gael thought, but it was nice to know that at least he hadn’t turned into a total lunatic.
rom-coms, an education