Chapter 14

Chapter 14

"Scarlett! What time is your party tonight?" She was the fifth person who had asked me that question so far and I had only walked from my car to my locker.

"I'm not having one," I responded.

"Why?" the girl asked, obviously disappointed. How could I explain to her in one sentence or less everything that had happened over the last year? I couldn't. It was too much. It was everything.

The day after last years' party, Jack and Sage had walked around school hand in hand. Giving their love a second chance. Apparently, eight years of friendship didn't deserve a second chance, though, because he didn't text me after I flipped him off. I didn't text him either. Because he was the one in the wrong. He'd shut me in a closet with Micah. He'd kissed the girl next to me rather than me. He was a total jerk.

He was angry over Micah! He had thought I was changing allegiances and wanted to date or kiss or do something with his mortal enemy? He didn't know me at all. It was such a petty, unfounded thing to break off an eight-year friendship over, and just thinking about it made my blood boil. Or it had in the beginning. My anger was more of a simmer now, just hanging out in the background of my life.

Maybe if one of us had swallowed our pride in the weeks that followed, we could've smoothed things over. But neither of us had. And time passed. He broke up with Sage after a couple months. Still no text from him. I got accepted to the college we'd been talking about for years. Still no text from me. And now here we were, having not spoken for an entire year.

Even just thinking about it made my eyes sting.

I'd hung out with the drama club girls at lunch. I'd actually gotten close with Laney, Troy's girlfriend. We'd do sleepovers and movie nights. We'd talk about school work and graduating. She couldn't read my mind. Maybe best friends weren't supposed to be able to do that.

"But Troy is!" I called to the girl asking about the party, and opened my locker. "Go to his!" Troy had decided to take over my tradition this year, and he was going to do an excellent job.

"Hey," Laney said now, leaning her shoulder against the closed locker next to mine.

"Hi," I said with a smile.

"What was that about?" she asked, nodding toward the retreating girl.

"I was telling her about Troy's party. I should've told her it was co-ed." Troy's definition of co-ed—a party with both couples and singles. Micah and Cassidy had graduated last year, so there was no longer any competition. Not that there would be even if they hadn't. As soon as Micah left for college, he'd dumped Cassidy. I kind of felt bad for her, but the news hadn't surprised me at all. It was very Micah of him.

Laney gave a little chuckle, then sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and chewed on it, her nervous habit, before saying, "I have news for you, and I don't know if I should tell you or not."

"Is it bad news or good news?"

"I don't know."

I shut my locker. "Will I hear it whether you tell me or not?"

"You'll find out for sure."

"Then I'd rather hear it from you."

"Troy invited Jack to the party."

My heart stuttered in my chest and I swallowed hard. I knew Jack and Troy still hung out, but he avoided talking about it when I was around. Of course he invited Jack. Why would I think he'd choose me over him?

"Is that good news or bad news?" she asked.

"I don't know," I whispered, and I didn't. It wasn't a lack of opportunities that had been keeping me and Jack apart; I was sure about that. There were plenty of times where we could've been at the same place on the same day, and either he had avoided it or I had. It wasn't like if we had ever been in the same room at the same time our friendship would've been magically repaired. I didn't even know if I wanted it to be... no, that was a lie. I did know. I wanted it to be, but I didn't know if it was possible and I was tired of heartbreak.

Sometimes things just changed, and I had to accept that.

I'd accepted my parents' divorce. It had taken too long. But I had. They were happy. And that made me happy.

I'd accepted that Valentine's Day could not be a holiday for single people. And that was okay. Lovers could have their holiday, and I was done trying to commandeer it. That took me too long to accept as well. I'd become too obsessed.

I needed to accept that I'd also lost my best friend.

But maybe, maybe before accepting that, I needed to actually try to fix things. Ask him for what I needed. Tell him how he'd hurt me. Be vulnerable. That was hard for me. I'd grown up being hyper-independent. I used to think that was a strength. It took me too long to realize it was actually a weakness.

It wasn't that I had made zero effort with Jack this last year. I'd smiled at him a couple times in the halls if we passed each other. He'd smile back. I liked a few of his posts. He'd done the same. We may have slammed shut the metaphorical door on each other but we hadn't locked it.

"Does he know that I'm coming?" I asked.

"I think so," she said.

"And he's still going to come?"

"I think so."

That made my heart beat faster. "Should I send him a rose?"

Her eyebrows popped up.

"With a really bad poem attached."

"What message are you trying to convey? That you're in love with him or that you want to be friends again."

"Uh..." I froze.

"Because you are in love with him, right?" she asked.

I took a deep breath in through my nose. Maybe she could read my mind.

"You get this longing look in your eyes when you see him," she said. "You immediately change the subject any time I've ever brought him up. Wait, is that also why when Cooper Morris made out with you over the summer, you ghosted him the next day."

I let out a breathy laugh. "I mean, that was mostly because his kissing style is very... wet."

She curled her lip. "Ew."

I hooked my arm in hers as we walked toward class. "So you think a rose is the wrong call?"

"I don't know; you haven't answered my question."

"What was your question again?"

"What message are you trying to convey?"

"Right. I guess I need to figure that out." If some miracle happened, did I want things to return to exactly how they were? Could I get over the simmering anger I'd felt for a year now? Could I even hope for something more?

When my entire world fell apart

You picked up the pieces of my heart

I know it's been a whole year

And I've faced my greatest fear

Of living in a world without you.

"Oh wow, that's the cheesiest thing I've ever read," Laney said at lunch, handing the paper back to me and opening a bag of chips.

We sat in a corner of the cafeteria. It was cold outside today and we didn't want to sit on the courtyard steps where we normally ate.

"And terrible, right? It has to be terrible for it to be worthy of our inside joke."

I only had two more periods to buy a rose and have the leadership students deliver it to him. They were walking around the cafeteria now with their basket and their cash box, trying to drum up business. I was starting to think this was a bad idea. I wondered if I was really just chickening out, letting my fear take over.

"You might need to add a color or two," Laney said. "The school poems always have colors."

"True." I squeezed my eyes closed, thinking, then took a pen to the last two lines, scratching them out. "How about instead of the greatest fear line: the sky is no longer blue/ In this world I've been living without you." I jotted those down.

She laughed. "Yes. How are you going to finish it? It needs a call to action. Putting the ball in his court and all that."

"Let's redo spin the bottle/ And this time you have to kiss me," Troy said. I hadn't thought he was listening. He'd been sitting across from us on his phone, his elbows on the table, his hands clasped around the back of his neck, but with his suggestion, he looked up.

"That doesn't rhyme," I said.

"Let's have a spin the bottle redo/ And this time I want to kiss you," he said then raised his hands in the air. "I'm a genius."

I laughed. "You are, but I'm not going to tell him I want to kiss him in a terrible poem."

"You want to do that face to face?" Laney asked.

"Maybe." I put pen to paper again. "How about just, Can we have a redo/ There's so much I need to tell you."

"He really is an idiot," Troy said. "I told him last year you wanted to kiss him."

"Wait, what?"

Laney reached over the table to shove his shoulder.

"You knew too?" I asked, turning to her.

"Troy let it slip at your party before Micah showed up," Laney said.

"He knew I wanted to kiss him before Micah showed up?" I practically screamed, then clamped my mouth shut and looked around to see if anyone had heard me. And here I'd been thinking for an entire year that Micah showing up had been the problem. That it had made Jack jealous, or angry with me. "Then why did he think I wanted to kiss Micah?"

"Because guys are idiots," Troy said.

I shook my head. I couldn't believe this. "Wait, so has he been avoiding me because he was jealous over Micah or because he found out I wanted to kiss him and didn't want me to?" Either of those reasons made my stomach hurt.

"I'm not sure," Troy said with a shrug, not helping at all. "He liked you for a while so I would think he'd want you to kiss him."

"All this time he knew how I felt?"

"No, he couldn't have known the extent of it," Laney said.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "This is a mistake. I'm just going to get hurt, aren't I? He had all the time in the world to talk this out with me and he didn't." I crumbled the piece of paper in my fist, got up, and threw it away with my half-eaten lunch. "I'm going for a walk so you two can enjoy your Valentine's Day."

"We're spending it with you!" Troy yelled as I walked away. "It's tradition now!"