Chapter 14

14

My sisters wake me up on Christmas morning by placing BooBoo and Pickles on my chest. At first, coming out of my sleepy state, all I feel is the pleasant pressure of cat paws. But then Pickles tries to put his butt on my face.

“Ugh! Come on!” I yell, throwing off the covers. Pickles darts away and hides under my desk. BooBoo stays on the bed, licking his paws.

“Merry Catsmas!” Daphne says. “Do you think Santa Paws came?”

“That’s right, BooBoo, we don’t let anyone scare us away,” Thora says, petting him where he lays sprawled on my extra pillow. “Come on, Scots, time to open presents!”

“Not in the mood yet,” I say, turning away from them. “Let me sleep.”

I don’t want to get up and face the day, not when I’m still heartsore from last night, but my sisters practically wrench me from the bed. Daphne jams a Santa hat on my head and the two of them lead me downstairs, where Mom and Dad are sipping coffee in matching pajamas.

“How cute do we look?” Dad says, spreading his arms so I can see the elf print on his green pajama top.

“Merry Christmas, honey!” Mom says, wrapping me in a hug. “Did you and Irene have fun last night? Did you kiss under some mistletoe?”

My cheeks flush, but not for the reason they think.

“You make a precious couple,” Dad says. “Next year we’ll get you matching pajamas, too.”

“Can we stop?” My tone is sour even if I don’t want it to be. I feel like I could cry any moment.

“Here, you little brat,” Thora says, pressing a mug of coffee and a cinnamon cookie into my hand. “Chug that. Turn your Grinchy frown upside down.”

We open presents in turns. Daphne gasps over her first perfume, a gift from Thora and me. Mom squeals over a new gardening hat Dad picked out for her. Thora actually tears up when she unwraps the hand-knit bonnets Daphne made for Pickles and BooBoo.

When I pick out a big, lumpy present, Mom leans forward in her armchair. “Ooh, this is our favorite!”

I shred the paper open to reveal a vintage denim jacket, copper buttons and all, with a white fleece lining along the top.

“Wow,” I say, running my hand over it. “I really love—”

“Turn it around!” Dad says.

The back is embroidered with a cartoon basketball. In cursive script, the words I Bounce Back flow around it.

“We had it custom made!” Mom says.

“Isn’t it cute, Scottie?” Thora says in a voice that means Don’t burst their bubble.

I trace my fingers over the embroidered script. To my embarrassment, my throat grows thick and my eyes well up. The tears drop before I can hide them.

“Scottie?” Mom says. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”

It takes everything I have to get myself under control. I will not ruin Christmas morning by admitting my resilience has been a facade, that I literally bought this confidence they keep congratulating me for.

“I’m just very touched. Thank you, guys.”

Mom and Dad beam at each other. My sisters trade a curious look, but they don’t say anything. I force a smile and pull the jacket on over my pajama shirt. It fits almost perfectly.

---

The last three days of December are when the Earl-Hewetts knock down the price of their Christmas inventory, so Danielle and I make plans to shop the discount aisles at the Emporium. We’re halfway down the specialty aisle, distracted by a Hanukkah sweater Gunther might like, when she says something that startles me.

“So … I saw Honey-Belle at the Munny last night, and she told me you and Irene are taking a break.”

Her tone is heavy, like she’s been waiting to drop this all afternoon. The air between us changes immediately. I lower the Hanukkah sweater and struggle to meet her eyes.

“Are you really gonna make me talk about this?” I ask. “Here?”

“Yes.” She takes the sweater from me and places it back on the shelf. “What’s going on? I thought you liked her. And she obviously likes you, too.”

I swallow. “I do like her.”

“But?”

I know she’s not going to like this part. “But I’m still trying to get over Tally.”

Danielle scrunches her face. “Really? Still?”

“Can you not shame me for this, please? I’m trying to be honest with you.” My voice shakes. “I know you hate her. I know everyone does. I’m trying to hate her, too. But I can’t.”

I slide to the floor, pulling my new denim jacket cuffs over my hands. The linoleum tile is cool beneath my pants.

Danielle slides down next to me. We stare ahead to the snow globes display in front of us. “You’re right. That was insensitive. I’m sorry.” She pauses. “I don’t hate Tally. I just hate the way she’s made you feel. I hate that everything you’ve done for the last few months has been a response to her. It’s like you’re not even your full self anymore. You’re just this … reaction.”

She sounds like Thora. You’ve been a walking insecurity … I keep my gaze on the snow globes and try to unclench my jaw. “Wow, D, great pep talk. Thanks so much.”

Her eyes bore into the side of my head. “I’m not trying to give you a pep talk. I’m trying to give you the truth.”

“You wanna talk about truth?” I round on her. “Fine. Let’s go there. Let’s talk about Kevin.”

Her eyes bug out the slightest bit. “That’s not a thing.”

“It’s absolutely a thing.”

“Kevin’s our friend. I can’t just have feelings for him out of nowhere.”

“You absolutely can, you’re just not letting yourself. You have literally everything going for you. You’re the captain of our team, you have amazing grades, and you’re getting accepted to a million colleges, but you’re holding back when it comes to Kevin even though he obviously likes you, too.”

“You don’t know that he likes me,” she shoots back.

“None of us are gonna know until you ask him out. Stop being so afraid.”

“Don’t lecture me, dude.”

“You’ve been lecturing me!”

Our voices have gotten heated. We pull away from each other, huffing. Danielle’s breathing is loud and angry. I can’t stop grinding my teeth.

“Look,” Danielle says finally, her tone even again. She crosses her skinny ankles. “You’re right. I’m chickenshit when it comes to Kev. I don’t know how to do this. I’m not good at things that don’t come naturally to me.”

That makes me laugh, which breaks some of the tension. “What?”

“Dating!” she says. “I’m not good at dating! School is easy. Basketball is easy. College applications are actually fun. But how the hell am I supposed to figure out romance when it feels like a foreign fucking language?”

“Oh my god.” I can’t help myself; I’m still laughing. “You’re totally that overachieving nerd who doesn’t know how to be bad at something.”

She drags a hand down her face. “Shut up.”

“How can someone be bad at dating, Danielle?”

“It’s been hard for you, hasn’t it? I don’t wanna get hurt like that.”

That shuts me up. We go back to staring at the snow globes. An older woman in a purple beaded necklace skirts by us with her shopping cart, smiling like it’s completely normal that we’re sitting on our asses in the middle of the Emporium aisle.

“I’m sorry,” Danielle says again. “It’s just … sometimes it seems like dating Tally turned you into someone you’re not. You were always so sure of everything, and then suddenly you weren’t.”

“Yeah,” I agree, dropping my head into my hands. I’m not mad anymore. I know she’s right. “That tracks.”

“You do understand that she’s bad for you, right? I mean, like, you can objectively see that?”

My chest is suddenly heavy. “I don’t know how to let go of her.”

“That’s because she’s made it impossible for you to move on,” Danielle says gently. She pauses. “But you’ve made it impossible, too.”

I look at her. We both have brown eyes, but Danielle’s have always been a deeper shade, more solid than my watered-down color. Seeing them now makes me feel safe.

“What do I do?”

“You cut the cord,” she says simply. “Whatever that means to you. If you have to block her number, do it. If you have to write an angry letter and burn it, do it. But you have to let go, dude.”

My throat thickens the way it’s been doing these last few days. “I don’t know if I can. It’s like … I’m holding on to this shred of her, and even though it’s a bad shred, it’s still something. The moment I let that shred go, I’ll have nothing left.”

Danielle scoots closer. She kicks her sneakers against mine. “You’ll have nothing left of her, but you’ll have yourself, Scottie.”

I breathe in, breathe out. My knee-jerk response is to say Myself isn’t enough, but I can’t voice that aloud. I don’t want my best friend’s pity and I don’t want to burden her with my grief. It’s not her job to fill the hole inside my heart.

“Come on,” I say, standing up. “Let’s get a coffee. We promised Teddy a Sweet Noelle’s pastry.”

I can tell Danielle is concerned about me, but she doesn’t push it. I don’t bring up the Kevin thing, either. We get in her car and play our favorite eighties and nineties ballads playlist on the way to Sweet Noelle’s, but I’m not really there. I’m deep in my head, trying to figure out how to let go of Tally.

---

I can’t remember the last time I drove into Candlehawk. Probably over the summer, when Tally wanted to try that pop-up restaurant that sold overpriced ramen. I cruise down their pristine streets, knowing my hand-me-down Jetta looks out of place. The township is beautifully decorated for the holidays with string lights across the square and silver wreaths on the lampposts. It’s elegant, tasteful, picture-perfect. The exact opposite of the street in Grandma Earl where Irene took me to see the lights.

I’m not sure where to park when I drive into the high school lot. Everything seems so formal and structured. There’s a security guard driving around on a golf cart, but he doesn’t say anything when I park in a random space near the front. The marquee is almost a twin of ours, except the message reads WINTER RESPITE—PLEASE ENJOY. I have a sudden, mischievous urge to mess with it, but I don’t want the security guard to catch me. It’s not why I’m here, anyway.

The basketball game has already started by the time I get inside. I planned it that way. I don’t want Tally to notice me.

The stands are packed with Candlehawk fans. It’s more crowded than I expected, even on New Year’s Eve. I sneak up the side of the bleachers, past a well-groomed family and a college guy with a handlebar mustache. No one bats an eye at me, which is exactly what I want. For the first time in months, I have no role to play. I am free to sit here and simply watch the girl I used to love. I’m not sure this is what Danielle had in mind when she told me to do whatever it takes to cut the cord, but this is what I need, so it’s what I’m doing.

Tally’s hair is parted in twin braids. I remember a morning at her house, sitting on her bed in our pajamas, telling funny stories while her fingers instinctively braided her curls. Those were my favorite moments with her: When I had glimpses into the soft, simple, private Tally who wasn’t aware of her habits and quirks. The version of her that could just be.

She’s playing well today. Not the best I’ve seen her do, but still a strong performance. She sinks a few shots and snags a couple of rebounds. She looks completely at home, and I remember, with a bittersweet pang, that she is.

When the game ends with a decisive win for Candlehawk, I slip down the bleachers and loiter off the side of the court. Tally and her teammates are shaking hands with their opponents. They linger afterward, telling jokes while they chug their water bottles. It’s not until they head off to their locker room that Tally notices me.

She stops in her tracks. I stay planted where I am, hands at my sides, waiting. I’m not sure she’ll come to me. I know it’s her choice to make. But if she feels any ounce of the connection that I still feel, I know she won’t be able to stay away.

When she finally heads in my direction, I let out the breath I’ve been holding. She lopes toward me in that easy, languid way she has. Something tugs at my chest.

“Hi,” I say, hoping I sound more sure than I feel.

“Hi,” she says hesitantly. “What are you doing here?”

She stares at me with those striking blue eyes, the ones that made me feel seen and known and loved like I’d never been before. My heart thumps. My breath catches. It’s been months, but the sadness still hits me like a violent wave. I thought I’d pulled myself out of the water, especially after beating her in the Christmas Classic. Turns out I was just surfing between storms.

Tally’s expression softens. She knows me well enough—she will always know me well enough—to understand the things I cannot say.

“Needing closure?” she asks.

I swallow. “Something like that.”

She studies me. I let her.

“Come on,” she says finally, gesturing for me to follow her. “The backup gym is probably free.”

---

In the auxiliary gym, which is unsurprisingly nicer than Grandma Earl’s main gym, we shoot free throws and layups. Tally is still warm from the game, but it takes me a few minutes to pick up the rhythm. I’m hyperaware of every movement she makes, every flick of her eyes, every twitch of her smile.

“You played really great in the Christmas Classic,” she says suddenly. “You were, like, on fire. It was incredible to watch.”

The compliment shoots through me like a blast of heat. It feels like when we first started dating, when everything she said made me feel special enough to hang the moon.

“Thanks. You were great, too.”

She smiles wryly. “No, I wasn’t.” Her eyes flit over my face. “I always loved that intense side of you. I wish I’d seen it more when we were together.”

My insides cool as quickly as they had warmed. How does she always manage to turn a compliment into a dagger? Why do I let her? And why doesn’t it give me a strong enough reason to stay away?

“You did see it,” I tell her. “You just didn’t always like it.”

Her mouth hardens. We’re both quiet, and I’m ready to call it quits before I’ve even gotten what I needed.

But then she passes me the ball and says, “I miss Grandma Earl, you know.”

I thrust the ball back to her. “You still live there.”

“Yeah, but I mean … our school. I miss it. I miss the people.”

Ourschool. She sounds genuine. I don’t know what to make of it. “I thought you hated Grandma Earl.”

She shoots a free throw. Misses. “I thought I did, too.”

I grab the rebound and hold it to my stomach. She meets my eyes. There’s a meekness in her expression I haven’t seen in a while. The soft side she used to reveal only to me.

I pass the ball back to her. “How about we play something? P-I-G?”

“Okay.”

She shoots first: an easy shot just below the basket. The ball sinks in. I step up to take the same shot. The ball bounces on the rim and tips in.

Her next shot is a hook shot. I’ve never been as good at them as she has. Whereas she makes the basket, my shot bounces off the rim.

“That’s a P,” Tally says, but she’s not gloating. She says it matter-of-factly, like it could have just as easily been her. Or am I only imagining she says it that way? Maybe she is gloating.

We carry on, Tally setting the moves of the game until she misses a shot. Then it’s my turn to set the pace. I sink a free throw. She follows suit. I line up to take my next shot.

“Do you really like her?” Tally asks out of nowhere.

I freeze, the ball in my hands. “What?”

“Irene,” she says, like she has to force herself to say the name. “You started dating her so quickly. I thought—never mind.”

“Tally, you broke up with me.” I don’t say it harshly. It spools from me like a question. Because this—this—is what I need to understand.

“I know,” she says quietly. “But it wasn’t because I didn’t love you anymore.”

I stop dribbling. My feelings are all over the place. My body is hot but my hands are cold. I need her to keep talking even if I don’t want to need it.

“Transferring was the right thing for me,” Tally says. “At least, I think it was. Maybe I won’t know for sure until we’re a few years out of high school, but at the time, it felt like the right decision. I didn’t like Grandma Earl. I was floundering there. I felt like I needed—I don’t know, a push. A chance to start over.”

“But why?” I plead.

“Because I—” She shrugs her shoulders defensively. “I wanted something more than I was getting. I wanted to go somewhere basketball mattered. Where I mattered.”

“You mattered to me,” I say, my voice catching.

“Scottie, believe me. You were the only thing that made the decision difficult.”

My heart splits. We stare at each other. Tally clears her throat and says, “It’s your shot.”

I take a deep breath and dribble again. My free throw sinks cleanly. Nothing but net. Tally sighs, and I point at my feet until she lines up in the same position.

Her shot misses the basket by a full foot, but she ignores it and turns to me.

“Scottie,” she says, and god, I missed her saying my name. “I really, truly thought I was doing the right thing breaking up with you. I thought it would be too hard to switch schools and keep up a relationship. It didn’t seem fair to you.”

Neither one of us grabs her rebound. The ball rolls into the bleachers.

“Don’t you think I should have decided that for myself?” I ask. “If it was fair to me?”

Tally pulls at the split ends of her braid. She looks up at me. “Do you wish we were still together?”

My throat feels tight. I have an aching need to reach out and touch her. Somewhere in the back of my brain, a small voice says Irene Irene Irene. But in my body, in my heart, all I can feel is this excruciating need to soothe this heartache.

“No,” I answer truthfully. “But I don’t know how to give you up, either. I’m trying and trying and it’s killing me.”

Tally’s chest heaves. She moves toward me and wraps me in a fierce hug. It’s tinged with yearning and grief and regret. I can’t pull away from it. It’s like pressing on a bruise and knowing it will hurt, but needing to feel the tenderness anyway.

When the tears leak out of my eyes, she wipes them with the back of her hand. “I’m sorry, Scottie,” she whispers. “I really am. I never wanted to hurt you.”

Is that true? Is she being genuine right now? Do I have to keep my guard up even though it’s exhausting?

“I wish I could show you my world,” Tally says. “Show you why I came here. It’s the right place for me.”

“I believe you.”

She wipes my tears again. “You never answered my question. Are you really dating her?”

I look into those yearning blue eyes. In this moment, they’re all I can see. “No.” I pause. “Not right now.”

Tally breathes deep. There’s an eyelash on her cheek and I don’t stop myself from brushing it away. Maybe this is okay. Maybe this is what I need.

“There’s a party tonight,” Tally says. “For New Year’s Eve. Will you come with me?”

My body tenses, trying to tell me no, but my brain says It’s okay. Maybe this is the chance for resolution.

What else can I say but yes?