10. Leah

CHAPTER 10

LEAH

I can't explain what it is about the smell of a coffee shop that puts me in a good mood as soon as I walk through the door. The rock music playing through the speakers just loud enough to catch your attention, the sound of the coffee machine whirring every few minutes, and the smell of your favorite pick-me-up drink being made is just overall the best combination if you ask me.

"One iced mocha latte, and one iced vanilla latte." Shane and I walk up to get our drinks and find a table tucked into the corner of Brüman's and settle in.

"If they ever shut this place down, I think I might die. No one else makes a latte like Clara." Despite the cold weather outside Shane and I stay true to our iced beverages.

"Okay, so. What is new with you?" Shane asks, pulling the sleeves to her wool sweater down over her hands before tucking them under her chin. I give her my best are we really beating around the bush with this stare, but she shrugs it off innocently.

"I'm serious! I meant what I said— if you don't want to talk about… that , then we can talk about anything." I roll my eyes playfully, appreciating Shane's willingness to respect personal boundaries.

"No, we can talk about that ." I imitate her over exaggeration of referring to what happened between Sawyer and me as a that.

"Oh, thank God." She practically melts in her seat with relief. "I was really trying to play it cool but I'm lowkey dying to know what the hell happened with you two."

"Me too, if I'm being honest." I lean back in my seat and let out a sigh. "Do you remember our senior year class party? It was on Halloween night at the McCallum's ranch. I mean, it was an empty field at the time but…"

"Oh my gosh, yes! I thought Lauren was going to throat punch a guy for trying to grind on her at that bonfire," she snorts before taking a sip from her coffee.

"As she should. Anyways, that same night Sawyer had been acting a little different around me. He was…" My words tail off as I absentmindedly get lost in my thoughts from that night.

"Patience is not my strong suit, Le. He was what?" Shane presses. My cheeks flush as the next words come out of my mouth.

"He was acting as interested in me as I had always been in him." Her mouth hangs open like her jawbone no longer has the capability to keep it shut. She casually regains her composure and clears her throat. Wrapping her hands around her coffee cup she leans in closer to me.

"You had a thing for Tay's brother, and you never told us?!" Her voice becomes pitchy at the end of her sentence.

"What was I supposed to do? Be like Hey Tay, I'm helplessly in love with your brother, hope that's not weird for you. "

"In love with? " She's shouting now and seems to give zero fucks who can hear her.

"Umm, a little louder please, they didn't hear you at Chattahoochies! " I slump down in my seat while Shane looks around the coffee shop—politely smiling in apology for her outburst.

"In love with?" she whispers.

"I mean, it started as a crush, of course. I met him when I was in what…sixth grade? But by the end of it we'd become best friends and…yeah. I'd fallen pretty damn hard for him." She nods her head like she's taking it all in but doesn't say anything for several seconds.

"I feel like I broke you. Did I break you?"

"No. No. Just processing." Another minute goes by as her eyes are closed and her head is still shaking.

"Shane?"

"I'm almost there." I take the time to sip on my latte while she continues processing .

"You know that was only like half the story, right?" Her eyes shoot open, and she brings her straw to her lips.

"Continue." She waves a hand, giving me the floor to tell the rest of what happened.

"So anyway… Halloween night when you guys abandoned me in the haunted trail?—"

"Our instincts kicked in, don't blame us because yours didn't." She holds a finger up as she argues her defense. I roll my eyes and continue.

"Sawyer swooped in and saved me from getting attacked by the girl from The Ring , and it almost felt like it was at that moment that something shifted between us. I wasn't sure if it was the hopeless romantic in me just making it up, or if maybe it was something real . Then we danced at the bonfire together and again, it just felt different . I don't know… It sounds so stupid when I say it out loud, but he didn't feel like just my friend anymore. I wanted to ask him about it the next day after breakfast at Flapjack's but…"

"He never showed," she finishes for me. The tone of her voice matches the sadness in her eyes—perfectly mirroring the way my heart feels from revisiting the memory.

"That's not even the worst part. He ignored me for months after that. The amount of texts and calls that went unanswered by him is embarrassing. I went through my five stages of grief over it and when I finally reached acceptance over the fact that I'd lose the only guy I've ever loved and my best friend?—"

"Hey!" She glares at me.

" One of my best friends… I was just done with it. When he finally tried talking to me a few months later I just couldn't do it. I swore I wouldn't let myself get hurt by him again or whatever excuse he had come up with for why he left things the way he did with us."

"When was that? That he tried to talk to you again?" The look on her face is curious, like she's trying to connect dots that I can't even see.

"I think he said Hey to me at Christmas that year and I ignored him in an effort to give him a taste of his own medicine. After that I would get random texts here and there, but I never replied. I was trying to move on from him and it wasn't until he showed back up here that I realized ten years' worth of rejection was just me being in denial."

"So, do you still have feelings for him? Because not to be that friend, but what about Jackson? You guys seem to be doing really well." The guilt from almost forgetting about Jackson hits me when she asks.

"I don't know how I feel about Sawyer if I'm being honest. I want to hate him so much for everything that happened, and I kind of do. But it doesn't change the fact that I still have fond feelings for him as well. They just get skewed when I'm around him and I end up…"

"Yelling at him across the table during Thanksgiving dinner?" She smirks behind her coffee cup turning me a lovely shade of red, I'm sure.

"If we could just wipe that from all our memories, that'd be swell." I hide my face in my palms, letting the hair from my ponytail fall in front of my face. Shane pulls my arm to get me to look back at her.

"If you ask me, it was long overdue. You still didn't answer my question about Jackson though." Her nose scrunches, as if she hates bringing it up again.

"Jackson is great. We have so much fun together and it's honestly so different than the first time we went out. I have no complaints." Her eyes narrow on me again.

"The tone of your voice is telling me a different story." I let out a heavy sigh and remember why Shane and I always got along so well—we're more alike than we even realize.

"I don't know. Maybe it's because he asked me out literally the day before Sawyer walked back into my life and everything has been so…intertwined."

"Ew."

"Not like that." I roll my eyes at her. "I just mean my positive feelings towards Jackson are always getting trampled over my negative feelings towards Sawyer."

" And the not-so-negative feelings," she adds.

"Oh my god. I'm one of those messy girls, aren't I?" I whine. "Maybe I'll just become a nun." Shane starts to giggle and throws her straw wrapper at me.

"You're not becoming a nun. You're way too hot to stay single forever."

"Thank you?" I say more as a question.

"Do you want my advice?" she finally asks, taking another sip from her half-finished latté.

"I'm practically begging for it."

"Focus on Jackson. You can decide whether or not you're ready to hear Sawyer out, or if you want to keep ignoring him. But this thing with Jackson is new and there's an opportunity there to have fun and experience something exciting. So, if it's something you want, focus on that."

"Do you think it's childish of me to keep giving him the cold shoulder? Sawyer, I mean."

"I don't think you ever act childish, Le. I think you got hurt, and you never got an explanation or an apology and sometimes, whether we want to admit it or not, it makes us harbor bitter feelings. He seems ready to have the conversation, but what matters is, are you? "

"I don't know," I whisper, letting my mind whirl through all the possibilities that our conversation could end with. Because what if he had begun to notice the way I would look at him and it freaked him out. What if he just outgrew our friendship and didn't know how to tell me. But he said I meant everything to him? What did that mean?

"Well, my mama always said, When in doubt, don't. If you're not sure, then there's no harm in holding off until you feel more sure of things. The last thing you want to do is jump into a conversation you're not ready to have and end up even more hurt than you already are."

Maybe Shane is right.

Maybe I just need to focus my attention on Jackson and see where things could go with us. The way it was meant to be before Sawyer stormed back into town.