Page 36 of The Break-Up Pact

“Oh,” says Griffin, his own voice too bright. “I’m so glad to hear it.”

I don’t say anything, waiting for him to get to the actual point of this call.

“And I bet—I bet other people will want to hear it, too,” he says. “Actually, I was wondering if you’d want to come do a special for Business Savvy.”

I blink, the words so preposterous that I’m not even sure if I can entertain them. If Griffin is really inviting me back to the same show that quite literally turned a profit on my snot-filled tears. But he must have some kind of angle if he has the audacity to ask this, so I can’t help my curiosity.

“What kind of special?” I ask warily.

“One about you and me, about our relationships with Lisel and Levi.”

“Why would you need us for that?” I ask. “We’re not part of the show.”

“But you’re part of the story now, and—everyone loves you. Which is great. But it’s kind of painting me like the bad guy?” Griffin says it like it’s both an apology and an accusation. “So I was just thinking—if you hopped on and told them we were still good, it would, you know. Shift the narrative.”

The humiliation is searing, immediate—it feels like the summer I first learned to surf and still couldn’t anticipate those sharp, biting waves that knocked you under from behind.

“Shift it,” I repeat. “Into… what?”

“You know. Just—clear the air. I’m happy, you’re happy. It was a mess how it went down, sure, but no harm done.”

No harm done. Like all the years we spent together could be boiled down to those three words and let loose on a breeze. Like making a public spectacle of me in my own home and humiliating me on a global level could be so easily dismissed.

I’m almost worried I’ll start to cry again in that big, sloppy way I did when he broke up with me. But whatever I’m feeling, it’s already crystallizing. Curling in my fingers, stiff in my bones.

I don’t want to yell at Griffin. I don’t want to feel this way at all. Not about someone I once considered my best friend—not about someone I gave so much time and energy to that being angry with him feels like being angry with myself.

I clear my throat. “I’ll think about it.”

“Yeah?” Griffin’s voice perks up on the other end of the line. “When do you think you’d be able to—”

“I’ll think about it,” I say, my voice stronger this time. “But right now I have to go.”

“Of course. Well—let me know. And thank you, June. It means a lot.”

I hang up, mad at myself for even leaving the door open to the possibility. But that’s the thing. I can move on from Griffin, but I can’t erase our past. I can’t erase all the years our lives revolved around each other, the way we know each other’s rhythms and hopes and insecurities. The way I still feel obligated to him as a friend, as the keeper of all those parts of him, even if I want nothing to do with him romantically ever again.

Levi is settling into the back room when I let myself back into Tea Tide, his hair tousled from today’s unusually strong breeze, his blue eyes focused on his laptop screen. That is, until he looks over at me and immediately asks, “You okay?”

“Yeah.” I hold up the phone still in my hand. “Griffin called.”

Levi’s brow furrows, and he pulls his hands from the keyboard. “What did he want?”

I laugh, the absurdity of it settling in. “He wants me to go on some special for Business Savvy. He’s upset because he’s getting ‘painted like the bad guy.’”

Levi’s voice has that edge to it again. “What does he expect you to do about that?”

“Play nice for the camera. So the world sees we’re getting along or something,” I say with a dismissive wave. I lean into the counter, not just tired in my bones, but tired all over.

Levi closes his laptop and walks over, leaning on the counter beside me close enough that I can feel the warmth of him near my bare arm. His eyes search my face. I resist the urge to lean in closer, to search his right back—the curve of his jaw, the slight smile line at the edge of his lips, the sudden softness in his eyes.

“You haven’t taken an actual break in ages,” he finally says. “The front doesn’t seem too busy right now—do you maybe want to go for a quick run on the beach?”

I haven’t been able to go on a proper run since this whole Revenge Exes thing began. “Yeah,” I say, perking up. “Actually, that sounds great.”

Except when we hit the beach, we both fall into a quick walking pace, neither of us initiating the run. It’s a little too crowded on this stretch anyway, tourists and locals alike stretched out on towels and throwing beach balls and building castles close to the water’s edge.

“So are you going to do it?” Levi asks, pitching his voice above the wind. “The special, I mean.”

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