Page 55 of The Break-Up Pact

“We both said a lot of things last night is all,” I say, my throat thick. “I don’t want you to think I’m holding you to them.”

“Well, that’s just—” Levi lets out a strained laugh, running a hand through his hair, shaking his head against his fingers. “What do you want, June?”

It’s close to the same question he asked me last night, one that I had an immediate answer for. One that I should have one for now. I want Levi. Of course I want Levi. But wanting Levi last night was simple; wanting Levi now that Kelly is back in the game comes with a risk I don’t know if I can take.

“I want you to be happy,” I say, which is the truth. But the truth under that is that if he’s going to be happy with Kelly, I want to know now. I want it done. I want a clean break. And if pushing him toward Kelly is going to make the inevitable happen faster, it’s better for us both.

His eyes soften then, like he’s seeing it all play out on my face. “Being with you makes me happy,” he says. “Tell me to just stay here, and I’ll do it.”

I can’t. I’m not going to be the reason Levi makes his choice about Kelly. Whatever he decides to do, I want him to have full rein to decide it.

I tilt my head at the door and manage a small smile. “It’s fine. She came all this way,” I say, without any edge in it. “But it’s up to you.”

Levi considers me for a moment. Then he leans into the mattress, cupping the back of my neck with his hand, and pulls me in to kiss me on the forehead. We stay like that for a few long moments, Levi rooting his fingers into my hair, me leaning into the warmth of his lips.

“I’ll meet her so we can talk. Let me know when you’re finished up at Tea Tide,” he says as he pulls away. “We still have to measure out our spot on the beach for the wedding chair rental company.”

I nod. I’m only half-present when Levi pulls his clothes back on, when he slides his phone into his back pocket, when he leans in and says, “I’ll see you later tonight.” He’s out the door and I’m still sitting on my mattress, the sheets bunched around me, feeling so much at once that I wish it could cancel itself out and let me feel nothing at all.

Instead, I throw on my clothes and wander to the building across the street from mine, then up another spiral staircase. I knock on Sana’s apartment door. She’s red-eyed, exhausted, but wide-awake when she opens it, her laptop propped against her hip. She takes one look at me and says, “Oh, shit. I hate saying I told you so. Don’t you dare make me say I told you so.”

I hold myself together just enough to say, “Fine. Then I’ll say it. You told me so.”

Sana drops the laptop on the table by the door and pulls me in for a hug so tight that it feels like she’s keeping the pieces of me together.

“If it helps,” she says into the crook of my neck, “I’m, like, sixty percent sure everything’s going to work out just fine.”

I bleat a laugh and she holds me tighter. The swell of gratitude for her is enough to bowl me over, but even then, I can’t help the thought that comes unbidden, the one that will be on the edge of everything as long as I’m alive: I wish Annie were here. I wish she were here to tell me to buck up. To remind me who I am. To set me right in that fierce, uncompromisable way she always did.

Maybe that’s the scariest thing about losing Annie. Moments like this, when I realize I may not have her anymore, but I still have what I need. Moments like this, when life goes on without her because there are other people I can depend on, other people who depend on me. Moments that I ache for both my sake and hers, because I never wanted to imagine a future where we weren’t each other’s first lines of defense.

“Come inside,” says Sana, patting my head. “I have Pringles and Red Bull and Aiden’s ‘hardcore work jams’ playlist to keep us company.”

I pull away from her with a watery smile and a nod, letting her tug me inside. Maybe everything is, for lack of a better word, as unsettled as it can be. But at least there is a soft, over-caffeinated place to land.

Chapter Seventeen

“Mateo, no,” Dylan says with a gasp, launching himself toward his fiancé heroically.

Mateo freezes, still holding the tiny ceramic baby he picked up from our parents’ mantel. The usual person our parents have on call to clean between Airbnb bookers was busy this morning, leaving it to me and Dylan, plus one procrastinating Mateo, who has a stack of papers full of phone numbers and Instagram handles he has no interest in grading today.

“Is it fragile?” Mateo asks, eyes wide behind his glasses. He and my mom are so bonded by their love of history podcasts and flea markets that I’m pretty sure the idea of doing anything to upset her would cause him physical pain.

“I wish,” says Dylan ruefully, keeping a wide berth between himself and the ceramic baby. “It’s haunted is what it is. You could launch that thing straight into the sun and it would come out with its creepy grin intact on the other side.”

Mateo stares down at it, puzzled. “It’s an infant.”

I roll my eyes, taking it from his careful hands and setting it back on the mantel. Technically, this cleanup is taking me away from the little free time I have to come up with better long-term ideas for Tea Tide. But given that my brain’s resting state right now is “panic about Kelly stepping foot in Benson Beach,” I probably wasn’t going to get much done anyway. So I’m taking the advice Sana gave me on my way out of her apartment an hour ago. I’m not going to overthink it. In fact, I’m just not going to think about it at all.

Seeing as I’ve checked my phone approximately fifteen times in the last two minutes, that’s easier said than done.

“Dylan had a nightmare about it coming to life when we were younger and tried to throw it away,” I explain to Mateo.

Mateo’s eyes soften, turning to my brother with that same lovesick look he’s had ever since we were teenagers. “Aw. Little Dylan.”

I snort. “He was fifteen. Also, say cheese.”

Mateo turns just in time for me to tap the camera app on my phone and take a quick picture. “What for?”

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