Page 101 of The Broposal

As soon as my mouth was full of doughnut, Leti took the opportunity to catch me off guard.

“Why are you avoiding Kenny?”

I chewed slowly to keep from having to answer the question right away. The truth was, I didn’t really know. Still, I couldn’t help it. Maybe I just needed time to heal from all the Jackie-related stress. I knew Kenny only wanted to help me. He’d never done anything to intentionally harm me, and he didn’t deserve me treating him this way. I knew that much.

But I don’t know. I guess I was stubborn. Afraid. All over again.

Leti rolled their eyes. “Look, it’s obvious that you two are into each other. You really just need to kiss and make up.”

I choked on my doughnut. What the hell did they mean by that? “Obviously we’re into each other. We’re getting married!”

“I know about your whole scheme, okay?” I started to protest, but Leti waved me off with their hand. “Don’t worry. I support it. But y’all are being so weird right now. It’s not Kenny’s fault he called things off. I know that must have hurt, but Jackie’s the one to blame.”

“Wait. How did you—”

“Your future husband told me everything. But I’m serious, you can’t be mad at Kenny for what Jackie did.”

“I know. I have no right to be mad.” I sighed and ran a hand through my hair.

“I didn’t say you have no right to be mad. You just shouldn’t be madat Kenny.”

“I’m not mad at Kenny.”

“Then why are you being so weird? You’re getting married tomorrow. You two really need to figure this shit out.”

I couldn’t bring myself to answer that. The truth was, I was stumped.

“I’ll tell you why,” Leti said, taking another bite from their cake doughnut before continuing. “If you ignore him, you don’t have to admit how you feel.”

“And how would you know how I feel?” I felt my ears heating up with embarrassment.

“You’re obvious. Both of you. God, why are you so allergic to admitting how you feel? I just wanna take you guys and…” Leti grabbed two doughnuts and smooshed them together. “KISS ALREADY!”

I slumped deeper into the couch. “We have kissed.” I didn’t mention that we’d done more than just kissing. Leti didn’t need to knowallmy business. “But that was literally right before we broke up. I can’t just forget about that.”

“Because ofJackie.”

“I know! But… still.”

“You’re afraid of getting hurt again.”

I just shrugged.

“So, are you okay with just drifting apart from Kenny forever?”

“No!” I rubbed a hand down my face. I hated how this wasall turning out. Before Jackie came along and ruined it, I really thought things between me and Kenny could be different. I thought we could really be… something. “I’m just… scared, I guess.”

“What are you more scared of? Getting rejected or slowly drifting away from your best friend until you lose him for good?”

I didn’t even have to answer that. Leti had a major point. I really needed to talk to Kenny.

I fell asleep before Kenny got home from work, and then we had to wake up early for ourwedding. We made the drive over to Kenny’s parents’ house in silence. I sat stiff in the passenger seat, waiting for a vibe, a moment,something, to tell me it was okay to tell him. But the only sound in the car was the soft thrum of the radio. I tried to psych myself up again and again to tell Kenny how I felt, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Come on, it couldn’t be that hard, could it? I just needed to say three simple words. I could do that. I could say three fucking words. But every time I tried to say them, they got lost in my throat. Before I knew it, we were at Elisa and Cedric’s house, and I hadn’t admitted a single thing.

“You okay?” Kenny asked.

I nodded quickly.

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