Page 142 of Bring You Back

“No,” I say simply. Julian and Tommy shoot me a look, and I give a blank one back. My answer is honest. Reyna asked for the truth and I gave it to her. Now, here at this table, Julian and I aren’t together. I hold his stare, driving that point home with my eyes, adding in a complaint as a slight shake of my head until he cracks and looks away.

I look back at Reyna with a sigh. “Feel better now?”Because I don’t.

“No,” she says through a teary scoff, and I’m taken back to when she said the same thing at the beach party when I thought we were okay. Only now she’s not drunk; she’s confused, but still embarrassing herself, and reminding me that this isn’t just about Julian.

“You’re weak,” she spats at me, and I try to hide the flinch of her words—unexpected, intended to hurt. Reyna doesn’t get a free pass—she has said things intended to hurt in the past, just like I have, but her voice hasn’t held such malice. “You walk around here like you’re so tough, but you’re not.”

“Reyna. . .” Julian says, and I open my mouth to tell him to shut his, because I don’t need someone else speaking between us, but Reyna does it for me.

“Shut up, Julian.” She whips her stare to him. “She said herself that I need to stop lying down and letting people fuck me over all the time.” She whips her stare back to me. “Didn’t you?”

I said that’s what shedoes, not that she should stop. After all the years of my giving similar speeches, it took the time I didn’t actually give any advice for her to listen. Funny.

“It’s fine,” I voice to Julian to stop any future interruptions.Let her get this out.She clearly needs to.

“Of course it is,” she says through a mirthless laugh. “Everything’s fine. That’s mypoint.” She eyes me with agitation, and I’m not sure what’s bothering her more; the fact that I’m letting her get out her feelings, or the fact that I’m letting her get out her feelings while showing none of my own. “You hate that I cry so much, but at least I cry,” she continues, wiping at another falling tear. “I show what I’m feeling, and I’m not ashamed of it. I deal with my problems without needing someone else to drag it out of me. Weak people hide, strong people face it. You’re weak,” she repeats, her voice dropping to match the words.

“Youshowyour problems,” I say back, unable to help myself. I have feelings, too, and there’s only so much berating of my character I can allow in one sitting. Which isn’t much to start with. “But you don’t overcome them.” I wave a hand down the front of her, drawing the attention back to her wardrobe malfunction. “Look at you. You’re dressed likeme, Reyna. That’s not strong, that’s pathetic.” She looks down with a sniffle at her lap—at her mistake. I think of the mistakes I made after my brother died, and I soften to her, tell her what I learned in the hopes she’ll listen. “It’s not worth it.”

She shakes her head, her fingers moving to play with a rip in the jeans. “Being me doesn’t work.”

Her words are felt around the table. All picking of food, chewing of food, sipping of drinks, breathing, comes to a standstill as we all watch Reyna. Julian has to look away, closing his eyes against the impact of her words, both an admittance and an accusation to everyone who has made her feel like she isn’t enough. They hit me, too.Myintention was always to help her, and yeah, in doing so I’ve tried to change her, but it works both ways. She’s tried to change me, too. We could never really accept each other.

The difference is, that hits harder for her than it does for me.

“For me.” A mutter from Tommy. It’s scratchy, and he clears his throat, waits for Reyna to look at him before he says, stronger, “It works for me.”

More words felt around the table, more words stalling movement. Is this it? Is Tommy finally going to tell Reyna how he feels?Now?I smile, but my head shakes. Look at Tommy doing what I told him and taking a risk … at a completely inappropriate time. There’s already too much to consume at this table, and we’re not digesting it very well.

But before Reyna can let the weight of Tommy’s words sink in, before he has the chance to say more, Banks leans toward her and flirts with, “Itreallyworks for me.” Like he’s trying to one up Tommy, he adds, “Anythingyou do works for me. Ow!” He shoots me a look, reaching under the table to rub where my boot just connected with his shin. “Do you ever take those damn things off?”

“Only when you’re not around,” I say.

Reyna shoots up from her chair, and we all watch her escape out the front door on fast feet, the slam echoing throughout the room.There goes that.

Tommy sighs in defeat, his fists clenching beside his plate. I flick the slice of pizza on Banks’s plate to his lap for good measure. “You’re such an idiot.”

He retrieves the slice, dusts off his shorts, then bites a chunk out of it like it didn’t just land on his disgusting self.

“You almost had it,” Julian says to Tommy, managing a tease to lighten a dark mood. He nods toward the door and says with encouragement, “Go.”

Tommy divides an incredulous look between me and Julian, having none of that. “Do you guys really not care how she feels?”

“We care, Tommy,” I say, earning me a deeper incredulous stare. This is really about me. I was the one running my mouth back to Reyna tonight. “What do you want me to say? I can’t baby her. She’s never gonna get past what’s in her head.”

“Being her friend isn’tbabyingher,” he argues, to me. “And her mom treating her like an afterthought isn’t in her head.” He looks at Julian, nice enough to share his anger with him again. “You two treating her like shit isn’t in her head.”

“Tommy—”

“We can’t all be perfect like you,” I say, cutting off Julian’s effort to make Tommy see reason. I’m half mocking, half sincere. Defensive, yet truthful.

“I’m not perfect,” Tommy mumbles to me, then stands, eyeing Julian. “You said you’d leave me out of it.” He heads for the door, and Julian tries again to stop him.

“Tommy—”

And once again, Tommy cuts him off, spinning around to face us. “Stop trying to play matchmaker for one fucking minute and be her friend.” There it is again.The F word.Like Reyna, Tommy doesn’t say it often. He needs strong feelings to back it up.

Tommy and I don’t fight. At least not seriously, not in a way that makes my stomach sink. The way he’s holding my stare, defeat and shame passing over his face, he’s sinking with me.

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