Page 84 of Best I Never Had

“Hey, Nat,” he calls as he sees me approach.

“Hi, Hayden,” I say. “Get lost on the way to your car?”

He pulls his hands away from behind his back, revealing a small disposable Tupperware container. He holds it up between us as I step closer, a small smile replacing the pained look on his face that I’ve been seeing more of.

“Happy last day of school,” he says, pointing the container at my chest.

“It isn’t the last day of school yet,” I say, taking the box from him.

He shrugs. “Close enough.”

I peel back the lid, peeking to see what’s inside.

“It’s vanilla cake,” he says. When I look up at him, I grin. So wide that I feel the stretch of my smile cutting into my cheeks.

“You made this for me?” I ask as a joke because he couldn’t have possibly made this for me. If anything, he’s merely keeping his end of the bargain: to let me taste test his next line of baked goods. But instead of denying it, he nods.

“I did,” he answers, a grim smile cutting across his face. “The vanilla reminded me of you.”

“Oh,” I whisper. “Well, thank you.”

I don’t mean to, but I stare at him a little longer than I expect to. I see the shadow that casts over his face as his jaw flexes and the creases that line the space between his brows deepen. I see the knot roll down the center of his throat before he reaches to give my arm a light squeeze. I see the Hayden that I normally see in class, the one that filled the boring time teasing me and making sarcastic jokes, fold inside him as that version of him is slowly replaced by the Hayden in front of me now. One who looks too uncertain of the future, of a life where our daily interactions will no longer exist. One who’s silently whispering his goodbyes to me.

“Yeah,” hefinally answers, pushing himself off my car and walking away. “I’ll see you at graduation.”

I clutch the container in my hands, wrapping my fingers around it like a treasure. “I’ll see you at graduation.”

present

“Paging Dr. Garcia to ER, bed four. Dr. Garcia to ER, bed four.”

My fingers fidget with the handles of the brown paper bag containing two orders of warm chicken shawarma and a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies.

After a lazy weekend of lounging at home and working through some emails to distract myself, Carmen called me from the hospital, begging me to bring her lunch after a grueling end to her shift that blended into another eight hours into the morning. Something about being short-staffed and having to work an ungodly amount of overtime.

After nursing a quick hangover, thanks to Hayden forcing liquids to hydrate me and a greasy burrito delivered to my doorstep, I collected my bearings and replayed every image etched into my mind, all of it blurred a little by alcohol. Flashes of Hayden brushing his hand against my waist, looking at me like his mind was at war, his smile twitching as if each personal thought he carried had some insinuation.

How am I back here? How areweback here? It’s like we’ve both unwillingly stepped into a time machine that led right back to that dance floor at prom, the last eight years not making either one of us an ounce wiser. Instead, we’re still those confused seventeen-year-olds, still so unsure about our feelings.

Maybe I’m looking too far into it, but I can’t stop thinking about the way Hayden touched me. Running his hands over my body through the thin material of my costume, causing a prickling that felt akin to pins and needles coursing over my skin. And the way he looked at me, so grim and searing.

I shake my head, almost as if I’m trying to shake the image of his piercing eyes out of my mind. I know I’m looking too much into this, whateverthisis. And I need to let it go. All these lingering thoughts that are causing me to think that the way Hayden looked at me meant more, I need to let that all go.

I look up just in time to see Carmen walking toward me wearing navy-blue scrubs and a white doctor’s coat. I stand to greet her.

She sighs as she smiles, embracing me in her arms. “Thank God you’re here. I’m starving.”

“I have just the remedy,” I say, holding up our lunch between us. I force a smile, shifting my thoughts from Hayden to being present as I see how my frazzled sister needs some extra support to get her through the last hours of her shift.

“Are you okay?” she asks, her brows drawn together with concern.

I nod, my smile widening in an effort to convince her. “Yeah, I’m just hungry too.”

“Come on. We’ll eat in the cafeteria.”

Carmen is eating her second cookie, the wax wrapper that once held her shawarma sitting on the table in front of her when she looks at me.

“So,” she starts.

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