Page 76 of What I Like About You

We hit a giant puddle and the car hydroplanes. Headlights blind my vision, so I cover my face with my hands and scream. Nash regains control of the car and I’m suddenly having an out- of-body experience, because I’m literally screaming at him to pull over, to pull overright now. He pulls into the parking lot of theMiddleton Public Library, the first place we met,of course.

Nash presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

He’s crying. Then I’m crying.

We’re a hot mess.

And I can’t help but think if we had just hydroplaned into a tree and this was the end, Nash would never know I’m, well, me.

“Nash,” I start.

“I don’t know why I said that,” Nash says.

“Nick?” I ask, thinking back to Rosh Hashanah and our moment on the swings. Nash saying,It sucks so bad, losing the people who are supposed to still be here.

My insides clench before Nash even speaks, and for the first time, I really hate that I haven’t told him I’m me. I’ve been collecting Nash stories that aremine, Halle’s. Things about him Kels never could know—the scar on his hand, his goofiness in front of a camera, his smirk whenever I say something that surprises him, his Bruno Mars dancing.

I don’t know if I’m ready for this story.

“My brother,” Nash says. “He was so excited that my parents were letting him go to soccer camp, right? He was twelve, finally old enough to attend a whole week of sleepovers and soccer with his friends. He couldn’t stop bragging about it. I was eight—too young to go. Also, I hate soccer.”

It takes every fiber of restraint in my body not to say,I know.

“He had a collision with another kid during a scrimmage. Bonked heads. Everyone thought he was fine. Hewasfine. Kids hit their heads all the time. Except it turns out Nick had a tinybomb in his brain and that set it off. He never came home.”

I close my eyes.Breathe.

“I’m so sorry,” I say.

Nash shrugs. “It’s just bad luck. But Mom and Dad—they blame themselves every day. There are zero symptoms of a sitting brain aneurism, but it doesn’t matter. They think they should’ve known. They shouldn’t have let him go. It’s bullshit, but they believe it and now I’m the only kid they’ve got left.”

“That’s not fair,” I say.

“The worst part, though? I barely remember him. Like, at all.”

“You were little,” I say.

Nash shrugs again. He leans back against the seat and closes his eyes. The rain isn’t letting up. If anything, it’s getting worse. “It’s what my comic’s about. REX? It helps me to process things, I guess. Figure out what memories are mine or stories I’ve been told. I don’t know.”

I can’t stop the tears that continue to stream down my cheeks. When Nash says it straight like that, it’s so obvious that REX is personal. I—I thought it was just art. Fiction. I’m an idiot. Art is neverjustart.

“It doesn’t get easier,” Nash says. “People will say it does. They’re wrong.”

I wipe my cheeks. “I know.”

I think if I’m going to tell Nash the truth, I’d better do it now. This is probably as close to the point of no return as it’s going to get. Maybe past it. He told me, Halle, about Nick. If I can’t tell him abouta blog, if I can’t trust him after that, I don’t deserve him.

I reach for his hand resting over the gearshift and cover it with mine. He doesn’t flinch away and I can do thisI can tell him. But then he looks at me with his bloodshot eyes and tearstained cheeks and it hits me all at once—Ican’t. He just trusted me with something major, how can I tell him he didn’t know who he was telling it to?

It’d be selfish to overtake Nash’s emotional moment with my own drama.

Except, now I’m not surewhatto say.

What would Kels say if the screen were between us? Why didn’t Nash tell her?

“I’m sorry,” Nash says. “That was so stupid—driving that fast.”

“It’s okay,” I say. “We’re okay.”

---