Page 55 of The Comeback Summer

My spine straightens in indignation. I feel like my five-year-old self, stamping my foot when my big sister would try to tell me what to do.You’re not the boss of me!I may not be willing to confront Libby about switching up our roles at work, but I’m going to exert my independence in this.

I stuff my phone back in my pocket and look up at Josh. “Let’s do it.”

•••

JOSH BOUGHT TICKETSfor two cycles, which means we’ll have more than thirty minutes alone together. As our gondola lifts, the sounds of city traffic fade away, until all I hear is the squawk of seagulls and distant music from the pier below. It’s magical. This giant wheel, gently tilting us toward the clouds.

My breath catches as I take in the view: the skyline to the west, all sharp spires and square edges, the setting sun casting streaks of gold between the buildings. And to the east, Lake Michigan, painted with orange and pink, stretching to the horizon. Below us, the marina is full of boats bobbing gently. Love for my beautiful city fills me to the brim; I never want to live anywhere else.

“I wanted to talk to you about something,” Josh says.

He’s unusually serious, and my muscles tighten.

“That’s ominous,” I say with an awkward laugh.

He doesn’t laugh, just exhales and runs a hand through his thick, dark hair. It looks like he’s wrestling with something, and I wait, holding my breath.

“I want to apologize for the way I left you, back in college,” he says.

It takes me a moment to process what he’s said. He’s not sorry that he left. He’s sorry for thewayhe left. And of course, he brings this up now, when I can’t leave.

Before I can respond, he continues, “I don’t expect you to forgive me, and I won’t make excuses for my behavior. But I want to explain a few things. If that’s okay with you.”

“Go ahead,” I say, my voice tight. The air in the gondola feels stuffy, and I focus my eyes on the lake, shining in the evening sun.

“I don’t know if you knew this,” Josh says, “but I was deeply unhappy during our junior year.”

I blink, stunned. We must have gone to a hundred parties that year, and Josh was the life of each and every one, always smiling and joking around.

“You were?” I ask. “Why?”

He sighs and leans back against his seat. “I felt... trapped, I guess. Like the world was pressing in on me and I couldn’t take a breath. My whole life was planned out for me, and I’d never had the opportunity to think about how I actually wanted to live. The closer we got to graduation, the more stuck I felt.”

I feel sick—and not just because of the implication that he must have felt stuck withme, too. How did I miss this? That the person I loved better than anyone in the world felt this way?

“I had no idea,” I whisper.

He shakes his head. “There was no way you could know. I pretended everything was fine, I kept going out and making people laugh and saying all the right things, but I was kind of dying inside. The study-abroad program seemed like a long shot, but when that acceptance letter came, it was like an escape hatch opened. I could breathe again.”

Despite how upset I am, my heart aches at the thought of young, college-age Josh, overwhelmed and alone.

But he wasn’t alone; he could have talked to me. Heshouldhave talked to me. Anger sparks in my chest, and I turn to him.

“Why didn’t you say anything? We were more than just girlfriend and boyfriend. We werebest friends. You didn’t even give me a chance to try to understand.”

“That’s my biggest regret, not communicating with you,” he says, looking at the floor. “But at the time, I mean, I hardly understood what I was feeling. I didn’t know how to separate our relationship from the plan we’d mapped out for our lives, so instead of talking to you, I just... ran away. It was immature and selfish—”

“Damn right it was,” I say, my anger building. “You had a thousand opportunities to tell me. You—you basically lied to me for months. It was a shitty thing to do, Josh. Dishonest and cowardly and so fucking cruel.”

He nods, taking the hit like he knows he deserves it. “There’s no excuse—”

“You rented an apartment with me,” I continue, years of hurt bubbling over. “I thought we had our whole life planned out, and you were trying to figure out how to escape. It wasn’t fair to me. It wasn’t fair tous—to the history we shared.”

“I know,” he says quietly.

“And even worse—you kept stringing me along! You should’vebroken up with me when you left. I spent that entire semester missing you, trying to survive with this massive hole in the fabric of my life, and meanwhile, you were moving on to another girl.”

He looks up sharply. “What are you talking about? I wouldn’t do that, Hannah.”

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