Page 4 of Best Friends, Tennessee

He was single-minded: he wanted to buy a house and marry a nice woman, all before age 30.

He’d already done one of those things.

I’d always dreamed of a different life, and by late high school, it drove a wedge between us.

He stopped talking to me about his feelings. Stopped sleeping over. Stopped spending relaxing weekends with me on the couch, playing video games and watching shitty movies. In school, I’d always felt so close to him, until all he wanted to do was be like everybody else.

The one person I was close to in Tennessee seemed destined and determined to live a life that had nothing to do with me.

Last week on the phone, he swore this place was different than it had been back then. That the people who’d treated me cruelly were gone, and I’d fit right in, now.

Butso what?

Even if that were true, there was still no real place for me in Finn's life.

A hollow feeling used to well up in my chest every time I thought of him, during the years I’d been in Los Angeles. Then after a while, I'd just gone numb.

“Anyway,” Finn said now from across the guest room, jarring me from my memory and breaking the silence between us. “I’ll leave you to it.”

“Thank you.”

I was craving alone time even though I’d been alone on the road all day. I waited, watching Finn turn toward the door but then turn back again, glancing over my whole body again.

Got a problem already?

Did he hate the fact that my button-down sweater was light pink? Or did that long look mean something else?

“You’re all good in here?” he asked.

I blinked at him. “Yes. I’m fine.”

“Right. You’ll be able to find everything.”

I cocked my head at him. “The guest room isn’t exactly rocket science. Bed. Lamp. Table. Oh, shit, is that a pile of books about landscaping? What am I going to do with those?”

He cracked a smile, looking down at the hardwood for a moment. “Oh, shut it, Ori.”

“I’ll be good, Finn, I promise,” I said. “You’re being a good host, so don’t question yourself.”

I’d always told him he was too nice. To everyone.

With me, he’d let his true feelings out slightly more sometimes. And alotmore, when we got in fights.

Today, he was intoo-nicemode with me, though, giving me big doe eyes as he stood planted in the guest room, clearly worried he hadn’t done enough for me as a host.

“All right,” he told me with a nod.

“Thanks again,” I said, trying to assure him.

Everything is fine.

Really, really fine.

Other than the fact that it’s so painfully obvious I’m out of place here.

“Oh,” he said, meeting my eyes. “Grabbing some drinks with Danielle at the Hard Spot tonight, if you want to join.”

Something bitter dug into my chest.

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