Page 29 of Going the Distance
Chapter 8
I expected Lee to call me and apologize the next day.
He didn’t.
By the afternoon, though, I gave up waiting for him to talk to me and I texted him, asking if he was with Rachel. He wasn’t; he was at home. So I went straight over there, psyching myself up to argue with my best friend if necessary and demand an explanation for why he’d been such a jerk at the party last night. And we really, really needed to talk about this whole college thing.
I was losing faith in myself by the time I walked up to the front door.
I didn’t really like fighting with anybody (except squabbling with Noah over petty things, but that was different). I hated the idea of fighting with my best friend most of all.
Maybe it’d be better to forget all about it and just pretend it didn’t happen.
The door opened.
“Why are you standing out here?”
I looked up, and Lee was smiling at me, but looking confused because I stood about a yard away from the door, hands clenched in fists down by my sides, and I guess I must’ve been standing there for a few minutes if he’d noticed.
There were purple bruises under Lee’s eyes, which were bloodshot, like he hadn’t slept and had drunk way too much last night. His dark hair was damp—still wet from a shower, I guessed.
I pressed my lips tight together. I had to talk to him about it, and I had to do it now, before I chickened out.
My stomach flipped.
My mouth fell open, and I blurted, “Why were you such a jerk to me last night? Are you doing this on purpose, pushing me away? Why don’t you want to go to college with me anymore? Is it because of Rachel? Is it something I’ve done? Is it to do with Noah?”
“Whoa, slow down,” Lee said as I gasped for breath. “Look, come inside, and we’ll talk, yeah?”
I nodded, and walked the rest of the way up to the door. Inside, I could smell June’s cooking—spicy, and good enough that it made my mouth water—and the TV was on in the living room, where I guessed Matthew, Lee’s dad, was. June yelled hi to me, and I shouted back, trying not to sound as anxious as I felt.
We headed upstairs to Lee’s room. He had a little balcony, and the doors were wide open, the thin drapes billowing outward with the breeze, and there was music playing on his Mac, which Lee turned down. I perched on the end of his bed.
Usually, I’d treat Lee’s room like my own, but now I felt nervous. Now wasn’t the time to throw myself down on the bouncy mattress.
It had been a while since I’d been over here. The room was tidier than I’d ever seen it. “You got rid of your drum kit,” I said, noticing the empty space in the room.
He shrugged. “It wasn’t like I played it anymore. I sold it.” He took a seat in the spinning chair at his desk, straddling it backward. His toes pressed into the floor, and he swiveled side to side very slightly. I waited for him to say something, sayanything,but he was quiet. And just like that, my patience snapped.
“You know,” I said—and it came out angry. Sharp and fierce. It sounded wrong but I couldn’t stop it. “It’s bad enough that I barely get to speak to Noah lately, but I can’t stand you pushing me away as well. And I don’t just mean because of the college thing. We never talk, not like we used to, we hardly ever hang out, and I…I…It feels like you’re pushing me away…,” I finished lamely, trailing off. I was wringing my hands, I realized, and stopped, sitting on them instead. At least that way they wouldn’t shake.
“I’m not pushing you away,” Lee sighed.
“Yes you are.”
He rolled his eyes.
“You are,” I insisted, my voice growing louder with conviction. I wasn’t going to have Lee brush this off, now that we were finally addressing it. Or, at least, now that I was. “It’s like you don’t even want to make time for me. Last night you told me to shut up.”
Lee’s shoulders sagged, and he looked down at where his hands were clasped around the back of the chair. He knew I had a point.
He was quiet for a while, which made me more nervous, and I stopped sitting on my hands so that I could fidget again. My heart thudded, and there was a lump in the back of my throat like bile.
“I know. I’m a bad best friend” was what he finally said.
“Thanks for admitting it and all, but I’d kind of like an explanation.”
Lee ran his hands through his hair. He hadn’t cut it in a while, and now it was almost as long as Noah’s.
