Page 38 of Going the Distance
And closed my eyes and wished he would.
Any second now, it would go to voice mail.
Pick up. Don’t. Pick up. Don’t. Pick—
It went to voice mail. I hung up.
And before I could decide whether to just toss my cell onto my bed out of the way or whether I should try calling again, he was calling back.
I jumped when my phone started buzzing in my hands and fumbled to answer it.
“Hi,” I croaked, my voice sounding weirdly raw. I coughed to clear my throat, but it didn’t do anything to clear my head and order my mess of thoughts.
“You rang?”
“Yeah.”
There was a pause. “Um, was there anything in particular you wanted to talk about, Shelly? Or are you just calling because you miss my dulcet tones?”
I wanted to laugh.
I couldn’t manage a smile.
“Elle? What’s up? Is everything okay?”
“I saw it.”
“What?”
“I saw the photo.”
Another pause. “I’m really not following. What’re you talking about?”
“The photo on Facebook!” I yelled, my frustration bursting out of me. “The photo of you and thatgirl”—I spat the word, like it was some kind of insult—“at the party you went to on Saturday night. With your arms around each other and her kissing your cheek, and—”
“Oh, that.”
I bristled. How dare he sound so flippant?
“Did you think I wouldn’t see it? That I wouldn’t find out?”
I heard him wince. Maybe I was a little shrill, but I couldn’t help it. “Elle, please, stop freaking out on me. Take a deep breath. Let’s talk.”
“Talk? You want to talk? You had all of yesterday to talk to me about this, but you didn’t. Do you have any idea how humiliated I was when I went to school today and everybody else had seen that photo and everybody else knew, and gossiped about it behind my back? Do you have any idea what that felt like?”
“Elle, I’m sorry. I didn’t think it was a big deal. It’s just a photo from a party.”
“Oh, so if I go on your Facebook profile, I’ll find a whole album of you cuddling random girls at parties with them kissing you?”
It sounded crazy and irrational even as I said it, but I couldn’t stop myself. I was spiraling. I just kept thinking how if he couldn’t talk to me about something as normal as how he wasactuallydoing in college, then what else couldn’t he talk to me about? Was he finding our relationship hard, too? Was the distance too much—was that why he’d suggested I apply for colleges in Boston? Did he regret trying long-distance and was just waiting for the right time to tell me?
Definitely irrational and crazy, but…
But I was so scared of losing him.
“Amanda’s not some random girl.”
Those were the last words I wanted to hear from him, and I sucked in a sharp breath through my nose and clenched my jaw. “What are you trying to say—shemeans somethingto you? Are you trying to tell me something?”
