Page 44 of It Couldn't Be You
“I’m not sure. I hear he’s doing well,” I said politely. “We’re actually just friends now.”
Her eyes lit up, but her voice didn’t match her expression. She said softly, “Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.”
I shrugged. Then, thankfully, her dad walked in to update me on my car. As I walked toward him for the update, I grabbed Gabriel’s arm to drag him along. I wasn’t going to leave him alone with the memorable prom queen.
Fifteen
We were heading back to our cars, snow flurries falling around us like glitter in a globe, when Gabriel asked me if I was okay.
“Yeah, why?” I asked.
“In the lobby, you seemed to have something on your mind or like something threw you off for a minute. Maybe I was imagining it, though.” He leaned against his truck, both crutches to the side for a minute.
“Oh.” I laughed awkwardly. “Sophia, the girl we ran into in there—”
“Sophia! That was her name!”
“Yes, Sophia. She was Jordan’s high school sweetheart. And even though they weren’t on bad terms, and I didn’t have any bad feelings toward her, things are always very awkward when we see each other.”
“Ah, okay,” he said, rubbing his cold hands together. “That explains the vibe.”
“My ex’s ex.”
He cocked his head and looked at me. “Look at you with this sordid past.”
“Sordid past? Please.” I rolled my eyes. “Aren’t you the one always dating someone new?”
He looked a little hurt. “Who says that?”
“I don’t know,” I said, instantly regretting what I’d said. “I just assume, I guess, from the tidbits I hear.”
It was quiet for a beat. I sniffled, feeling my nose turn pink from the frigid air.
“Have you…you know…had anyone serious? We don’t really talk about that,” I finally mustered up the courage to ask.
“Do I have a Jordan?” he clarified.
“Just anyone serious or semi-serious? Like, anyone that went beyond a few dates?”
He sighed and looked as if he was thinking about what to disclose, carefully choosing his words. “Sort of. I guess I never had a Jordan. You and Jordan were really official and looking to the future and stuff. I haven’t had that. But there were a couple of girls that it did go beyond just ‘dating.’” He chewed his lip. “There was Heather. I think she happened the fall you moved back home. We were an unspoken item. We just kind of happened. Our friends were all the same, so we just fell together so easily. We matched. But it never went very deep.”
“Heather,” I said her name as if a mythological creature.
“That was the thing she said when we were breaking it off, that ‘we never went deep enough.’ She asked why we were ‘unspoken,’ why we weren’t official. According to her, I had a wall up.”
I wanted to know everything, even though the idea of a Heather bothered me. I was desperate to ask what she looked like. What was her job? Did she kiss him against his car? Did he say Heather’s name almost teasingly?
“That was the case with Lila, too. She, uh, was anofficialgirlfriend. We met about a year ago. We hit it off right away. We were dating and pretty quickly had the define the relationship chat. We really liked each other. We lasted about six months, and then she also asked me about this wall. She said there was a wall up when it came to the future. She said, and I quote, that I felt hesitant.”
“Hesitant,” I said.
“Hesitant. Like I was holding back.”
“Was she right?”
He laughed, his eyes cutting into mine. “Yeah.”
“Yeah?”
