Page 17 of The Way I Am Now
“I’m just gonna say one thing, and then I’ll shut my mouth, all right?”
I sigh. “Fine. All right.”
“She seemed like a nice girl and all. Cute, I grant you. You know, I’m sure she’s not purposely trying to be an agent of sheer fucking chaos in your life. But—”
“All right,” I interrupt. “Don’t push it.”
“I’m just saying maybe seeing her with another guy isn’t such a bad thing. You can finally move on.”
“Move on?” I laugh. “Ihavemoved on.”
“Yeah, okay.” He squints at me, raising one eyebrow in his signature you’re-full-of-shit look. “I’m just saying you can stop carrying this weird torch you have for her. You’re gonna set yourself on fire with it.”
“I’ve told you before, it’s not like that with us,” I tell him again.
“I mean, sheisstill in high school,” he continues anyway.
“I know that, D!” I snap at him. “And again, we’re just friends.”
“Maybe, but I still feel like she’s been stringing you along, and meanwhile you—”
“That’s not it,” I interrupt him. “She’s not doing that, Dominic. Not at all.”
“Andmeanwhile,” he says, louder, talking over me. “You’ve literally blown up your whole damn life over her and she’s with someone else. I just wanna make sure you see it—that’s not cool.”
“It’s not like that,” I repeat. “None of that stuff was her fault.”
“Oh, it’s not her fault you broke up with Bella and wound up on my doorstep without a place to live?”
“No. And, technically, Bella broke up with me.”
“Right, okay, so then I guess it’s not Eden’s fault you spent all of winter break in a black hole, missed one of our most important games of the season, and almost got kicked off the team after you spent one day with her? One day,” he emphasizes, holding up his index finger to make his point, even though the point he’s making couldn’t be farther from reality.
“I didn’t—” But I stop myself because it’s better if everyone keeps thinking I just didn’t show up to the game, instead of what really happened. “That wasn’t because of her.”
“So, it’s just a coincidence you haven’t dated anyone since then? I mean, you never even tried to fix things with Bella—who, by the way, was a very solid person we all really liked.”
“Look, I appreciate you caring, but I just can’t keep talking about it or . . .”I’ll say something I shouldn’t. “I’m fine. Okay? I promise. Can that please be good enough for you?”
He sighs but then nods once and presses the button to unlock the doors. Pops the trunk. We get out of the car, carrying the six-packs we picked up on the way to this stupid impromptu reunion, and we cut across the field, past the giant outline of our old mascot against the brick wall of the bleachers.
That’s when Dominic says, “Oh! How ’bout ‘eagle’? For the code word.”
“Working ‘eagle’ into a conversation won’t sound conspicuous at all.”
“The code word could be conspicuous,” he says, laughing. “Fifty percent chance no one’ll know what that means.”
He got a smile out of me. “You’re mean,” I tell him, and as I look ahead, I can see cell phone flashlights dancing up in the bleachers already. “Those are supposed to be our friends.”
“I’m honest,” he corrects. “And you’re the one who’s laughing.”
“Am not.”
“Well, it’s not our fault our friends can’t all be blessed with brains and bodies like ours,” Dominic jokes in his best drag queen voice, as he calls it, raising the cases of beer into biceps curls.
“Yeah,” I scoff. “Or your modesty.”
“I’m done with modesty!” he yells into the night air, and it echoes against the brick-walled buildings of our high school.
