Page 65 of Heart Check
I should want to escape this town more than ever. But after my date with Dawson, I can’t deny the weird tug in my chest. The one that instead of escaping and destroying, yearns to repair and build.
Biting my lip, I pick up my phone and tap over to the recent messages, scrolling back to the moment last night that ruined everything.
Marissa:Um, Liv said you and Dawson were all over each other at Skate Night????
One thing’s for sure: before I can figure out what’s going on with Dawson, I need to talk to my best friend.
Marissa and I meet at the café downtown. It’s cozy, brick-walled, with big, cushy upholstered chairs in the front windows. There’s not a lot of space, and eventually I always feel bad about taking up the good chairs for too long, but the diner’s kind of out today. I’m not trying to run into Dawson until I’m good and ready.
Which may be never.
I push thoughts of Dawson out of my head and bring my focus back to Marissa, who’s cupping her mug in both hands. The mugs here are all mismatched, and hers advertises the Hamilton Lakes Easter Egg Hunt, 1995. The bunny on the front looks disappointed in us.
Me too, bunny. Me too.
I clear my throat. “So I got your text.”
Marissa raises an eyebrow behind her glasses. She doesn’t say anything.
Deep breaths. “I should’ve told you about Dawson.”
Marissa looks at me for a long moment before letting out a heavy, disappointed sigh. “You should have. Can you imagine how much that hurt, finding out you were dating Dawson fromLiv?”
I wince. I’d been so nervous to tell her, I hadn’t even thought about how much worse it would be to hear it from someone else. “I’m sorry. This was our first actual date, and we were still figuring out what we were doing. I still should’ve told you, but you have to admit… you haven’t always been his biggest fan. I felt bad about breaking girl code? And I wasworried you might be a little…” Another deep breath. “Judgmental.”
Both of Marissa’s eyebrows shoot up this time. “Um, yeah. It’sLuke Dawson. I thought we werebothjudgmental of him. Do you not remember what he did to me freshman year?”
“We talked about that. He wasn’t trying to lie to you—he was being honest. It was all for a friend—”
“Are you really defending him?” Her voice is hot. “What’s going on with you this year, Harper? Here you are spending all this time with the hockey team, and it feels like I’m the only one who’s still focused on our goals, you know?” She waves her hands in the air, getting more and more worked up. “I mean, after we got rid of Coach Red, I figured surely this year would be different!”
I frown. After we… what? “What do you mean?” I ask slowly, though the growing sense of horror in my chest already knows the answer.
Marissa leans forward across the table. Her eyes are bright, as if she’s in the grip of some kind of fever—but her gaze is focused on mine, and her voice is steady. “I’m the one who tipped off the administration. The paper was doing an investigation into the new facility budget, and things just weren’t adding up. As soon as I started looking into it, it became really, really clear who was responsible.”
My mouth hangs open. I can’t speak. Is this actually happening, right here in a coffee shop surrounded by crocheted coasters and antique art?
“Turning him in was the right thing to do,” she says firmly. “Truly disgusting behavior. And if the school got that information and decided to fire him… well, not my problem.” Sheshrugs. I’m still reeling, but I can’t argue with her logic—I would have done the same thing if I were in her shoes. “Besides,” she continues, “I was hoping they might redistribute that funding for the Young Entrepreneurs Program, or any of the other departments they’ve been neglecting. I mean, we were trying petitions for years, and they didn’t get us anywhere!”
I finally find my words. “Sure, Red deserved it. But your approach nearly cost me my entire business,” I say, shaking my head slowly. “Everyone thought it was me, and you still didn’t come clean? Even when they were review bombing my website and boycotting my stuff?”
Marissa bites her lip. “I was trying to help,” she says, glancing away like she can’t quite meet my eyes. For the first time, she looks like she’s realizing she’s not blameless here. “I thought it would get you the funding you needed, but I didn’t want to get your hopes up if it didn’t work out. I was trying to surprise you. I was onyour side.”
She glances at me pleadingly, but I’m still processing. In the silence, one thought rings through loud and clear: Marissa let me suffer the consequences of her choice, while Dawson tried to clean it up.
Maybe he was actually the better friend to me this year.
Did I really throw that away because I was worried about what Marissa might think?
“Hang on.” I frown as another thought occurs to me. “You tried to get me to admit that I was the one who did it. You said you’d be mad if I kept it from you!”
Marissa looks back at me, her expression a little softer. “I guess I wanted you to show me you were on my side still. I thought it would be this hilarious moment when I told youit wasme, but then you acted so horrified at the idea that I couldn’t come clean. I mean, it’s not like I made the story up! Red is even worse than we thought! But when I tried to bring it up—like in the library the other night—you didn’t want to talk about it, and I chickened out, okay?” My mind’s racing, connecting the dots. Marissa furrows her eyebrows behind her glasses. “I just… I figured eventually it would stop coming up, if we kept our distance from them this year. That’s what we’ve always wanted. I thought you’d keep wanting it.”
“Things can’t stay the same forever!” My voice gets louder and a few people look over, but I don’t even care. “It’s one thing to dislike a few jocks for being stuck-up. Some of them are, but not all of them! We can’t write off everyone who plays a sport, Marissa! I’ve gotten to know them this year, and some of them are really nice, okay? Despite your best efforts, I made some real friends, and I got to try some new things. And I liked it, and I’m not ashamed of that.”
She’s staring at me with wide eyes, and I clamp my mouth shut. But all I’m thinking about is Dawson, tugging me gently through the hockey party; Alex with his smiles and warm welcome; Ryan and his jokes; Sabrina and her badass competition and genius business ideas.
I try to breathe through the mingled shock and hurt. “I get why you did it. But I can’t believe you kept it from me. You’ve really betrayed my trust, and you hurt a lot of people I care about. Look, Marissa, I love you, but I don’t know how to fix that.”
