Page 65 of When Stars Collide
Elle’s face fell. “I’m sorry. You know he’s not coming, right?”
“Yes, I theorized that. Even still, I thought that maybe my theory could be wrong.” Elle’s face clearly showed the pity she felt for me. “You don’t have to say anything. I know it was ridiculous of me to think that he may show up.”
“No.” Elle walked over to my bed and sat down. “It’s not ridiculous at all. For a solid three years after Luke and I broke up, I often wondered whether the knock on my door was him. It wasn’t, of course.”
“But it’s him now, and that’s all that matters.” I joined Elle on the bed. “Unfortunately, not everyone’s story gets a happy ending.” I suddenly remembered that my phone was still in my hand. “Hang on a second. I have to send my last salty text of the night.”
“Really? This late?”
Me: Okay, Grandpa, I’m going to bed now. Goodnight.
I sent the message and threw the phone on my pillow. My eyes met Elle’s expectant face, staring at me as if to ask, “Are you going to spill it or not?”
“My boss,” I answered her unspoken question. “He sent a text asking how tonight went and I answered it.”
“He sent you a text at midnight?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And you answered it at midnight?”
“Yeah.”
“Uh-huh.”
My phone pinged from my pillow. I looked back at it briefly, noticing that Elle never took her eyes off me.
“All right. Keep your secrets with your hunk of a boss. I’ve only been your best friend for basically your entire adult life.”
“Honestly, I have no idea what you’re talking about. There aren’t any sec—” In that second, I remembered the night I spent with Phineas on the rooftop patio. Specifically, I remembered how close my face had been to his and his to mine right before my stomach contents decided to join the party. Nothing had happened, nor would it have. I think. Of course not. I wouldn’t have done Peter dirty like that, not sober, anyway. But I hadn’t been sober.
“Hello, Mena,” Elle said, waving her hand in front of my face.
“Wh-What?”
“Thank God. I thought you were having a stroke there for a minute.”
“Nothing happened, but something happened.”
“Holy crap, you did have a stroke.”
“I promise I’ll make sense in a minute. After a night of drinking …”
“The phrase that precedes every bad decision.”
“Why don’t you just sit back and let me tell the story while you keep your commentary to yourself until after I’m finished?” I motioned for her to lean back on the floral duvet underneath us. “Take a girl to meet her bio daddy and suddenly she thinks she’s a comedienne.”
“Quit stalling.”
I sighed and began describing the evening I’d spent with Phineas, including his wicked left hook, the party on his rooftop, and our nothing that may have been something that ended with my face in a ceramic pot.
“So, you almost kissed your boss, or he almost kissed you, then?”
“Or both. Or maybe not at all. I don’t know, Elle. I’d like to think I wouldn’t have betrayed Peter like that. I tried to tell him everything that happened that night and why I missed his calls, but he cut me off and then he broke up with me.”
She nodded. “Exactly, he broke up with you. Now what?” She motioned to my phone with her eyes.
“Phineas stays my boss and I stay his employee.”
