What?
I can’t say it out loud, not when Adam’s looking between Eli and me, his expression lit up like it’s Christmas and the A’s winning the World Series and the day the three of us met and any moment with Grace all smashed together—a thrilling hope that’s been solidified into reality.
I want to scream.
Instead, my eyes find Jamie’s. She knows more about my and Eli’s history than anyone. I was careful with my heartbreak at first, but like me, Jamie doesn’t keep strangers. As we became closer, I realized she wouldn’t retreat from my messy feelings, that in fact she welcomed them—“Baby, I’m a Pisces, I wallow in feelings,” she said one night when she caught me sobbing over a pint of Ben & Jerry’s—so I gave her the CliffsNotes version of what happened.
But five years is a long time to hold a…whatever this is. Not a grudge, but something equally heavy. Over time, I’ve finessed my message even with her, framed it as discomfort over orbiting in the same sphere as my ex rather than try to explain all the confusing messiness that I still carry around.
Judging by the wide-eyed look she gives me, it’s not discomfort on my face right now. It’s a concerning slip of my chill-girl-no-that’s-totally-fine mask I glue over my perma-scream when Eli’s in the mix.
I’m not chill. And it’s not totally fine.
I wrestle my expression into submission, my eyes darting from Jamie to Eli, who’s pointedly focused on Adam. After an entire afternoon of him looking at me, now he won’t?
The curve of his jaw is carved out obstinately, his arms crossed over his chest. I’m so unused to this version of Eli; we never fought each other for anything, not even our relationship, but it’s clear he won’t let this go.
One thing is clear: no way are we going up to Blue Yonder together, of all places. The rising color in Eli’s cheeks confirms we agree.
“I mean, it would be incredible to have you up there, E, but are you sure you’d be able to go?” Adam asks, his mouth pulling down with concern. “I know you technically have the time off, but do you really have the time off? I don’t want you dealing with this shit and your usual shit on top of it.”
I straighten. Oh, thank god, an out. “That’s a great p—” “Work isn’t going to distract me,” Eli says.
A short huff of laughter escapes me before I can stop it. Eli looks over at me, his mouth pressing into a thin line.
“It won’t,” he promises, his voice too confident, and too shadowed with our history. I swallow, looking away. “Work is the last thing on my mind. I’m here for you, for whatever you need.”
He’s talking to Adam, but if I close my eyes, I can imagine some parallel universe version of him saying it to an alternate universe version of me. With the real Eli, work always comes first. And with the real me, showing people I need them comes last.
I don’t understand what his endgame is; Eli is many things, but a liar isn’t one of them. Still, I can see his earnest words are softening Adam up— his shoulders drop, his frown lifting into appeasement.
“I’m here for you, too,” I argue. And I’ve been here for you, I add silently. I was the one you were giving please-help-me eyes to two minutes ago.
Adam appraises us, head tilted, an emotion I can’t identify passing through his eyes. Then his expression melts into something soft and happy. “This is perfect.”
“What?” My confusion is perfectly synced with Eli’s.
“It’ll be great to have you both up there,” Adam says. A lightning flash of what looks like pure panic crosses Eli’s face before he shuts it down. “I mean, it makes sense, right? My best people, helping save the big day together.”
The sound that escapes Eli’s mouth is quiet. Mine is a honk. “Wait. You want us to go up together? Me and Eli?”
I put the barest emphasis on his name, just a sprinkle, like Salt Bae with immense restraint. But I never make a fuss so I might as well have yelled, “You want me to go with Eli, the man who took a sledgehammer to my heart? That Eli?”
Jamie’s looking at me, silently asking, do you want me to step in? I transmit back a deceptively calm no, scrambling to figure out how to do this when I promised Adam yesterday Eli and I were better than ever. When I told Eli he could hip check me to the side in order to assuage his guilt for being an absentee everything.
Blake flicks a quick look at me. “You really need two people up there?
There must be plenty to do down here, too.”
I want to hug her for stepping in, but Jamie does it for me, a little hand squeeze and a smile Blake returns with a wink.
“My parents and brother are getting in tomorrow from LA and will probably hover unless I give them something to do,” Grace says. “And we have a bunch of other people around, including you and Blake. We should be good. But only if you really don’t mind.”
“You don’t, right?” Adam asks.
He’s looking at me like I hold the key to his happiness in the palm of my hands. I’ve never been able to resist a look like that. It reminds me of the way Eli looked at me when he asked me to move to New York with him.
It was a mistake to say yes then, and it’ll be a mistake to say yes now. But I don’t get a chance to say anything at all, because Eli speaks up.
“We’re in.”
“We’re in?” I echo.
“Sure are.” His eyes flick to me before looking at Adam. “See? We’re already ready to go.” I wonder if anyone else notices the imperceptible tightness in Eli’s smile. “We’ll get up there tomorrow and hit the ground running.”
I wrap eye daggers in cotton candy clouds, shooting them his way. His gaze snaps back to me like he feels the slice of my secret frustration. Like he knows exactly what I’m thinking.
And maybe he does. Maybe he’s wondering, too, what’ll happen if we’re together for the next week in a place where so many of our best memories live.
I wish that gave me any comfort. Instead, it only validates the feeling that I’m the cursed one.
 |
I make it another hour before I announce I’m heading home. Nearly everyone groans their disapproval, and my secret praise kink purrs at the thought of being missed.
Jamie follows me to the front door. She gives me a bone-crunching squeeze, whispering, “We need a huddle. Lots to discuss.”
I hum noncommittally, smacking a kiss on her forehead. The thought of picking up the phone exhausts me to my bones. I wish she were coming back to our—well, my apartment. I could lie in bed, stare at the ceiling while she played with my hair, unravel it all slowly because we had time for it. Fall asleep next to her like I used to all the time. But she has somewhere else to be, and truthfully, I can’t handle another conversation tonight. It’s time to disconnect my brain.
Which is why when I hear footsteps crunching down the driveway behind me, my soul lets out a deep sigh.
And when I hear a familiar voice call out, “Georgia,” it gives up entirely, sinking to the ground in protest.
I slow to a stop. It takes eight seconds for me to buff away the edges Eli’s been whittling into my patience all afternoon. Two seconds for me to turn around. Another three to watch him finish his swift lope down the driveway, his hands in his pockets.
He could be the sixteen-year-old version of himself right now. He used to follow me out of Adam’s parents’ house when I couldn’t put off going home to silence any longer and he was crashing in Adam’s guest room to avoid his pull-out-sofa-bed fate. He’d jog out with a little smile on his face
and keep me there until I’d caught him up on the parts of my day he hadn’t seen.
I thought a lot about his attention when things disintegrated between us. When we were friends, and especially after we became more, I felt like the only person in the world. Like I belonged to someone. He picked up every detail of my life like he was ravenous for it. I wondered a lot, alone in our bed while he pulled another all-nighter, when he stopped being hungry for me.
Now, as he stops two feet away, his gaze piercing in a way it’s been all day and not for years, I feel the phantom pang in my stomach.
After a beat he says, “Quite a pickle you got us into.” My mouth drops open. “Me?”
“You agreed in the car that you’d step aside.” Even in the semi-darkness, frustration is clearly written across his face. “You said you’d let me take care of anything else that came up.”
“I didn’t know that ‘anything else’ would be their wedding venue burning to the ground, Eli. I’m not going to sit there and say, ‘Sucks for you, good luck with that.’ ”
I could mention the way Adam silently pleaded for my help, but that would be a dick move. A dagger right in Eli’s chest. I don’t want to hurt him; I just want him to go away.
“You wouldn’t have to say that,” he says. “I was there.” “But you haven’t been.” It’s not a snap, but it’s close.
The street light above us crackles, then extinguishes, plunging us into an intimate darkness that’s barely softened by Adam’s front porch light.
Lovely.
“That’s the point, Georgia.” Eli’s voice is quiet. Edgy. “That’s why I spoke up. But you spoke up, too, and now we both have to go.”
“You don’t have to,” I say quickly.
“Yes, I do,” he replies with an authority that sends goose bumps skittering up my arms. “I am.”
“Grace said they’ll have help, but there’s still plenty to—”
“I know Adam gave you the same speech he gave me,” Eli interrupts.
Even as he steps closer, his face is in shadow. He looks like the stranger I wish he was, pushing conversations I don’t want to have.
My heart starts to beat faster. “He did.”
“And I’m guessing our message was united, since he’s so hyped about us going to Blue Yonder together.”
In my mind, our list blows open to its well-worn pages and I see it: never talk about the past or how we handle it now. I see Eli’s pen hovering, ready to cross it out.
“You don’t need to recap,” I say, as calmly as my rioting body will allow. “We’re on the same page.”
“Are we?” he asks with a searching quality I don’t understand. “I mean, is there a reason you don’t want to be up at Blue Yonder together, beyond awkwardness?”
“Awkwardness?” I blurt out.
In the smudged, inky night, the shape of his face is merely a suggestion, only known to me because I’ve traced every curve and angle of him. His expression is a mystery, and his tone is careful when he replies, “Would you call it something else?”
On the list of words I’d use to describe the way I feel about Eli,
awkward is near the end, but every other one would expose too much. “No,” I lie.
He doesn’t reply immediately, the air thick with a disappointment I know is mine. I hope he can’t feel it.
“Adam will see through any excuse we make to stay behind, and it’ll send him on a mental bender,” he says finally.
“I know.” Deep down, I knew as soon as we said I’ll do it together that I was stuck.
“Part of me knew you’d volunteer,” he says, his voice as quiet as the night cocooning us. The only other noise is the breath I’m trying to regulate, a pocket of crickets chirping nearby, a burst of laughter from inside. A lonely sound when I’m not in the middle of it. “Of course you would. You’d do anything for the people you love.” The way he says it is
rough and nearly affectionate, a fuzzy approximation of the tone he’d whisper in my ear, press into the side of my neck. Against my mouth.
I don’t know why that ties a knot in my throat, but suddenly it’s hard to swallow. I would do anything for the people I love: move to New York. Pretend to be friends afterward. Save a wedding.
“But I will, too,” Eli continues. “So we’re going to have to do this together. We can split up the tasks, but I’m not staying behind.”
“Work really isn’t going to get in the way? I’m not going to have to take over halfway through because there’s some pitch emergency with Luce?”
It’s not so dark I don’t see the flicker in his expression. A brief devastation. “No. You won’t be doing it by yourself. I don’t even have my laptop with me.” At my dubious expression, he says, “I won’t go anywhere, Georgia.”
The knot’s in my chest now. I’m afraid for him to keep his promise just as sure as I am he’ll break it. But he’s right; we don’t have any choice. We can’t give Adam one more thing to worry about.
“Fine.” I say it like the F-word it is, try not to notice the way Eli’s shoulders get even tenser. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow at nine.”
“Fine,” he echoes in a low, resonant rumble.
When I pull away from the curb a minute later, I can’t help looking in the rearview mirror.
He’s standing there, watching me drive away, the way he always used to
do.
