‘No,’ I said, ‘it’s just incredibly humiliating, and now I can never face him again.’
‘I wonder why he said no?’ Maggie mused.
‘Because he’s Eli,’ I told her.
Leah rolled her eyes. ‘That’s a statement, not an explanation.’
‘What I mean is,’ I said, ‘I know what he’s like. I had my chance with him, and I blew it. So he’s done.’
‘Wait.’ Esther held up her hand. ‘Back up. When were you and Eli an item?’
Once again, I had everyone’s attention as I said, ‘Um, we were hanging out a lot, a few weeks back.’
‘Doing what?’ Leah asked.
I thought of Eli and me, in the car, driving through the dark streets of Colby, alone and together, all those nights. Shopping, eating, talking, questing. We’d done so much it seemed impossible to narrow it down to any one word. So instead, I decided to go with the one thing we hadn’t done, at least until the very end. ‘We couldn’t sleep,’ I said. ‘So we were just up, together.’
‘Until you blew it,’ Esther said, clarifying.
I nodded.
‘What’d you do?’
I looked down at my cold coffee. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Something happened, and I got scared and pulled away.’
‘Okay, well, that’s not vague,’ Leah said.
‘Leah!’ Esther said.
‘What? “Something happened”? What does that mean?’ They all looked at me again, and under their gazes I realized that this, too, was a point where I usually pulled back. Folded into myself, hiding away. But considering what I’d already been through that day, it seemed only fitting to go for broke. ‘My dad and Heidi separating,’ I said. ‘It… it kicked up a lot of stuff for me. And I dealt with it the way I did when my parents split.’
‘Which was?’ Esther asked.
I shrugged. ‘Throwing myself into books and school, basically blocking everyone out. Especially anyone who might call me on it.’
‘Like Eli,’ Maggie said.
‘Especially Eli,’ I replied. ‘We’d had this one night where we really connected… and the next day, I just shut down on him. It was so stupid of me.’
‘Did you tell him that, though?’ Maggie asked. ‘Today?’
‘Yep,’ I said. ‘But like I said, it was too late. He’s done.’
There was a moment of quiet as this was processed and considered. I picked up the pack of cupcakes, then put them back down.
‘Well,’ Leah said finally, ‘I say, screw it.’
‘Leah.’ Esther sighed. ‘Honestly.’
‘No, really. So you’re humiliated. It happens. And who needs boys anyway? We’ll all just go to the prom together tonight and have a good time.’
‘I thought,’ Esther said to her, ‘that you were determined to have a date, or you weren’t going.’
‘That was before I’d exhausted all my options,’ Leah explained. ‘Now, I’m embracing my single status and just hanging with the girls. Like we all are. Right?’
‘Right,’ Esther said.
They both looked at me. I said, ‘You know, having been rejected twice, I’m thinking I might just stay home.’
‘What?’ Leah shook her head. ‘That’s a total quitter attitude.’
‘Twice,’ I said again, holding up two fingers. ‘In fifteen minutes, within a hundred feet of each other. What’s next? An anvil on my head?’
‘This,’ Esther said to me, ‘is exactly when you need to go out with the girls. It’s a textbook situation. You go with us, we dance together, you’ll feel better. Right, Mags?’
I hadn’t noticed until right then that Maggie had kind of shrunk back toward the door, one foot actually already out in the hall. When we all turned our attention to her, she flushed. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Actually…’
Silence. Then Leah said, ‘Actually what?’
‘I kind of have a date.’
‘What?’ Esther said. ‘What happened to sisterhood?’
‘You guys were totally blowing that off up until this very second!’ Maggie protested. ‘How was I supposed to know you’d actually come around?’
‘If you tell me you’re going with Jake Stock,’ Leah warned, ‘my head is going to explode.’
‘No.’ Maggie flushed again, then looked down at her hands. ‘Adam asked me.’
Leah and Esther looked at each other. Then at Maggie. Then at each other again. ‘Holy crap,’ Esther said, exhaling. ‘Finally!’
‘No shit,’ Leah said. ‘He finally got up the nerve!’
Maggie brightened, stepping back into the office. ‘So you’re not mad?’
‘Of course we are,’ Leah said.
‘But,’ Esther added, ‘we’re also happy that this sexual tension that’s been going on for years –’
‘Years,’ Leah agreed.
‘– will finally be resolved, one way or another,’ Esther finished.
‘Oh, it’s not like that,’ Maggie said, flipping her hand. ‘We’re just going as friends.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘You’re not.’
She looked at me. ‘What?’
‘He likes you,’ I told her. ‘He told me. And I’m telling you because if you blow your chance, you’ll be really sorry. Trust me.’