Page 23 of Choosing Her

saylor

I trailed after Naomi as she led the way to a table on the patio of the cafe, glancing over my shoulder at Crossy every few seconds. He wasn’t alone at the table anymore—not only was Tino still there but Mako and Bear had appeared out of nowhere and were now sitting with him too.

“So, let me tell you about Jared,” Naomi said as we sat down.

I forced my gaze onto her, so she wouldn’t ask me why I kept looking through the window of the cafe.

As far as Naomi was concerned, my only interaction with Crossy since the breakup was giving him the bag of his stuff and I preferred to keep to that way.

I’d casually mentioned that his friend was dating Poppy so she wouldn’t ask too many questions if she saw me around him, but I also didn’t want to go out of my way to make her think we were spending time together.

Maybe, a little bit, because I was worried she would ask me not to see him anymore, even in those situations, and I wasn’t sure how I could say no.

“Jared,” I said slowly, trying to remember who he was.

Honestly, my sister went through boyfriends so quickly that it was hard to keep track.

Since Crossy, she’d dated at least six boys.

She hadn’t told me much about any of them, since we didn’t speak much when we were at school.

I was only in town with her because none of her friends were free and she thought she would seem pathetic to go out on her own.

I wasn’t sure dragging me along was much better, but I didn’t argue, just like always.

“The football player,” she prompted, tossing some of her glossy brown hair over her shoulder.

“Right, of course.” I nodded as if I remembered who she was talking about, although I couldn’t remember her mentioning him at all before this. It was easier to act like I knew what she meant, because she would just get mad if I said she hadn’t told me, and then we would fight.

“He’s really cute,” Naomi said. She took a sip of her drink, looking thoughtful.

“I mean, a football player isn’t really my type, but he’s super popular and…

” She trailed off, and this time, she was the one who looked through the window of the cafe.

I felt an irrational twinge of anger when I realized she was looking at Crossy.

Why was she looking at him while talking about her new boyfriend?

She was the one who broke up with him. She left him, talked down about him, and forced me to take his stuff back to him so she didn’t have to see him.

So how dare she look at him now as if she deserved to think about him at all?

“He’s not as good a kisser as Caleb,” she sighed.

I blinked at her, not sure how to respond to that.

Of course, I knew what a good kisser Crossy was.

I was much more familiar with that fact that I wanted to be, seeing how often I dreamt about that night.

But Naomi didn’t know that, so I could nod along with it.

I couldn’t say anything that I was thinking, like yeah I’m sure he’s the best kisser in the world , because I couldn’t risk her wondering why I knew.

And, to an extent, I didn’t want to agree with her because I didn’t want to validate whatever feelings she was having right now.

Crossy wasn’t hers. She didn’t deserve to miss him.

“Oh, yeah?” I asked, trying to sound neutral and not at all like I wanted to yell at her not to think about Crossy.

Naomi sighed and stirred her drink with her straw. She looked into the cafe again briefly then stared somewhere over my shoulder, squinting in the afternoon sun.

“Sometimes, I wonder if I should just get back together with Caleb.”

If anyone ever asked what it felt like for your heart to stop, I would refer them to that moment.

I stared at her blankly for much longer than was appropriate, then realized I needed to do something , so I took the lid off my drink and started flat out chugging.

It probably didn’t make look any more normal, but at least it gave me a moment to think.

Naomi couldn’t get back together with Crossy.

There was about a thousand reasons why that was a terrible idea.

The biggest one was that it was obvious to anyone but her that they weren’t a good match.

Actually, until right this moment, I thought she was very aware of it too.

I always got the sense that Naomi had only kept Crossy around because she didn’t have anyone else on her exchange.

It only took a few weeks after getting back for her to find someone she liked better and leave Crossy in the dust. Why would she want to go back to him after that?

And besides, if she got back together with him, there was no way he and I could hide that I’d been tutoring him for over a week now.

It was bound to come out that we’d been hiding it and she would get upset and probably break up with him all over again, then destroy my life.

“If you’re with a new guy and thinking about the old one,” Naomi continued, “that’s a sign that you belong with the old one. Don’t you think?”

She genuinely thought she belonged with Crossy? My Crossy?

I blinked in surprise at where my own thoughts had turned as Naomi continued to ramble on about the one who got away.

Crossy wasn’t mine. He’d never been mine, except maybe for those few hours I’d had him on New Year’s Eve.

And I didn’t want him, anyway. See, I knew agreeing to tutor him was a bad idea—it was leaving me with these ideas that Crossy actually belonged in my life, when I knew he didn’t.

I’d spent months carefully working to get over him, only to have it all come crashing down around me within weeks of getting back to school.

Whatever—I didn’t care if he wasn’t mine. I just didn’t want him to be hers , either.

“You can't do that, Naomi,” I said. She blinked in surprise, probably used to me just agreeing to whatever she said. It had always been the easiest way to keep the peace in our house. And maybe if she’d been talking about anyone else, I would have agreed with her.

I would have told her to dump Jared and go back after him.

But this was Crossy. I couldn’t let her have him again.

“Why not?”

“Because you can’t!” What more was there to say? “You broke up with him. You ruined him. You can't just go back and decide that you changed your mind.”

She sniffed. “Of course I can. I can do whatever I want.” She looked at him through the window again, and this time I followed her gaze, watching Crossy laugh with his friends as he wiped at his shirt where the coffee had stained it.

Naomi tapped her acrylic nails against the table.

“Though, then again, I’m not a fan of his friends.

That made my blood run cold. Because even if I wasn't that close with the hockey boys, I refused to listen to her talk badly about them. Especially about Bear, the boy that Poppy loved so much. How could she even say that she wasn’t a fan of them, when she’d never even spent time with them?

They’d never come over to our place during the summer and she never mentioned meeting them when she was out with Crossy.

Did she just decide she didn’t like them and that was that?

“I wonder if I could get him to stop talking to them…”

“Naomi,” I hissed. I glanced warily at the group again like I thought they might be able to hear me from across the cafe and through the class. “Of course you can’t! They’re his teammates.”

She turned her glare on me, and she looked so unimpressed that I almost backed down.

Almost forgot what I was saying and just gave in, just like I always did.

At home, I was the one who never rocked the boat, both with Naomi and with my parents.

It was easier to just give in than to try to fight my way to be heard in that family.

But not now. Not when it was Crossy who would end up getting hurt.

“Why do you care?”

I knew I couldn’t tell her the truth, but I also couldn’t say nothing.

If I stayed silent, she would undoubtedly begin to come up with her own conclusions and I wasn’t sure how long it would take her to land on some semblance of the turret.

Not that I thought she would guess that I’d met Crossy before her or that I’d kissed him, but she would probably assume that I was interested in him—and that was the last thing I needed.

But there was one excuse I had packed away for moments like this.

“My best friend is dating his best friend,” I said. “It will ruin my friend group if you try to tear Crossy apart from his friends. So please don’t, okay?”

She raised her eyebrows and scoffed. “Crossy? You call him Crossy? What kind of stupid nickname is that?”

My face paled, and I looked away quickly. “It’s what the boys call him. I picked it up from them.”

“I don’t know why you hang around them anyway,” she mumbled. I ignored the jab and tried to remind her of what was at stake.

“He’s Bear’s best friend,” I said. “I can’t let you hurt him.”

“Good thing I didn't ask your permission,” Naomi said coldly. It was a tone I’d heard many times in my life but rarely directed at me. This was the way she spoke to people that she thought was disrespecting her. “He loved me. He probably still loves me. It’s not like he’s moved on, right?”

“We just walked in on him on a date,” I said.

Naomi rolled his eyes. “And he didn’t even know her first name. What a grand romance.”

“Oh, and you would know what that was?” I snapped back, the words coming out before I could think them through.

Naomi's eyes narrowed. “What's that supposed to mean?”

I should have backed down, apologized, and said I didn’t know what I was thinking.

We would both remember it happened, but we wouldn’t speak of it again.

It was a well-rehearsed dance between Naomi and me.

But not today. The way she was talking about him, as if he was nothing but a toy for her to play with, made a fire burn inside me for reasons I didn’t totally understand.

“It means you wouldn’t know romance if it hit you in the head,” I said. I looked at Crossy again, laughing at something Bear was saying. How could he ever have gone out with someone like Naomi?

I stood up so suddenly that my chair toppled over behind me. Naomi looked at me with wide eyes, like she couldn’t recognize me at all.

“I don't feel well,” I muttered. “I’m going home.”

It was a testament to how shocked she was that she didn't follow me.

I thought of her and of Crossy for the whole walk back to my dorm.

Then I thought of Crossy on that stupid date—and that even though it had been satisfying to see him get coffee thrown on him, seeing him on the date at all hurt me in ways that it had no right to.

Caleb Cross was supposed to mean nothing to me.

That was what I had spent months working toward.

But before I knew it, I was locking myself in a bathroom stall and throwing up at the thought of Crossy kissing another girl.