Page 45 of Falling Backwards (The Edge of Us #1)

I feel like I’m on the edge of losing my mind.

In the car on the way home, I kept feeling Maggie in the passenger seat with her hand holding mine on her thigh. Just moments ago on the way up my stairs, the Christmas decorations we put on my front porch had me hearing the sweet ring of her laughter as I wrapped her up in the string of lights while wearing the reindeer headband we bought for me. Now I’m standing in my living room with the air still vibrating from me slamming the door behind me and I can see her on my couch, at my bar counter, walking towards my bedroom.

All the while, our fight has been on a blaring loop in my head.

I steeple my hands over my mouth, then rub at my temples, then start up a restless pace around the room.

My heart is pounding.

This isn’t how I…this is not how I….

But what did I really expect to happen? Did I really think she’d be fine with me hanging out with Jayden after the part he played in all that shit?

Not that she has every detail of my and Jayden’s arrangement from when we were younger. She doesn’t even have half of them. All she has is the worst one: I only got to know her because of a bet he came up with.

That’s enough, though. That’s enough reason for her not to like him.

And for her to feel like me still being his friend is akin to spitting on everything she and I have built up.

“That’s not what I’m doing,”

I say to the empty room. Shaking my head, I sniff hard.

“I love what we have. I love her.”

Something in me cracks apart at this being the first time I’ve admitted that out loud—here by myself, with me having stormed out of her apartment without even one last glance at her. It’s not right. It’s pathetic.

And it leads me to think of what I said about not trusting her with my pain over my dad. My pacing feet drag to a clumsy halt and I slap my hands to my face. The sting in my skin is nothing compared to the sting of the words I threw at her.

In my head, I see her eyes welling up with tears, see the wounded surprise splashed across her face.

In my chest, I feel it; when we were in the moment, I didn’t register my own shock that I’d said that to her, but I do now.

I made her cry and I hate it. I fucking hate it as much as I did eight years ago.

Yet I’m still mad. I can’t help that after all this time, I’m mad at her. I still harbor my old resentment towards her. She has never told me she’s sorry for what she did, and that fact is like a hole in my heart because she may not really be sorry. She may still think I had it coming. And if she does, I….

But didn’t I have it coming?

Even so, did I really mean the stuff about my dad? It’s true that I hadn’t told her about my stepsister’s text about him on Thanksgiving and didn’t tell her what happened today at lunch, but my God, I—even with the memory of how it felt for her to use my pain against me in high school, even with that lingering bitterness, I do still trust her. Of course I do. I knew it on Thanksgiving and I know it now. We’ve grown up. Things aren’t exactly the same as they were before. Plus, when I talked to her about Aunt Joni and about my dad sending the holiday card to me, Maggie was great about it. That went fine and it didn’t hurt.

But it’s still complicated because it would be a lie to say I’ve gotten over her breaking my initial confidence in her.

And this other stuff that’s been going on about my dad…it has felt like a tangle getting steadily worse.

I haven’t wanted to dwell on the past with her or the present with him, so I’ve just tried to ignore both.

When am I gonna learn that ignoring what hurts is not the way to make it better?

The sharp thought has my breath catching in my throat, my stomach curling.

It worsens as my dad grows bigger in my mind.

No, fuck him. I don’t wanna think about him right now.

One moment, I’m lost on what I do want to do; nothing sounds good at all because I’m too upset, too on-edge. The next moment, I’m dying to lie down and fall into the nothingness of sleep; it sounds so good that I know I’ll pass out as soon as I’m in bed.

Except Maggie’s memory is in my bed, so I don’t end up literally going there.

Since she’s on one certain end of my couch, too, I lie at the other.

And I shut my eyes on the world.

—

I did not pass right out.

For half an hour at least, my mind has continued spinning around everything that’s happened, everything I’m hurt by and afraid of, everything I wish was different.

I feel like I need to talk to someone, but I don’t know who and don’t even know how. Maggie asked me to leave her place, so she clearly doesn’t want to hear from me, and I wouldn’t know how to not fight with her again anyway. Paxton…if I could sort out my mental chaos, I could go to him, but it’s too jumbled. Don’t want to take this to my mom or aunt. And Jayden—no way do I feel like I can talk to Jayden about any of this. He won’t get it. He won’t understand.

Just turn it all off, I order myself. Shut it all down so you can sleep.

Thought by thought, I work on that.

No Maggie. No Jayden. No dad.

It takes a long time.

Eventually, though, I achieve the kind of quiet that comes of turning my back on everything, not of any kind of peace.

Despite knowing it won’t—can’t—last, I’m thankful. I feel the oncoming murmur of sleep and am glad I won’t be lying awake any longer.

But something does sneak through it as I’m sinking into the dark silence: an ache of missing.

It’s so deep and strong that my eyes threaten to start burning from it.

I cover it up with my determination to sleep.

I’m ready to leave this day behind me.

—

All of it is following me.

My fight with Maggie, my knotted-up mood about my dad; every emotion, every word.

Of course it is.

I slept fine enough once I finally dozed off, but then a new day arrived. I wondered why I was on the couch, and all the shit woke back up along with me. And although I’ve managed for most of the day to keep it in the background of my mind, it’s starting to push forwards.

Now I’m on the way to meet Jayden and I’m trying to focus on that, which isn’t helpful because it reminds me so damn much of Maggie.

Magnolia. My girl. My heart.

I shove a hand through my hair. I still feel so…everything…towards her. Angry and hurt and like I should have called or texted when I briefly thought about talking to her—but I’m also sad and wrought with stubbornness because she didn’t call or text me either—even though I don’t know what I’d say if I had the chance to say anything. And I’m almost weak with how badly I’ve come to want to see her face and touch her and make her smile instead of cry. I’ve started worrying she’s thinking of breaking up with me. I feel like I want to hug the life out of her and like I want to kick myself, and at the same time, I keep thinking of high school and keep being awash with bitterness all over again.

Yeah, everything—I feel everything.

It’s too much.

Something’s gotta give.

I grip the steering wheel and then reach over and change the song that’s playing because it reminds me of her…and the next one does, too, but my fingertip stops short of skipping it as well, and I don’t know why.

It’s still playing when I get to Merritt’s. I park and see that I’m a little early, so I just sit here and listen.

She’s who I should be with, something in me whispers. Not Jayden. I shouldn’t be here to meet him. I should be….

Torn between letting that really settle on me and clinging to why I’m here, I swallow hard and close my eyes.

And something else comes up in the darkness.

‘Congratulations, Ryan! That’s my boy! I’ve never been prouder, son. Damn, you just made me one happy dad!’

The text my dad sent yesterday at lunch to start a group chat with me, Aunt Joni, and a bunch of numbers that I don’t have stored in my phone but that must belong to various relatives. One of them definitely belongs to my stepbrother Ryan, because he gleefully replied both to the picture of him holding some kind of award and to my dad’s message about him.

‘Thanks dad! I never could’ve done it without your support! You’re the freaking best!!!’

What followed was a playful back-and-forth presumably with my stepmom and stepsister about the support they also gave him during his time earning whatever award that was. The three of them joked around and my dad joined in. It wasn’t long before other people started chiming in, too, with their own praise.

It takes some time for me to realize my eyes have opened again and are staring at a point around the steering wheel that matches where my phone had been in my hands during all of it.

I can’t seem to stop, just like I couldn’t stop myself from rereading those first two messages again and again, until it hit me that I needed to put the shit away before Maggie came back from the bathroom and asked what was wrong.

Well, I’d managed that much. Just hadn’t managed to look like nothing had gone wrong at all. So, even with my hands innocently folded on the table upon her return, she noticed my mood had taken a turn.

I really tried not to be bothered by the messages. I did. I tried to enjoy our food and get back to us having fun together before her work shift.

But one little bit of knowledge dug its claws into me the moment I read my dad’s text to Ryan, and I couldn’t shake it loose.

He has never told me he’s proud of me.

I feel the fresh claw of it now through my memories, wishes I used to have, the sidelines I had to get used to calling my place in his life.

“Fuck,”

I mutter through the grip it all suddenly has on my throat.

I rub at the bridge of my nose, still unable to look away from that phoneless place in the lower gap of my steering wheel.

He said he’s never been prouder than he is of Ryan. Said he’s one happy dad because of him.

Not of me. Not of me a single time that I can remember.

Ryan said he’s the best and talked about the support my dad gave him—support he’s never given me. To hear my mom tell it, he didn’t even pay child support after he left. And on Thanksgiving, Wendy said my dad is a great dad and a great guy and acted like I’m the one to blame for how things are between us, like I’m the one who has been hurtful.

They call him their dad and he’s been in their lives in ways he hasn’t been in mine. I have memories of him arguing with my mom, only smiling in a mere handful of the many pictures we have from my childhood. I remember him spending time with me every now and then, only for me to try to impress him and feel like I fell short because I didn’t like fishing or hunting or playing sports and he didn’t like video games or the shows I watched. He wasn’t proud of me for getting excellent grades in school because that’s not the kind of student I was. He didn’t joke with me and make me feel like he was someone I could go to about girls or problems or fears.

Is that why he likes Ryan and Wendy more than he likes me? Are they more interesting? Are they smarter and more fun?

God.

I could almost, almost scratch those questions out of my mind with logic like, ‘Maybe things aren’t as great over there as I think they are. Maybe everyone puts on a show to hide that they’re unhappy,’ or, ‘Maybe the problem isn’t Ryan and Wendy being better than I am. Maybe it’s my dad just being an asshole for no reason,’ or, honestly, I could even see the logic in him possibly having been going through something when he was with my mom and then he healed and improved once he got with Suzanna and now everything is as great in their family as they act like it is.

Yeah, I could work on letting go of how I feel if it weren’t for what he said in the voicemail he left me yesterday, shortly after I took Maggie to work.

As I blow out a slow breath, I hear it all over again. Feel all over again what it was like to stand in my kitchen and listen to him snarl, snap, rant, rage at me for not saying anything in the group chat, for not texting or calling Ryan to congratulate him privately—he knows I didn’t do that, he checked—and for never answering Wendy’s text on Thanksgiving. I stared at the wall and listened while he criticized and insulted me, uninterrupted because I hadn’t answered the phone and tuned in to his disappointment and ire in real time.

He said he can’t believe the way I’m behaving. He can’t believe my childishness, my drama, my conceit.

“You are not the center of everything!”

I can still hear him booming.

“How many times do I have to tell you to grow up before you consider doing it? You’re twenty-four years old, not a little kid like Reese! Don’t you know it makes your brothers and sister feel bad to be ignored by you? I’m sick of you acting so immaturely!”

Right now, I look out my windshield at the familiar bricks that make up Merritt’s.

And not for the first time, but for the sharpest time, what my dad said about me intertwines with something Maggie said last night.

I asked if she had even tried to understand the threads of friendship that hold me to tonight’s plan with Jayden, and she asked if I had considered how that plan would make her feel.

The truth is, I hadn’t. Not really. And not because I didn’t care—it was just that I didn’t know what kind of reaction to expect and when I thought too long on a bad one, I…

…Jesus Christ, I hurt.

I hurt when I thought about her being hurt by my plan to hang out with him.

But I also felt that defensiveness of our friendship because, no, he’s not my favorite person—something I didn’t even know about myself until it fell out of my mouth—and yet he was the best friend I had for a long time.

And maybe he is an ass, you know? I remember thinking to myself the other day that he isn’t one, he’s just Jayden, but maybe that’s bullshit.

Still, I…I don’t know.

Even though I’ve not been looking forward to drunk Jayden since he first mentioned coming to town, and even though I don’t get his sense of humor and I don’t appreciate him slighting my girlfriend even as a joke, and whatever else…I feel like I have to come see him.

I told Maggie so because it’s true.

I keep staring at the building.

And…it’s weird: I didn’t think my rationalization about Jayden made a ton of sense last night when I gave it to Maggie, but now I kind of know it doesn’t.

A dude passing in front of my car glances at me, then away, then back to me with a sharp, questioning look.

I mumble.

“The hell are you looking at me like that for?”

and then comprehend I’d been frowning in that direction, so he must’ve thought I was doing it at him.

Well, I don’t think my expression shifts any, but at least I’m able to give a slight wave of, ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ before lowering my gaze and rubbing my eyes.

That deep, strong ache of missing Maggie comes up in me again.

It’s quickly followed by the feelings associated with her that I don’t like, but they’re a little different now from every other time.

I shouldn’t be here, that one part of me says again.

Glancing at the clock, I see it’s time to head into the bar.

And a certain sense of resolve comes up in me, too, joining my I Don’t Want To Be Around Shitfaced Jayden and all of the Fuck, I Seriously Want To See Maggie Now and the crop-up of Am I Really Immature Like My Dad Said, Just Not In The Way He Meant?

I get out of the car.

Walking into the bar is a strange thing.

I’m full of memories of coming here and being annoyed to see Maggie with her friends, even though I was never able to keep so much as my thoughts to myself; every time, it was inevitable that I’d end up thinking about her, looking at her, making faces at her, straight-up going near her to tease or talk shit or whatever she had put me in the mood for.

I couldn’t leave her alone regardless of how much she vexed me.

And she couldn’t leave me alone either.

I can’t count how many times I came through this double doorway and sensed a heavy or pointed or weary stare only to glance around the room and see her at a booth with Emma and Joy, having spotted me as soon as I arrived—and all the times throughout those nights when I’d find my eyes wandering to her, hers would always either wander to me, too, or already be on me for some reason.

When I glared at her, she glared back.

When I struck up an argumentative little chat, she participated instead of ignoring me.

There will be none of that here tonight, because I don’t get any sense of being stared at by her now.

Still catch myself looking at each booth, though, and each table, wondering if I’m going to see a perfect face and long brown hair and pretty bangs covering an eyebrow scar.

She’s truly not here, though. Neither are her friends. Neither is Paxton by any chance. Just random people and servers I recognize and familiar bartenders and the Merritts themselves.

No Kyle, I also note as my eyes do another sweep. He’s not leering from any corners like he, too, is hoping to see—

“Yo, Luke!”

hoots through the air so loudly it almost makes me cringe. Especially because it has come from close to my left, not from across the bar.

I turn to it and notice I looked right over Jayden while I was scoping out the room.

My smile is automatic and instantly exhausting.

As I go to the booth he’s snagged for us, I see he arrived early as well and chose to get started on drinking rather than sit in his car.

He stands enough to lean over the table and clutch my hand in a greeting grip, still loudly announcing my name, not seeming to notice how limp my reciprocity is in comparison.

“What is up?”

he asks.

“And what do you wanna drink?”

We sit and he turns to the open room, raising a hand and his voice even more.

“Hey, let me get a waiter over here!”

“No, hey, I can w—”

But my protest of his call-out gets lost in him adding on, at that same high volume, that we have an order to place because his boy needs a drink.

Embarrassment creeps into my cheeks. I resist the urge to peek around and see how many other people are also wondering why this dude is yelling like he’s in a club or something. Merritt’s is a bar, but it’s never wild enough for people to have to forgo their inside voices that much.

A server I’ve had before comes over, and I ask for Guinness on tap and then give a genuine smile because it’s one of apology. I like to think he’s familiar enough with me that he knows I’m not the type to shout for a waiter, especially not when I’ve just sat down and not had time to be noticed. Though I’m pretty sure this is the same guy who was tending to me and Paxton the night I made Maggie spill her drink on herself, because I believe I recall him delivering the news that I had to pay for the drink…so he may also be familiar enough with me to know I can be an idiot in other ways….

I tune in to Jayden’s scoff of a laugh.

“Hey, hey, wait!”

he calls to our server, who has already left our table and now looks back.

“I thought my friend here would add something on to his little beer, but he must’ve forgotten, so go ahead and also bring us some Patrón. I think four shots will—”

“No, not for me,”

I finally cut in loudly enough to be heard. I make eye contact with the server and cut a hand horizontally through the air.

“I just want the beer.”

He nods, then looks to Jayden and holds up two fingers.

“Two for you, then?”

I hear another scoff-laugh. Then.

“Sure. Tequila just for me, I guess.”

The server continues leaving and I look at Jayden, who’s looking at me like I’ve grown another eyeball or something.

“What are you, twelve?”

he asks.

“Why do you only want a freaking beer to drink?”

“I like Guinness,”

I say a little more sharply than I mean to.

Or maybe kind of as sharply as I mean to.

He doesn’t seem to pick up on that either.

“Sure, but we’re supposed to be celebrating me coming to town. We haven’t hung out in forever. We’ve barely even texted.”

I’m torn on how to respond. Do I shrug? Defend my choice in drink again? Blurt out that I’m not interested in getting trashed with him?

Tell him I can’t stay long because I have way more important places to be?

That one comes as a surprise to me.

Once again, though, some part of my brain is ahead of the rest of it. Last night with Maggie, I said Jayden isn’t my favorite person when I hadn’t realized I even felt that way. Here and now, I’m finding that same area of my brain has already decided I don’t want to stay here even for an hour because I do have other places to go: to meet up and talk with Paxton if he’s free, and then to—

“Well, anyway,”

Jayden says.

“What’s new with you? Other than the girlfriend?”

His incredulity shifts into a snicker as he lifts his drink to his lips.

“Did she turn you into a beer bitch? ’Cause the Luke I saw last time was single and down to take shots with his best friend.”

You’re not my best friend anymore.

There’s a certain sadness to that silent acknowledgement, but mostly there’s just….

Out loud, I go with.

“Ah, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to drink a beer, man. And no, she didn’t turn me into anything.”

Except a better person.

My throat tightens for a moment.

I swallow through it and go on.

“Not much going on with me that’s new, though. How’s school?”

He sets his glass down.

“Shitload of work. It’s easier to cheat than I thought it’d be, though, so that helps.”

I give him a look. “Ha.”

“It is.”

His eyebrows lift earnestly.

“I really didn’t think I’d be able to do it as much as in college, but it’s—”

“Wait, what’re you—?”

Astonished now, I can’t even finish my question.

Is he for real? Surely not. He wouldn’t do that stuff, would he?

The steadier voice that’s been with me whispers, Would I really put it past him?

Jayden slowly shrugs and shakes his head. “What?”

“You cheated your way into medical school?”

I blink, then frown at him.

“And you’re cheating in medical school?”

“Well, yeah. It’s hard to get into and hard to get through.”

I stare at him.

“But at least I’m gonna come out of it with a good job,”

he says breezily.

I start to point out any number of things—that cheating is wrong, that faking his way through schooling for something like medicine is really wrong, that there’s likely going to come a time when he can’t actually fake anymore and he’ll get caught—but the way he starts grinning distracts me. It looks condescending or something.

Now I’m the one asking, “What?”

“You jealous, bartender?”

he asks.

“Of the good job I’m gonna have after all this?”

And there’s that tone: the one he uses when he thinks he’s being funny and I don’t. He touched on it a minute ago when he called me a beer bitch. I know I would’ve heard it the other night if we’d been on a call instead of texting when he said I’ve been pussy-whipped into spending all my time with a girl who makes me spend my money on her.

My face must be saying what I’m thinking because he holds his hands up and laughs.

“I’m kidding! No need for you to look like you wanna get up and leave.”

He picks his drink up again and gestures at me with it.

“But honestly, friend to friend…if you’re gonna get touchy over a joke, maybe that should tell you something. Are you jealous I’m in med school? Do you wish you were there too? Or in law school or in school for—”

he shrugs.

“—I don’t know, computers or some shit? ’Cause you don’t have to have a lame job forever, you know. You don’t have to be stuck mixing sugary drinks and slicing limes.”

He grins again.

“Seriously. When do you work again? Tomorrow? Bail on it and hang with me and we’ll figure out how you, too, can grow up and do some real—”

“One Guinness, two shots of Patrón.”

Our server starts setting glasses on the table.

“Anything else y’all need right now?”

As I shake my head and Jayden says we’re good, I look at the beer and actually feel like I don’t even want it anymore.

I want Maggie.

A swell of missing her hits me once again.

The server is gone and Jayden is lifting a shot like he wants me to toast him.

I don’t so much as touch my glass. I don’t even get back to the rude and stupid things he was saying moments ago, though I know how I want to respond to them. No, I jump into what I really want to say.

“Do you ever think back on what we did to Maggie Moss in high school and feel bad about it?”

“Who?”

I blink at him and watch him raise his eyebrows, gesturing for me to lift my drink to his.

This is when I finally find myself thinking, Strike one.

Absently, I curl a hand around my glass. Not absently, I prompt him.

“Maggie Moss. When we were sixteen. The girl I started hanging out with because I lost that bet to you about your brother’s—”

“Oh, yeah, yeah.”

He waves his free hand.

“Pff. Nah, I don’t feel bad about that. We were just having fun. It wasn’t a big deal.”

I withdraw my hand from my glass.

Jayden gives me a quizzical look.

“Have you been feeling bad about Maddie? Is that why you’re in this sucky mood and—?”

“Maggie.”

This time, my tone is undeniably sharp.

As he eyes me, he sets his shot glass down, realizing at last that I’m not going to participate in any celebratory cheers.

“What’s your matter, dude?”

he asks.

“Seriously?”

“How do you not regret that whole thing?”

I ask back.

“I regret it. I feel like shit about it. I guess it’s whatever if neither of us realized at the start that we were doing the wrong thing by messing with someone like that—it wasn’t good, but at least we could say we didn’t realize it would turn out so shitty. But at the end of it? It was clear then. You were right next to me when she accidentally found out about the bet—she overheard you talking about it to me—and you saw how much it hurt her. And you saw how much it hurt me to have hurt her. And by now, it should definitely be clear that….”

Now I’m the quizzical one.

“How do you not feel bad? How do you not think it was a big deal?”

Maybe putting it like that will make a difference, I think hopefully. Maybe he never dwelled on it as an adult and never gave himself the chance to come around to respecting what happened, and now he will.

But he’s shaking his head, finally drinking his first shot, wearing an expression like I’m overreacting and it’s getting on his nerves.

I clench my fists in my lap and wait for him to say as much.

He crosses his arms and settles back against his side of the booth.

“I don’t feel bad because it was just for fun between two friends. You lost a bet and had to pay up in accordance with our agreement. It’s as simple as that. Do I like that she overheard us talking about it? No, ’cause that’s a shitty way to learn about anything. But am I gonna beat myself up about what we did in general? Also no. Why would I? We were goofing off. It’s not like we physically hurt her. And watching you pay up was fun. I don’t have anything to feel guilty about.”

He shrugs.

“Plus, our bet wasn’t personal against her. It’s not my fault or my problem if she got her feelings hurt by it.”

Strike two.

“The hell do you mean, it wasn’t personal?”

I counter.

“After I lost the bet, you had the names of specific girls written on those pieces of paper I drew from. You picked out girls you thought were unattractive and included them in the bet. It was personal. Against all of them.”

“Again, it’s not like we—”

“No, quit trying to excuse it, Jayden.”

Tilting his head, he cuts his eyes along me.

I tell him.

“It shouldn’t be hard to look back at our choices and acknowledge that they were bad.”

But even as I say it, I already know he’s not going to change his mind—his heart.

‘It’s not like she actually fucking matters.’

Once again, I recall him saying that about Maggie after things between us got wrecked and I was upset.

The way he views everything now is the way he viewed everything then.

He is an asshole.

And I don’t even need him to reach strike three. I’m already done.

I dig my wallet out of my pocket to see if I have any cash, though I don’t think—oh, there’s a ten. Not interested in recalling where it’s from, only in slapping it onto the table. I didn’t take even a sip of the Guinness, but I don’t care. It’s getting paid for and I’m leaving.

“What are—? Are you serious right now?”

Jayden asks as I slip out of my seat to stand.

“You’re gonna ditch me after ten minutes just ’cause I don’t share in your tender-hearted remorse about some shit from high school that doesn’t even matter?”

“It does matter,”

I say as I put my wallet away again.

“but yeah.”

As I turn and go, it’s impossible not to hear him yelling that I’m a pussy, a shitty friend, a loser with a pathetic job. This time, though, I’m not embarrassed by him being so damn loud. With that kind of behavior, he’s saying more about himself than he is about me.

Plus, I’m already preparing to call my real friend and see if he can meet up.

—

“And so,”

I conclude as I look at Paxton and stop circling my living room.

“I don’t know what to do about her now. I—I wanna see her, but I can’t see her without us talking about all this, and I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to handle what we’re in the middle of.”

Blinking a few times, Paxton stares at me from my couch. He doesn’t appear judgmental, just like he’s trying to process everything I’ve said over the last…however many minutes.

Which was pretty much everything.

I told him about the bet with Jayden and how I fell for the girl whose name I drew out of his baseball cap. How I broke her heart because I wasn’t honest about the situation before she found out in a horrible way. How she refused to listen to my side of the story and just got back at me by posting flyers around school that led to most of our classmates shitting on me not only for the rest of junior year but for all of senior year too. I relived teenagers who liked to mock people in order feel better about themselves having all kinds of rumors about me to choose from, not even counting the one truth Maggie threw in there just to really kick me in the balls—though I still didn’t give Paxton full details about my upset over my dad.

Then I moved on to talking about Jayden’s visit to town. I summarized the fight Maggie and I got into about him; I managed to leave out specifics about my dad again, but I made it clear that I said something to Maggie about not trusting her after the high school stuff, even though the reality of how I feel about that is complicated. I told him how tonight’s outing with Jayden went, not leaving anything out of that one.

Now I’m standing here waiting for Paxton to know what to say to help me.

I need someone to help me. I don’t know how to salvage what I have with Maggie when there’s so much to deal with and—

Paxton guffawing snags my attention.

“Are you for real?”

he asks.

“Y’all have been letting that stand in your way all this time? That stuff from sixteen?”

I frown in curiosity and confusion.

“Uh, yeah? What do you mean? It was a really big deal to both of us.”

“For sure, but not so big that you guys needed to suffer for almost a decade without trying to reach a resolution.”

He must sense me starting to mention her and my agreement not to talk about the past, because he holds up a halting hand.

“A real resolution.”

I close my mouth on the words, then blow a raspberry.

He says.

“Man up and tell her again that you’re sorry. Try to fix it.”

At that, familiar anxiety claws up my chest, my throat.

I say.

“I want to, but…what if she still doesn’t wanna hear it? What if it leads to an even bigger fight? What if she decides she hates me and doesn’t want me anymore? What if she’s not sorry about the flyers?”

“You gotta try no matter the what-ifs. You gotta tell her how you feel about everything, Luke, and let her have a chance to do the same for herself, or you’re not giving your relationship your all. If you’re not giving your relationship your all, then it’s for sure never gonna make it. As for however bad she does or doesn’t feel…y’all just have to talk and try to sort it out.”

He tosses a dismissing hand in the air.

“Seriously, talk. To hell with the way you guys have been doing things when it comes to the past, ’cause it ain’t working.”

The more he says, the more I realize I didn’t really need him to say any of it after all.

I knew this stuff. Somewhere deep down, I knew it.

I thought it to myself just last night: ‘When am I gonna learn that ignoring what hurts is not the way to make it better?’ And maybe it did only come to me last night, between the fight with Maggie and me going to Merritt’s today, but still.

Paxton says.

“The different things you feel for her may be all tangled up, but the way out of them isn’t, dude. This is nearly black and white.”

He holds his hands up.

“Start a conversation towards apology and get a chance at repairing things, or don’t start one and don’t get the chance. When it comes right down to it, those are your options.”

I don’t know how long I’ve been nodding.

He adds.

“I’m pretty sure I told you this kind of thing a long time ago. Weren’t we sitting at the bar at Lucent, likening relationships to roads or some shit? You said your and Maggie’s road has potholes in it and I said you need to find a way to patch them instead of fucking up your car driving over and over and over them?”

Hell, I do remember that.

My voice is thin when I confirm, “Yeah.”

I clear my throat.

“Yeah, Pax.”

“Yeah?”

I nod some more.

“Okay, then. You guys tried it your way, with the whole, ‘We’re gonna try to be happy without actually dealing with our trauma,’ thing. Now try it the right way.”

That last bit comes on a tone of slight teasing, and it doesn’t rub me the wrong way like Jayden’s jokes did. I exhale a small laugh.

Paxton smiles.

“You do still wanna be happy together, don’t you?”

“I want us to, yes.”

“Then go for it.”

Such a simple solution.

Quietly now, I ask.

“Why is it so hard for me not to be fucking stupid?”

His smile fades. This time when he studies me, I see empathy in his face.

“You’re just human,”

he says.

“It’s okay to be human. It’s okay to think you’ve got everything worked out and then find out you don’t. It’s okay to realize you need, or even just want, to change something in your life. It’s okay to make mistakes.”

He shrugs.

“Everyone does stupid and hurtful and selfish shit. What’s not okay about it is when the lesson doesn’t get learned. And you’ve learned your lessons about Maggie, dude. Maybe the learning has been slow coming and it’s been piece by piece and it needed the nudge of your fake relationship because you couldn’t get out of your own way by yourself, but the fact of it happening is what counts.”

There are two things I think about that, and I’m not going to keep either of them to myself.

“This is not the first time since you’ve been here that you’ve said stuff I think I already knew somewhere in my mess of a brain.”

Paxton’s smile comes back and he mimes a bow.

“Understandable. You’re a smart person. You don’t have your head up your ass like ol’ Jayden Assgobbler.”

The laugh that escapes me now is echoed by him.

“He’s got his head up his ass and he’s an assgobbler? Is he gobbling his own ass?”

“I mean, yeah! The way you talked about him made it seem like he’s on his own team well enough, so why not?”

My laughter is wholehearted. And I know why, and it feeds right into the other thing I want to say—something I thought about him as I was leaving the bar.

I step towards Paxton and hold out a hand.

“You’re a real friend to me, dude. You always have been. Thank you.”

Grinning, he stands and swipes his hand into mine, clutching it just like I clutch his right back.

Equal reciprocity this time.

He says.

“No problem. You’ve always been a real friend to me too. Thank you, man.”

I feel a twinge of guilt over how I’ve never been completely honest with him about all the stuff with my dad. Shouldn’t a real friend open up about those kinds of things?

I think so. Still, as our hands drop each other, I know this isn’t the right time to do it.

I’d say Maggie drifts into my mind, but God knows she never really leaves it in the first place.

My musing from last night does come back up, though. ‘When am I gonna learn that ignoring what hurts is not the way to make it better?’

I have the answer today.

And the answer is just that: today.

Today, I learned the final piece of the lesson.

Now to figure out how and when to let the girl I love in on it.