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Trey bites his lip as he shakes his head. “It didn’t. I—I never sent it.”

“Oh.” I try not to look disappointed. “Did you forget?”

“No.”

“Oh.” I want to ask what happened, but I don’t know how to do that without suggesting I’ve been waiting for his postcard since the moment he left my front stoop. Every day, I checked the mail, thinking, Today will be the day . It never was.

Finally, he glances over at me with an ocean of anguish on his face—his gorgeous, I-want-to-touch-it-so-badly face. “I’m sorry I never sent you a postcard.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I...” His gaze falls back to his lap, where his hands are fidgeting again. “I dunno. I just couldn’t do it.”

“What stopped you?”

“Anything and everything. The idea that what I wrote wasn’t good enough. The idea that Caleb would see it before you and he wouldn’t give it to you. The idea that even if you did get it, you’d just read it once and throw it away. Should I go on?”

It sounds like he overthought this so much to the point where it debilitated him from doing it at all.

“What did the postcard say?” I ask, trying not to sound like I’m dying to know.

“Which one? The first one or the hundredth one?”

My jaw drops. “You wrote on a hundred postcards for me?”

“It’s probably closer to two hundred now.”

“And you couldn’t send just one ?”

“I didn’t think it mattered to you. Honestly, I’m surprised you even remember asking me for a postcard. I figured as soon as I left that day, you haven’t thought of me since.”

I’ve thought about you every day. Those words get stuck in my throat because I shouldn’t be saying things like that to him. Nor should I be asking, “Do you ever think of me?”

He scoff-laughs. “Does the sun rise?”

Yes. “How often would you say you think of me?”

He gazes at me with such a deep and intense look that my lungs forget how to function. I don’t tear my attention away from him as he communicates his answer to me through his unblinking eyes and silent lips.

I tell him I received his wordless answer by nodding my acceptance of it. I’d like to tell him that I probably think about him just as often, but I don’t know how.

“I’ll try to send you a postcard when I get back to New York,” he says.

“I’d really appreciate that.”

Just then, a silver Malibu pulls into the lot next to Javina’s car. Liz steps out first, then Javina. They have good timing, because the tension between Trey and me was getting hard to handle.

Silently, Trey and I meet our friends at Javina’s open hood.

“Did you get a new fuse?” I ask Javina, feeling Trey’s stare on my back.

“Lots,” Javina says. “I got a snack too. Can you hold this?” She hands me a plastic shopping bag with some chips and a root beer in it, then works to get a fuse out of its package.

With the bag in my hands, I smile at Liz. “Thanks for giving Javina a ride.”

Liz offers me a warm smile back. “No problem. There’s an auto shop not too far from here, so it didn’t take long. Plus, Javina bought me a snack too.”

After Javina pries the old fuse out with her pliers, she sticks in a new one. Then she gets behind the wheel and starts the car.

“We’re all good!” she shouts out the window. “The prindle works now.” She steps out just as Trey gets her hood closed for her. “Thanks, pretty boy.”

“You’re welcome.” He smiles, and this time, it looks genuine. It’s almost like he missed hearing her call him that and it was nice to hear it again.

“Thanks, Liz,” Javina says. “Next time I need an Uber, I’ma hit you up.”

I hold Javina’s snack bag out to her. “Here.”

She tries taking it from me, but it gets snagged on my ring. I unsnag the bag’s loops from the diamond as Trey sucks in a little gasp. His face falls as his eyes remained glued to my left hand.

Liz plasters a big ol’ smile onto her face. “That’s a pretty ring, Ari.”

“Thanks.” Naturally, I stick out my hand for her to see it better.

Trey’s gaze follows my ring as all the color drains from his face.

“Did you pick it out?” Liz asks.

“No, Caleb did.”

“When’s the wedding?”

“Tomorrow.” In the corner of my eye, I see Trey’s shoulders slump as he sucks in a frazzled breath. His attention is still stuck on my ring.

“Congrats,” Liz says. “I’ll bet it’s easier to find a wedding venue on a Sunday versus a Saturday.”

“Oh, we didn’t rent a venue. We’re just having a small ceremony with close friends and family in his parents’ backyard. Nothing too fancy. We picked tomorrow because it’s the anniversary of the date Caleb and I met.”

Liz’s attention darts up to Trey, who now looks like he’s going to collapse from a lack of oxygen.

“I’ll be in the car,” he whispers to Liz. Then he half runs, half stumbles into her passenger seat and slams the door.

“Sorry,” Liz says with an apologetic smile. “He’s just a little dehydrated. We’ve been under the hot sun all day.”

We all know that’s not why Trey ran away.

A part of me wants to apologize to him, but for what?

For getting married to Caleb? For trying to hide it from him?

The entire time Trey and I sat on that bench, I kept my left hand out of his sight.

I don’t know why I didn’t want him finding out that I’m engaged.

I just didn’t. Maybe it was because I wanted to avoid this awkward situation.

Javina and I say our goodbyes to Liz, then get into the Corolla. I steal a glance at Trey, who’s slouched in Liz’s passenger seat with his eyes closed. He’s sucking in deep breaths so heavily that his chest looks pumped. I stare at him until Liz starts her car and drives away.

Javina unscrews the cap of her root beer and takes a sip. Then she places the bottle into the cup holder and opens her chips. As she crunches on one, she hands me the box of unused fuses and her pliers. “Could you put this in there for me?”

I take the stuff from her, then press the button to open her glove box and gasp. “What’s all this?” At the bottom of the compartment are a bunch of fuses that look exactly like the ones in my hand.

“Oh, shit. Forgot about those.”

“You had extra fuses this whole time?”

She shrugs. “Okay, sue me. I saw an opportunity, and I took it. While we were in the picture line, you said you wanted to talk to him, then you chickened out at the last second.”

“Because I didn’t want to talk to him in front of a bunch of people.”

She flashes me a duh face. “Which is why I saw the opportunity and took it.”

I gape at my mastermind of a friend. “Did your car even break?”

“Yes. It wasn’t until they showed up and I dug through my glove compartment when the idea came to me. Without hesitation, I dumped out the fuses and presented an empty box. You can be mad at me all you want, but my plan worked. You got to talk to him without people there, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but?—”

“How’d it go?” She bites down on a chip.

“Fine, I suppose.”

“Did you ask him why he never sent you a postcard?”

I nod as I replay Trey’s long answer in my head. All his overthinking, his somber tone, that depressing darkness in his eyes.

“And?” Javina impatiently circles her wrist in the air.

“He said he never sent one because he didn’t want Caleb to see it first and not give it to me.” Technically, Trey said much more than that, but that’s as much as I’m going to share.

Trey also said he’ll send me a postcard when he gets back to New York. I plan to check my mail every day for it.