Page 33 of The Ex Effect (Meet Cute in Minnesota #1)

TWENTY

MORGAN

“All right, we’ve got turkey club, or…turkey club.” I held out a sandwich to Frankie, who passed back a sparkling raspberry soda. “Oh, raspberry. I feel like you’re spoiling me.”

“Anything for my girl,” Frankie said with a wink and tucked herself deep underneath the shade of the cedar tree.

She was kidding. She was so obviously kidding , but that message refused to translate to my heart.

Much like every message, every mannerism, every look that Frankie had flashed me since we started taking over this project.

Now, with less than four weeks left until the wedding, our time together was coming to an end.

And then Frankie would go back to New York, and it would all really come to an end.

So, damn my heart misunderstanding when Frankie was kidding.

“I’m sweating my tits off.” Frankie fanned her face with a flimsy napkin. “Hope to God this heat wave breaks before the wedding.”

“I have sweat dripping in places that I didn’t even know contained pores.

It’s disgusting.” The lack of air-conditioning was an issue.

So far, my only solution for the wedding was to buy a portable air conditioner and create a barrier at the head table to trap the cool air.

But at this rate, Tommy and Olivia would absolutely melt into the floor even if I had the portable air conditioner.

“So…did I freak you out last week at Zoey’s when I word vomited all over you?” Frankie asked before sinking her teeth into the bread.

I held the cold sparkling can against my moistened neck.

Freak me out? No. Make me fall harder, yes.

Hearing everything about Frankie, her journey, her time in New York, even learning more about Savannah, filled in so many holes.

“Not at all. I loved the story about you finding you in New York. I thought it was gutsy, you know, to share all of that.”

Frankie flicked the top of the can. “There’s things I want to know about you, too, during that time.” Frankie gulped back the raspberry soda and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Like did you end up living in the dorms, or failing chemistry, or…finding a special someone.”

I didn’t know what to think of this question. Frankie’s eyes lowered to the ground as she asked. Was she curious? Shy? Sheepish? It was hard for me to tell. “No. No dorms. After the plans…fell through, I just lived at home and saved money.”

After the plans fell through . The humid air turned heavier with the unsaid words.

I didn’t need to say it. The plans were that Frankie and I were going to share a dorm.

The plans were that Frankie and I were going to go to football games and concerts and study at night.

The plans were that Frankie would not leave me.

I needed to call it out. This conversation had been lingering in the air for the last two months, but we were both so obviously avoiding it. I took a breath. “Back then…why did you ever say you were going to college with me?”

“Morgan.” Frankie’s chest lifted and lowered with a heavy exhale, her voice soft. “I didn’t say that I was going with you.”

What? Of course Frankie said she was going with me.

That’s all we talked about our senior year.

After Frankie’s games, on weekends, I would sit with Frankie at Peaches’s house and plan our future.

I even bought us matching UMD sweatshirts and took pictures and framed one in a homemade maroon and gold bedazzled 8x10.

“What do you mean you never said you were going? You applied. You got accepted. We literally talked about it all the time.”

Frankie shifted toward me, taking slow, easy breaths.

“I did apply, yeah. But I… you made me apply. I never wanted to, but I caved under the pressure. Didn’t you even fill the application out for me?

” Frankie kicked a twig out of the way. “I told you a million times that I wanted to go to New York. You just never listened.”

My chest heated. Was Frankie really putting this on me?

“I did listen to you. But…people say so many things, you know? Sam was going to get drafted into the NFL. That girl in our class was going to Hollywood. What was that kid’s name…

Jordan something or other…was going to get a record deal.

People say things like that all the time.

You saying you were going to New York was just a dream. ”

“It was a dream. My dream. It had always been my dream. And you totally refused to honor it.” Frankie’s word speed increased.

“I swear to God the only person who ever supported me was Quinn. My parents laughed at it. You never believed it. Peaches was in denial, told me I was going to end up living with the rats and freaks on the train. I told you a hundred times, and you refused to respect what I wanted for the future.”

Frankie was completely rewriting history to make herself feel better, and I had no interest in playing this little game with her.

From the outside, I’d imagine that to people looking at us—two thirty-three-year-old professional women—rehashing the high school days, we probably seemed a little pathetic.

Like, how were we still talking about this, all these years later?

But our relationship was so much more than our age. Deeper somehow, and even as an adult, I’d still never had that same connection with anyone.

I crunched into the sandwich, which now tasted flat and dry. Back then, had I thought Frankie was serious about moving to New York, I would’ve listened more. Clearly, with how blindsided I was at graduation, I’d never thought Frankie truly meant she was leaving.

You know what? Screw her. She was doing that thing again—completely altering our past to fit her narrative—and I was so freaking done.

“You were never serious, Frankie. Everything was a joke to you. Why would I have believed you? You always said the most off-the-wall shit.” How can she possibly be putting this on me?

That I didn’t respect her dreams? “I couldn’t believe half the stuff that left your mouth. ”

Frankie’s mouth dropped and an angry red strip flew up her neck.

Standing in our graduation gowns that day, I remembered the heated pavement soaking into my feet as tears streamed each of our cheeks.

Frankie bawling, wiping her nose on her sleeve, her fingers folded as she pleaded, “Please, Morgan, please come with. Just for a year. If we hate it, we can come back. I need to get out of here. Out of this town, out from my parents, I need to go free.” Frankie was a caged bird, needing to fly, and I was the net that trapped her in this town.

But I had wanted to go to UMD since I was little.

And up until that day, I swore Frankie wanted the same.

I stared at Frankie, who leaned back under the cedar tree.

“I wanted you to come with me to college.” So bad.

God, I would have done anything to have Frankie go with me to school.

Entering a world like that, alone, had terrified me.

The plans I had until that point crashed and burned in a snap, and it wasn’t fair.

“I never wanted that.” Frankie tossed her sandwich to the side. “I didn’t even have the grades to get in, and you just wouldn’t believe it. You just didn’t listen. ”

That’s not true . “But you got in!”

Frankie released a heavy breath. “No, I didn’t.”

What? No…this is a lie . There could be variations of the truth, different perspectives, different interpretations of a situation for sure.

But right now, Frankie was full-on gaslighting me, lying to my face.

I specifically remembered celebrating our acceptance.

We even splurged and went into Duluth to an Olive Garden.

“Why are you even saying this? I remember you getting in. I didn’t make that up. ”

Anger filled Frankie’s face and she pulled her lips into a tight line. “How the hell did you think I got in? I was pulling a C average at best , and even now I’m pretty sure the only reason I got those grades was because Coach went to bat on my behalf.”

“But…but you told me you did.”

Frankie’s head dropped. The flex in her forearms softened, and she exhaled.

“I know I did. I lied, okay? But…you wouldn’t listen.

Ever. I finally just told you what you wanted to hear so you’d leave it alone.

” She lifted her head, narrowing her eyes.

“Christ, Morgan. It has always been about you. I told you college life was never for me. Sitting in another classroom for four more years was like a prison sentence. College was your dream, had always been your dream. Never mine.”

Unbelievable. How dare she continue to put this back on me?

Frankie had lied and just admitted it. Which was not the first time she did that in our relationship.

Frankie always said some sort of “white lie,” something harmless, and she’d later fess up.

But over the years it created a distrusting wall.

And now she was blaming me. I was done .

“Well, at least my dream didn’t constitute traipsing around a huge city with no money, no family, and no education. ”

And, well, those words hit down like the hammer I intended. Shit .

Frankie pushed herself up, her face on fire.

“I think you’re just pissed that you stayed here, stuck, and never got out.

You’re thirty-three fucking years old having the same conversations with the same people, picking through the same women that were available back then.

You are so goddamn stubborn, you know that?

And for what? Are you actually happy? Because it sure as shit doesn’t seem so. ”

Frankie stormed into the barn and a minute later the screech of the table saw fired to life.

And I sat there, furious. I refused to let her change history.

But I had no idea what I was going to do about it.