Page 26

Chapter 26

Everett

“I was fifteen!” I shouted through the crowd, in what Mom would call “diarrhea of the mouth” fashion. Because I couldn’t do this anymore. Isa thought our breakup was solely based on my feelings for Grace, and it was time that changed. Mom was right; she deserved the full truth.

Isa had arched a brow in a twist of confusion while Grace offered something that resembled a supportive smile before her eyes resumed darting around the fair.

The nearby band was playing loud enough that I couldn’t even hear the blood pulsing through my ears, so I motioned for us to find a quieter spot to talk. Grace, whose sixth sense was tingling, followed. We stopped next to a booth selling creepy Victorian dolls. It wasn’t seeing much action.

“I never told you the entire story behind our breakup, and that was a mistake.” I exhaled. “But I was only fifteen—a total moron, like you’ve mentioned once or twice.” My throat thickened when the joke didn’t land. Isa hadn’t laughed. “I know that’s not a good excuse, but it’s the truth. You were my first girlfriend, the best first girlfriend a guy could have. Even though you’re intimidating as hell, everyone told me how lucky I was to be dating the Isabel Cruz, and believe me, I knew that.” I paused. “So that made ending things almost impossible. People were going to judge me, plus…I had no idea how to break up with someone. Before the dance that night, I spent over an hour online skimming articles and blogs about how to nicely do it.” I swallowed. “Because I needed to do it, Isa.”

“I know.” Isa reached up to tighten her ponytail. “Because you were in love with Grace and not me.”

I flushed, sort of wishing Grace wasn’t a witness to this but also wanting her to hear everything. “Yes, I did have feelings for Grace,” I said. “And yes, I still do have feelings for Grace….” I steeled myself from looking at her. This was between Isa and me. “Was that fair to you?” I shook my head. “Not in the slightest. But it wasn’t just Grace. Please, don’t blame Grace—”

“I don’t,” she said.

“I knew as soon as I got in the car that night that I’d failed spectacularly,” I went on. “I was cold and detached and vague when I should’ve been comforting and completely honest. Like you said, I should’ve been your friend. ” I sighed. “I couldn’t go back in time, but I tried to fix things, Isa. When our families had dinner a few days later, I thought acting like your friend would send the message that I wanted us to be normal again. As close as we were, Isa, we stopped being best friends when we started dating. Our relationship changed.” I closed my eyes for a second, willing my pulse to slow. “I needed my best friend back.”

“Everett, that just made it worse!” Isa exclaimed. “You playing it cool made it seem like our breakup never happened.” Her cheeks were on fire. “You seemed totally fine.”

Totally fine.

Ha, I wished.

“I know.” I nodded. “I was stupid. By the time I figured out that I shouldn’t have skipped over the apology step, it was too late.” I rubbed my forehead. “I thought it would be awkward if I randomly spoke up and said I was sorry.”

Isa folded her arms across her chest. Over her shoulder, I caught a flare of color in the crowd. It was too garish to miss, this woman in a fluorescent pink pantsuit. I immediately looked away when she stopped to talk to someone at a booth for Penn Medicine, the University of Pennsylvania’s hospital. I still had its campus map memorized.

I gritted my teeth to keep the shuddering at bay. The Perelman Center of Advanced Medicine, I automatically thought. 3400 Civic Center Boulevard.

I would never forget any of it, but now I remembered the night before Dad’s first appointment. “It’s probably nothing, Ev,” he’d told me, even though he’d had two seizures in the previous two weeks. They’d come out of nowhere; the two of us had been picking up dinner stuff at the grocery store when he’d had the first, slurring his words before collapsing. I’d been so frozen in place that Whole Foods’ cheesemonger had called the ambulance. “Ask your mom how many times and how hard I was hit during my rugby days.” He’d shaken his head. “It might have something to do with that.”

But it didn’t.

“Ev,” Grace whispered, suddenly at my side. She’d been nearby, scouting for who-knew-what. “You’re shaking.”

I looked at her, then back at Isa. “We broke up exactly three years ago today,” I told her. “Do you know how I remember that?” I didn’t give her time to answer, gesturing to the hospital’s stall. “Because it’s the same day my dad got his diagnosis.”

Dad had had glioblastoma, which was brain cancer at its deadliest. Every time I even thought the word “glioblastoma,” it felt like someone was twisting the knife that was permanently lodged in my heart. And while the blade was no less painful now, some weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I’d told them—finally told them.

Grace gasped. “No,” she said. “ No. He was diagnosed in late June. School had ended. We were…”

She trailed off when I shook my head. “It was in May, Grace. I think your parents knew, but my family kept it a secret for a month, to wrap our heads around it. Mom and Dad wanted to have a plan when we told people.”

“And you still came to formal?” Isa sounded choked up. “ How did you still come to formal?”

“Because I needed to see you,” I said. “I had to break up with my girlfriend so I could reconnect with my best friend—I was naive and idiotic enough to think it would be that simple, but that’s the truth, Isa. I’d just found out my dad was really, really sick, and I needed the formidable Isabel Cruz to keep me together.”

The woman in pink reappeared over Isa’s shoulder, bobbing toward us through the crowd. There was a big bow on her blouse.

“Wait a second,” Grace mumbled, so cautiously that I felt the hair on the back of my neck rise. Her Spidey senses hadn’t eased up.

No, I told myself. Stop it, you have to get this out.

“Isa, I am sorry,” I said, straightening my shoulders. “I’m so sorry for breaking up with you the dickheaded way I did, and for letting our friendship fall apart because of it. I deserved to be pushed away, but I shouldn’t have accepted that decision. I should’ve fought for us. I’m sorry I didn’t, and I’m also sorry that I ignored you trying after Dad died. I want you back as my best friend, Isa. I need you back—I truly do.” I shifted from one foot to the other. “Will you please accept my apology?”

Isa’s eyes were glassy. “Everett—” she began, but Grace didn’t let her finish.

“Oh my god, look!” she blurted, and Isa and I turned to see the same woman in pink approaching the weird doll stall, a booth close enough that our predator and her bow would undoubtedly catch her prey in her crosshairs.

And recognize us instantly. Fuck.

“It’s Principal Unger.” Grace fumbled for Isa’s and my hands. “Run!”