Page 23

“Exactly. Sometimes I think they just actually enjoy fighting, because I can’t see any other reason for them picking fights over everything they can. But I hate it. I hate having to listen to it all day and I hate that they don’t care if we can hear them.”

“Dean always figured they’d be divorced by now,” Sebastian said softly. “At the start of every summer, he was sure it was the last one they’d be together. And then every fall, he’d be surprised they made it.”

Dean always thought they’d divorce in the summer because it would be easier on us if we got used to the new arrangement when we weren’t in school.

Plus, he figured everyone else was off on vacations the whole time, so they wouldn’t face the shame of everyone seeing.

He’d be sure every summer, but I’d given up the summer before high school.

“I don’t think it’s ever going to happen.

I think in some weird way, they need each other.

And they both know that if they leave, they’ll only make it a couple of weeks before they come crawling back.

” I swallowed thickly. “Do you think that’s what love is?

Needing somebody so badly that you don’t care if you make each other crazy? ”

“No,” Sebastian said immediately. I glanced over at him in surprise.

I was sure he wasn’t going to answer, or if he did, he would be more hesitant.

Because wasn’t that exactly what he had with Tiffany?

All they did was fight and fight until they eventually reached the tipping point of breaking up.

Then they would get back together and start the cycle again, repeating it over and over again.

They were just like my parents. Even though my parents didn’t break up, they got close to it.

They would fight and walk away and come back because they knew that they couldn’t leave completely.

They knew it wasn’t an option. But for Sebastian and Tiffany, it was an option.

And they always knew the other would come back to them in the end.

It was like a safe break-up—taking a step away, knowing they would be back in no time at all.

“What do you think love should be then?” I asked.

Sebastian rolled the cigarette between his fingers and I watched a couple small sparks fall off the end and land on the gutter by his feet.

“I guess it should be the feeling of coming home every day,” Sebastian said. “Like you’re where you’re meant to be.”

I couldn’t help myself from asking the question I knew shouldn’t be voiced.

“Is that what you have with Tiffany?” I asked. “Is she where you’re meant to be?”

Sebastian scoffed, and for a second I thought he was angry that I’d dared to ask him about her. But then I realized that the scoff was the answer. That the idea of him and Tiffany being that in love was so incredulous to him that he could only respond like that.

“I don’t know that you can fall in love in high school,” Sebastian said.

“How can I fall in love with her knowing that we’re going to go off to college next year?

I know what she’s like, what she wants from her future—she’s gonna find some future doctor or lawyer to marry one day, who won’t give a damn if she cheats on him every weekend because he’ll be doing the same to her. ”

I was surprised by the bluntness of the answer, especially given how his own parents’ marriage had ended.

But maybe that was why he was being so blunt about it, because he saw what infidelity looked like.

He knew it was real and he preferred to hold the light up to it, instead of leaving it to lurk in the shadows.

But it also begged the question: if he was so sure she would cheat on her future husband, was she also cheating on him now?

I wasn’t sure why he would stay with her if she was, but I didn’t want to open a can of worms by asking, so I stayed with a more neutral question: “What’s the point of dating if you’re not even open to falling in love? ”

“I don’t know,” he admitted with a sigh.

He dropped the cigarette and stomped on it with his foot.

I watched as the small embers disappeared, the smoke continuing to flow through the air.

“I don’t know. Sometimes I ask myself what we’re doing, and sometimes I figure we might as well just keep doing it.

What’s the point of stopping now, right? ”

“But what if there was somebody else?” I asked.

I hated myself for the words even as they came out of my mouth, but how was I supposed to stop them?

I had to know, even if I told myself that I was over him.

I just had to know what the answer to this was going to be.

“What if there’s somebody else you could be meeting now, but you’re not because you’re with her? What then?”

“You think there’s someone else out there waiting for me?”

“I…” The words fell off my lips as he turned to look at me, his heavy gaze pouring into me.

I wished I could say yes. I wished I could tell him that the kiss had meant something, that I was waiting for him.

But I promised myself I wasn’t going to do that.

Trying to break him and Tiffany up just because I wanted him was not the way to support him.

So I shrugged and said, “I don’t know. But maybe there is.

Is being with her worth risking missing out on it? ”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe if I ever find my dad again, I’ll ask him.”

The words were a sharp slap to the face because it hadn’t even occurred to me that he might take it like that. His dad had walked away, had decided that being with his wife wasn’t enough to keep him away from the person that he needed to be with.

“You know, sometimes I think we’re all destined to remake our parents’ mistakes,” Sebastian said, saving me from having to think of a response to my awful blunder. “Well, that, or steer as far away from them as possible.”

“What do you mean?”

“I watched my parents for years. I saw the way my dad wasn’t happy but kept crawling back, how he would bring her those flowers every Friday night as if that made up for anything.

I always knew that there was probably something else going on, but they kept getting back together again and again and again.

And that’s what I’ve done too, because that’s all I’ve ever known.

” He let out a shaky breath. “I guess being with Tiffany just makes sense to me. She and I… we don’t make sense together, but being with her does—because what else am I going to do? ”

So, he saw what the rest of us did—that he and Tiffany weren’t meant to be. That they were so incompatible that I couldn’t even begin to understand how they’d gotten together in the first place. But once he got in the cycle of breaking up and making up, I guess it was hard to get out again.

“But you…” I could feel him looking at me but I co uldn’t bring myself to look.

Not when I felt like he was looking into my soul right now.

“Your parents stick it out. They don’t love each other, but they stay there, never stepping away.

And because of that, you refuse to let yourself fall in love. ”

“Well, that’s a big assumption for you to make,” I mumbled, but I could feel the cracks working their way through my heart.

I’d never thought about how my parents’ marriage had affected me, but was he wrong?

I always told myself there was nobody I was interested in or that the ones I did want were out of reach.

But what if there was something deeper, something I’d been avoiding that I just wasn’t willing to say?

Sebastian, who I was convinced Dean would kill me for going after.

Thomas, who should have been perfect for me and yet I never let myself imagine it. Even now, I still hadn’t texted him after Clementine went to all that work for us to meet.

Who was I to talk about love at all? He was right. I was an avoider. All I’d done was avoid it for years. Except…

“I don’t always avoid it. I let you kiss me, didn’t I?”

There. The words were out. They were said. No more pretending that he had to be the one to instigate the conversation or telling myself that I couldn’t bring this up. I needed for us to recognize that it had happened, even if there was nothing to be said about it.

Sebastian’ lip quirked up in a small smile, and he looked almost impressed, which made me glow more than I reasonably should have.

“Yeah,” he said. “But if I told you I loved you, would you say it back? ”

I stared at him, flabbergasted, sure that I had heard it wrong. “What?” I spluttered.

Sebastian chuckled and dropped his head. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that. I just meant... if it had been a boy that you had a crush on who asked to kiss you, and he used that as his way to say that he wanted to go out with you. Would you have said yes?”

I stared at him, my heart thundering in my chest. He thought I didn’t like him.

He thought I didn’t have a crush on him.

He thought that I just said yes to the kiss because of this stupid game.

And part of me wanted so desperately to correct him, to tell him that it actually had meant something and I wanted to be with him.

But the other part of me screamed that I couldn’t do that.

Because if I said that, it would ruin everything—not only because of Tiffany, but because he was Sebastian.

He was Dean’s best friend. He was Ainsley’s brother.

He was the boy next door. And if I said it now and he didn’t say it back, nothing would ever be able to go back to normal again.

“Pretend it was Thomas,” Sebastian continued. “Would you have said yes?”

I tried to imagine it. Not if it was Thomas, because I knew I would have said no, but if Sebastian had confessed his love then and there.

By the time that party had come around, I hadn’t been into him for ages, but the feelings had come back so quickly that I knew they must have just been dormant, instead of gone.

So I tried to picture it. Sebastian kissing me, then saying that he wanted me.

I tried to imagine the moment of elation but as quickly as the feeling appeared, it turned into dread.

What if he didn’t work out? What if we went out and he realized he didn’t like me?

What if all of this was only good in concept?

“No,” I admitted in a whisper. “I wouldn’t have.”

Sebastian waved a hand, as if that proved everything. Then he stood up. And even though I knew we couldn’t stay forever, my heart ached at the idea of him walking away.

“I guess I should go,” he said. “It’s getting late, and we have school tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” I mumbled, but I didn’t stand. Sebastian seemed to realize I wasn’t going to. Because he picked up the sweater I’d been bringing back to him and draped it around my shoulders. Then he leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of my head.

“Good night, Nellie,” he whispered.

I think I managed to grab a “Good night, Sebastian” before he wandered off, leaving me there alone.

And even though it put a little bit of a sick twist in my stomach, I pulled out my phone and opened Thomas’ contact. I couldn’t be with Sebastian, but maybe it was time I faced this fear head-on.