I didn’t like the way she said that. Like she’d been paused for the last few years. It hadn’t been that way for me. These were the best years of our lives. How could she not see that?

She stretched her legs out and let her head loll back. Her voice softened. “Babe, I just … I think this is what’s best for me.”

I wouldn’t argue with her. And anyway, it was done. It was already over. My opinion seemed unnecessary now.

“Could you just run some interference and make sure he doesn’t drop by?” asked Penny. The edge of desperation in her voice didn’t sound right, not on her.

I startled out of my fog. It was one thing to accept her decision; it was another to actually involve myself in the fallout. “How do you expect me to do that?”

“He texted me. Said he’s going to come over.” She dropped her eyes to her lap. “I didn’t really give him a reason yesterday. Could you … could you do, like, a Breakup 2.0?”

This was too much, even for her. I gaped. “No way. He’s your boyfriend. I’m not going to just—it’s not my place, Penny. Oh my God. It needs to come from you. Properly, this time.”

Her lips scrunched. “Just tell him I haven’t changed my mind.”

Crazy to think that if I hadn’t started school a year late, we wouldn’t have ended up in the same grade. The three of us had been friends since elementary school. Didn’t she care that he was my friend, too? I wanted to scrunch in on myself, ball myself up like a wad of paper. I didn’t have a lot of constants in my life, but Chad and Penny? I thought I could count on them always being there, all of us always being together. The three of us were a team. Without our friendship, I would have fallen apart the past year. Between my ex-girlfriend leaving for college and my mom spending less and less time at home, I’d clung to my friends like the lifelines they were.

She must have read the conflict on my face, because she sighed and handed back the bottle. “I don’t think I can face him, B. It’s just … it’s Chad. It’s not easy.”

I laughed. “And it is for me?”

“We’re starting college in September. People are supposed to break up before they go to college.”

My arms flushed hot. We weren’t starting college—they were. Penny had the habit of saying it like I’d be right there on their first day, but I wouldn’t be.

“That’s because most people go to different colleges,” I said. “You two are staying right here in Oar’s Rest. You don’t need to break up.”