Chapters (39)
- Cover
- Dedication
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- What’s next onyour reading list?
“You can’t just meddle in other people’s lives, okay?” I say, harsher than I intended, and her face goes white. Her mouth turns down and she shuts her eyes for a second and I can tell that I’ve hurt her.
“I didn’t realize all of this was my fault.” Her eyes narrow.
“You’ve been trying to get us together for years,” I say. “If you had just stayed out of it, then none of this would have happened.”
We walk by Jan’s, the windows still dark. It hurts that I’ll never have a pancake breakfast with Andrew here again. The smell of something baking wafts in the air around us and it makes me sick.
“I didn’t force you to do anything,” Hannah says.
“Yeah, but look how happy you were that I did!”
“I was joking, okay?” she says with a humorless laugh. “When I told you to practice with Andrew. I never thought you’d take it seriously.”
“You weren’t joking!” I say, my voice gaining volume. “You can’t backtrack on that just because it didn’t go how you planned.”
“I wasn’t planning anything,” she says, but the catch in her voice says otherwise.
“You wanted us to fall in love and instead it ruined us. And so now you’re saying it was all a joke. Well, sorry your plan didn’t work out. Some of us know better than to fall in love with players. This isn’t like you and Charlie.”
Her face goes bright red, like I’ve slapped her, and I sort of have. Hannah turns to me and her voice is venom. “If you don’t think you’re in love with Andrew, you’re delusional.”
“He’s my best friend,” I say, my usual line, the line that used to come so naturally but now always feels like a lie.
“Yeah, so?” she says. “He’s your best friend and you’re in love with him and it’s destroying you. If you just tell him, everything can go back to normal. What are you so scared of?”
“I have to go,” I say, speeding up my walk and hoping she won’t follow. I need to get away from her. I need to be alone.
“Go where?” she asks, but she’s not running after me.
The truth is I am scared. I’m scared of tomorrow night, of the future, of who will be there and who will disappear with high school, like those birdcalls we learned in kindergarten. But mostly, I’m scared Hannah is right. Because if I’m in love with Andrew, if I’m in love with Andrew, it means I’m completely screwed. Because even if I’m in love with Andrew, he’s still in love with Danielle.
TWENTY-NINE
