“Oh,” she says. “Oh, right. Well … thanks … for telling me, I guess.” She nods, looking away from me, and there’s something weighty and bitter settling into the place the butterflies used to be. I have the sudden urge to wrap Caitlin up in a hug but I have a feeling that won’t be well received in this particular moment.

“I’m—I’m sor—”

“It’s fine, Caleb, really.” She looks up and meets my eyes, a sad smile on her face. “I like being friends with you too.”

Even with the sludge of disappointment weighing me down, I know she means it.

26

ADAM

The bench we’re sitting on is so cold, I’m already turning numb even though we’ve been here for five minutes. I thought Caleb’s insistence on sitting outside during lunch was just because he wanted to avoid the cafeteria, but apparently it applies to all sorts of settings. I wanted to stay in the coffee shop, where it was warm and cozy and Fleet Foxes–soundtracked, but Caleb just marched out the door the moment the barista handed him his hot chocolate.

I try to not find it adorable that six-foot-something, football-playing, letterman-jacket-wearing Caleb drinks hot chocolate (with whipped cream) but I’m failing.

“Hey, you okay?” I ask, holding my latte up to my face so my nose doesn’t freeze off. “You’ve been weirdly quiet for the past five minutes.”

My heart is pounding a tattoo of please say you’re okay please say you’re okay. From the moment Caleb walked into the coffee shop, I knew something was off. He’s been surly and distant and meeting today was his idea—I’d never be so bold as to suggest two hangouts in one weekend—but now I’m worried that he’s going to friend-break-up with me, which is completely ridiculous because, first off, that’s not a thing, and second, are we even good enough friends now to stop being friends?

This entire situation is ridiculous. Just the very idea that the golden boy would want to hang with the weird nerd is absurd. I’ve been lulled into a false sense of security and now Caleb is going to tell me that it was all part of some bet and my life really will be a bad teen movie. Or—even worse—he’s going to tell me that, sure, hanging out has been fun, but Friday night got a little too homoerotic for his tastes. My brain has been working overtime the last thirty-six hours trying to purge the memory—Caleb’s arms on either side of me, his face close to mine, his eyes big and wandering, looking at me like he was going to, I don’t know, do something that would almost certainly kill me instantly with surprise and joy—and now it’s the only image it seems able to produce.