And that meant ending things with Erica.
I’d texted her while she was sick, but I wasn’t about to break up with her over the phone, so I’d taken the reprieve like the coward I was.
I didn’t have any more excuses.
“Erica,” I said as I closed the last few feet between us. “I guess you’re feeling bet—”
She turned around and slapped me across the face.
SIXTH WEEKEND
December 4–6
Jolene
“Hello, Adam.”
He rolled his eyes at my formality and joined me on the stairwell. It was snowing hard outside, so hard that I’d wondered if Adam and his brother were going to drive in it.
The apocalypse could have been happening and Dad’s lawyer would still have made me come. By foot if necessary. So I’d been there, sitting on the thinly carpeted step for over an hour when Adam finally showed up.
“Oh, you’ve got—” He reached one arm around my back to support his weight as he leaned in to pluck a piece of lint from my braid. But then he didn’t lean back, he stared at me and when his eyes lowered to my mouth, I shot to my feet.
“First of all, no. Second of all, I’m tired of being the one who constantly has to remind you of your own girlfriend. You—” and I spun to stare right at him “—are better than that.”
“I haven’t forgotten anyone. I—”
I cut him off. “From now on I think it’s better if we keep a little more distance between us.” To illustrate, I sat back down on the step but I made sure there were two full feet between us.
Adam glanced at the space between us, then raised an eyebrow at me. “I thought you didn’t mind me having a girlfriend.”
“Okay, fine.” I tossed my hands up. “I don’t like that you have a girlfriend. And no, I’m not asking for the job. And no, I’m not saying it would be a job to be your girlfriend. I don’t like that I have to weigh everything I do in light of how some girl I don’t know is going to feel about it, or literally measure the distance between us.” I gestured to the space separating us. “I’m exhausted already, and you’ve only been here two minutes.”
“You don’t have to worry about that.”
“Ah, but I do.” I made my eyes go all wide and buggy. “I have to be obsessive and paranoid like a girlfriend would be, and I don’t even get any of the benefits. Trust me, I’ve thought about this a lot.”
“No wonder you’re tired.”
“Just wait,” I told him. “You haven’t heard my unhinged and overly complicated solution. You ready?”
Adam leaned his back against his side of the stairwell wall. “Go.”
“Okay. First, the facts.” I poked him in the chest. “You have a girlfriend. You also have a friend who is a girl.” I poked my chest. “These two coexisting relationships are going to destroy you and consume your soul. We want to avoid that, if at all possible.”
“I appreciate that.”
I inclined my head. “The way I see it, we have three options. One—we quit being friends. I object to this option for several reasons. First...” I held up a finger. “Shelly. If I’m forced to endure her company for extended periods of time, it will result in her death and my incarceration.” I held up another finger. “Second, Shelly.” Another finger. “Third, I refuse to quit being your friend on the grounds that I find you infinitely more tolerable than anyone else I know. Also, Shelly. Fourth—”
“I’ll stipulate that option one is a no go. What’s option two?”
“Oh, okay. Option two—I meet Erica. We become best friends and I slowly but surely break you down in her eyes until she can’t stand the sight of you and she moves on.”
“Interesting, go on.”
“Option three is that you break up with her in a completely non-recoverable way, like saying, ‘Welcome to Dumpville, baby. Population, you.’ Or something along those lines. Here, I made you a list.” I handed him the folded sheet of paper from my pocket.
He silently skimmed it.
“I’m especially proud of number five.” I leaned over and pointed.
“That’s...that’s... I would never say that to a girl. Also, I’m judging you a lot for coming up with it.”
“It gets the job done.”
“Yeah, but I’m not doing it.” He gave me the paper back. “Or rather, I don’t need to do it. She’s not my girlfriend anymore.”
I couldn’t keep a smile from spreading across my face. After we’d played my little game, I had planned on talking to him realistically about the girlfriend situation. I was going to calmly and rationally persuade him that the single life—with me—was infinitely more fulfilling than the dating life with anyone else.
But I didn’t have to.
He’d broken up with her. Already. On his own, without any long-drawn-out discussions with me. I grinned at him. “You broke up with her? When?”
He blushed. “This morning. And I wasn’t exactly the one who did the breaking.” He rotated his jaw a little. “But I would have,” he added. “I mean, I was going to. Before I saw you again.”
I swallowed and had a slightly hard time of it. So what if she’d dumped him and not the other way around? Adam no longer had a girlfriend, which was all I’d wanted. I pulled my braid over my shoulder and fiddled with the elastic. “Adam, it’s fine. You don’t have to—”
“I’m not! That’s the truth.” He reached to still my hand but stopped just shy of touching me. “She, uh... I guess she saw us in the parking lot after we ditched.”
For the first time since I’d met him, my face was the one that went red. All we’d done was hug—maybe for a touch too long, but nothing more. Though if she’d seen the way I bit back a smile when he released me... Yeah, it couldn’t have been a good feeling.
And that sucked. She was a girl I didn’t know, one I’d resented from the moment I’d learned she existed, but she deserved better than what I’d done to her, what Adam and I had been doing together.
We’d never crossed the big lines, but we hadn’t stayed away from them either.
Adam was frowning at his hands.
“Are you upset?”
“No,” he said. “I hurt her, and I’ll never feel good about that, especially since I should have broken up with her weeks ago. Really, I should never have gotten together with her in the first place.”