Lee was leaning against the railing, staring out at the water. The arcade doors behind him were closed, the lights inside all turned out.
Panting, I skidded to a stop a few feet away, enough to catch my breath and remind myself that yes, 100 percent, I was the worst. And then I crossed over to him.
My heart was in my throat and there was a shrill ringing in my ears.
“Lee, I’m…” My voice came out scratchy and thin. I cleared my throat and tried again. “I’m so, so sorry. I promise I’ll…I’ll make this up to you somehow. I’m so sorry.”
He didn’t look at me, but he did lift his head in some kind of half-hearted nod, and I heard the small breath of dry laughter he let out.
“Sure. That’s what this whole summer was about, right? The bucket list. It was all about making it up to me. Well, forget it. Don’t worry about me, Elle. I don’t need it.”
“Oh, come on, Lee. You know that’s not what—”
“I don’t have anything to say to you right now, Elle. I waited for you for two hours. But hey, you know, it’s cool. I don’t have to guess where you were.”
My hand came up to squeeze his arm.
“I’m so sorry. My phone died at work, and then I went to find Noah and…well, he…we…um…Something came up,” I said. I knew if I told him now he’d think I was just looking for sympathy, and that totally wasn’t the case. “Oh, come on. Please don’t be mad. We still got to play a few days ago, right? And there’s gotta be other DDM machines around somewhere, if you really want to play.”
Lee’s head snapped toward me, looking so furious that I fell back a step, my hand dropping from his arm as if he’d given me an electric shock.
“Is that what you think this is about? The DDM game? What, do you think I’m five years old?”
I don’t know, you kind of act like it sometimes.
I bit my tongue. Right now was not the time for a snarky retort.
“It’s not about the fucking game!” he cried. “It’s about us! Our friendship! This whole summer, all the bucket-list stuff, I know it’s all been about trying to make me feel a little less like second best after you picked Noah over me. I knew this was how things would turn out. Since you guys got together, you’ve been saying I still matter, that you’re not putting him first, but the truth is, that was never going to last. At some point, it was going to be him. I just didn’t think it’d happen this soon. And let’s face it, Elle, if it wasn’t Noah, it would’ve been college, or work, or Brad, or Levi, or whatever! It’s been a long time coming, I guess.”
I stared at Lee while he ranted at me and felt my anxiety over upsetting him vanish completely. By now, my blood was boiling, because how dare he?
Was he serious?
He had to be kidding me.
And I couldn’t help but compare him, right now, to Noah. Noah, who didn’t want to hold me back, didn’t want me to put him first. And Lee, complaining that I didn’t prioritize him enough.
“Second best? Oh my God, Lee. It’s like you are five years old sometimes. You don’t think I know it’s not about the game? You think just because I had other priorities this summer that I care about you any less? School, college, work, Brad—you think I choose all that stuff over hanging out with you? You’ve never had to worry about anything like that. You’ve never had to stress over having money, or keeping up your grades, or looking after anybody else. You have had everything in life handed to you. So don’t expect me to stand here and say sorry because I had to get a job just to keep up with the bucket-list stuff and earn some money for college or because I had to take care of my little brother.”
Lee opened his mouth to argue back, but words seemed to fail him, which was just as well because I was still only mid-rant.
How dare he act so hurt over not being my sole priority? Especially when I’d been working so hard all summer to remind him how important he was to me.
And I couldn’t expect him to understand, not really. I knew that Brad was just as much a part of Lee’s family as he was mine, but he wasn’t Lee’s responsibility, and it wasn’t as though Lee had ever needed to get a job. Maybe I should’ve let off some of this steam a little sooner or tried to explain it to him better, but right now, the dam had broken, and everything was flooding out.
“You’re right,” I snapped at him. “This summer was about making it up to you because I was planning to spend the next four years on the other side of the country, but it was so much more than that. This was supposed to be our best summer ever, but guess what? That was never going to happen. We wrote that bucket list when we were little kids, and we can’t keep clinging to that! The arcade, the beach house, all those things that made our summers so great are going away, and we’re never going to get them back. But that’s life! That’s what happens! Things go away, and some of us have to grow up! This summer, I was just trying to make sure we wouldn’t have to grow apart!”
I stopped yelling at him just long enough to suck in another breath to say, “And for your information, Lee, you don’t have to worry about me picking Noah over you anymore, because we broke up. For good this time. And part of the reason for that was because he could see how much he and Harvard were coming between me and you—but Noah’s not out there being pissed at me for picking you sometimes or having a life outside of him. I’m sorry this summer didn’t live up to your expectations and that I let you down today, Lee, I really am, but just…don’t act like I’m sabotaging our friendship just because I have other things going on in my life. You’re my best friend, and you mean everything to me, but jeez, Lee, my whole world doesn’t revolve around you. Maybe it used to, but we’re not kids anymore, and you need to fucking grow up and realize that.”
Lee stared at me while I caught my breath. I was shaking all over and was horribly tempted to just throw my arms around him and hug him tight and cry it out, but I knew I needed to give him some space right now to get his head around everything I’d just said. I could practically hear the gears churning in his brain as his eyes flitted between mine. Lee gulped, letting out a shaky sigh. A few times he started to say something but stopped himself.
Eventually, he just sighed and leaned back over the railing again.
I joined him.
Our arms pressed together. His head tipped onto my shoulder.
“This summer really went to shit, huh?”
“Just a little,” I murmured back, resting my head against Lee’s. “I’m sorry I missed our last dance at the arcade. It was a genuine mistake. Again.”
“So you guys really broke up, huh?”