“I tell them! I tell them all that I don’t want anything serious.”
I don’t know why I’m pressing him. It’s like I’m picking at a scab. “But why?”
“Because I’m already in love with someone!” His breath is ragged, like he’s just run a marathon. He brings a hand up to his hair, pulling on the ends of it so it’s sticking up wildly.
I feel stomach-punched at his words, like all the breath has been knocked out of me. How could he not tell me he was in love with someone? I thought we told each other everything. That’s what best friends do. We’re here for each other’s weird shit. We handle it.
I guess I’m not as good at reading him as I’ve always thought.
“Which one?” I ask, my voice soft.
“What?” He seems dazed and he’s blinking at me like he’s just noticed I’m there.
“Which girl?” I ask. “Who are you in love with?”
He scoffs, a short breathy sound that gets caught in the back of his throat. “It doesn’t matter.” All of the energy seems drained out of him.
“No, it does matter,” I say. “I’ve always helped you with girls, haven’t I?”
He laughs a little, leaning forward and resting his head in his hands. “I didn’t mean to tell you this when you were drunk.”
“I’m not drunk.” I feel a little light-headed, but I haven’t been drinking wine now for a few hours. And this conversation has certainly sobered me up. “Have you told her?”
“What?” he asks, lifting his head out of his hands.
“Have you told her you love her?”
“It’s . . . complicated,” he says, and there’s a beat of silence as I think about what he’s said. He turns his head slightly so he’s facing me and rests his hand on mine, giving it a comforting squeeze. I feel my breath catch in my throat, unexpectedly pleased with the feeling of his palm on my skin. It feels like it did last night, back when he pulled me closer to him on the bed, told me to forget the rules.
“I . . .” I begin, but trail off, unsure of what to say. I shake my head, trying to wake myself up from the daze. “You should tell her. You can’t just keep something like that bottled up. You’ll burst.”
“Okay,” he says, taking a quick breath. “You’re right.”
“Will you tell me first?” I ask. “I want to know who it is.” I pull my hand out from under his and tuck my hair behind my ears. Suddenly I remember what Dean told me earlier in the night: I think he has a crush on you. He might be your brother, but you’re not his sister. I have a quick flash of last night, of the fluttering feeling in my chest when his lips first touched mine, of how badly I ached to go through with everything, how much it hurt when he walked out. But I push it away. I feel like everything is mixed up inside of me, and I can’t get my thoughts in order. The thought that Andrew might have feelings for me is terrifying. Things weren’t supposed to go this way. He’s my best friend. We’re just friends. That’s it.
“Wait,” I say, the words tumbling out of me. “Is it me? It’s not me, is it?” I feel my face burning, immediately wanting to take back the words, but they’re already out.
Andrew shifts away from me. He lets out a humorless laugh. “Are you fucking with me?”
“What?” I ask, taken aback. “No. I’m just making sure, I mean I’m just checking . . . sometimes friends end up liking each other and—”
“It’s not you,” he says, the words like an insult. “Don’t worry.”
I feel punctured, like a balloon inside me is slowly deflating.
“Okay,” I say. “Okay.” I need to say it again. I feel oddly hurt and disappointed. Obviously it’s not me. He basically told me last night he couldn’t keep it up when we were together.
“Okay, so who is it?” I ask. His eyes narrow slightly, and then he clears his throat. His answer is so obvious I don’t know how it didn’t occur to me, even though she was with us only a few minutes earlier, her cleavage pressed against my shoulder as she leaned over me to kiss him.
“Come on, Collins,” he says. “I’m in love with Danielle.”
TWENTY-THREE
I TURN AWAY so he can’t see my face. I shouldn’t be surprised, and I’m not, really. I should have known better. Andrew doesn’t love me—why would he when he has a parade of beautiful girls at his disposal? And Danielle is the most beautiful, the most confident, the most powerful—everything Cecilia, Abby, Sophie, and all the rest of Andrew’s castoffs have ever wanted to be. Why wouldn’t he be drawn to that power?
I shake my head, trying to clear away the thoughts tumbling around inside. It’s stupid to feel upset; I don’t want Andrew in that way. I have James Dean. It’s just that it felt nice for a moment to believe he could see me as one of those girls too, one of the girls like Danielle, who wears her skin like a fashionable coat instead of something that doesn’t quite fit.
When Andrew first started dating Sophie Piznarski, he shared everything with me—that he thought she looked best in her sweater with the pink and blue stripes; how she hated spicy food but loved anything with peanut butter; how sometimes they made out on the couch in the living room while her parents worked late. He complained to me about having to attend her dance recitals, dragged me along to a few of them so we could whisper to each other behind a raised program.
And then after Sophie, I got used to hearing details about the girls he liked, watching as he walked hand in hand with a girl up the stairs, pulling her into a bedroom, or a bathroom, or a closet, their laughter loud and drunk and happy.
But he’s kept Danielle from me. That means she’s special. She wasn’t someone to talk about the next morning over pancakes at Jan’s. She was someone to keep tucked away, someone secret and meaningful.
“You’re in love with her?” I ask, picking at a string that’s come loose from the cushion of the seat. I look up at him and he looks away.
“Yeah.”
“I had no idea.”
“I know,” he says. “I’m . . .” He pauses, running a hand through his hair so it’s standing straight up, like he’s been electrified. I feel just like that hair, shocked and alert, like I’ve been electrified too.
“You could have told me. I mean, before now. You didn’t have to keep it a secret. I get it.” I try to laugh, but it gets stuck in the back of my throat. “She’s Danielle Oliver.”
“Do you think . . .” He trails off.