I let out a puff of breath, trying not to cringe as the dirt from the pumpkin smeared across my chest. And of course, I’d decided to wear a white shirt on the day Donnie had wanted to go to the muddy pumpkin patch. We’d gone back to Albion Family’s Corn Maze and Hayrides after school to pick out a few pumpkins, and had packed them into the back of Donnie’s car. They’d bounced and rolled around the entire ride home.
Whereas I’d picked out a normal-sized pumpkin—one I could carry by myself with only a little bit of strain—Donnie had decided to pick out one that had required him and a buff farmhand to carry to the car. The only problem was now that he had no buff farmhand’s help.
“You’re the one who wanted the big one,” I got out, my fingers slipping along the smooth surface. “Where’s Lucas? He should be here to help you pick it up.”
“Said he wanted to sit this one out.”
I pretended not to know why, but I wasn’t sure if my expression remained neutral.
We shuffled along the grass until we made it to Donnie’s back porch, and I hurried to put my end of the pumpkin down, my arms screaming with the effort. “I should’ve made you carve it in your trunk.”
Donnie rubbed his dirty palms together, smacking away the loose dirt and grime. He also managed to get a smudge on his cheek—no idea how. “We did it, against all odds.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, watching as he went back to the car and grabbed the carving supplies we’d bought from the farm. They were cheap plastic tools, but they’d get the job done. “Do you know why Lucas didn’t come with us?”
You shouldn’t care why, my brain whispered. It doesn’t matter, does it? It shouldn’t.
Right. It very much shouldn’t. But I’d already asked.
“Blaire.” Donnie sighed, holding a plastic pumpkin scooper out to me. “Do you want to talk about Lucas, or don’t you? I can’t keep up.”
“I’m allowed to make conversation.”
“Are you, though? Making conversation? Or are you prying?”
I gritted my teeth at him calling me out, kneeling in front of my pumpkin and using the sleeve of my jacket to wipe away most of the soil. Some of the other pumpkins had been washed clean and had looked pretty, but I’d chosen this one—a little lumpy and bumpy, dented and bruised. “Just forget it.”
Donnie set a bucket up between the two of us for the guts and then another for the seeds. “Lucas asked me to collect them,” he told me, sitting back on his heels.
I pushed my sleeves up, holding my knife in a fist. “Do you know what you’re going to carve?”
“I was just going to do a face.”
I took in the smooth surface of my pumpkin, a blank canvas, trying to imagine what could be carved there. It was a lot like a cookie or a cupcake that needed decorating, but carving it out instead of adding to it.
I had to put all my weight into cutting a shape at the top of my pumpkin, twisting the stem to pull off the lid. It made a crackling noise, stringing as I pulled it away. “Are you working the Halloween Bash on Saturday?”
“No,” Donnie said, the word so short that I looked up in surprise. There was a crease between his eyes. “I’m going with Phoebe from Calculus. I asked her the first week of October.”
I closed my eyes quickly, because as soon as he’d said all that, I remembered him telling me. Worse, I remembered him gushing about it. About how he’d asked her, about how he’d been so nervous, and how she’d practically jumped up and down when she’d said yes. “I-I knew that.”
But Donnie’s voice soured. “You forgot I asked her? You helped me make a sign and everything, Blaire.”
“I know, I know. It just—it slipped my mind.”
In all honesty, I did have a lot going on lately. Especially that first week of October. The day Donnie asked Phoebe was the day after I received Dad’s letter, mere hours before I broke up with Lucas. I hadn’t even remembered that she said yes, or that he’d even asked.
I was the worst friend in the world.
I used my spoon to separate the clumpy guts from the side of the pumpkin, my fingers quickly going numb from the iciness of them. The seeds slipped between my fingers when I tried to pick them out, mushing with the rest of the innards. “Did you two say what you’re going as?” I asked softly, trying to coax Donnie away from his anger.
His voice came out as a grumble as he hacked into his pumpkin. “We’re going to be salt and pepper shakers.”
I honestly wasn’t surprised. “Are you going to be salt or pepper?”
“Did you know Hailey asked Lucas?”
I focused on keeping my face focused on my pumpkin. One of my shoulders, though, did raise on its own accord. “Asked him what?”
“Blaire. You know what.”
Ugh. The dampness from the ground started to sink into the knees of my jeans, but I ignored it, gripping a ton of guts and slapping them in the bucket, not caring about the stupid seeds. “Fine, I did know, okay? Lucas told me at the corn maze.” I tried, but I couldn’t keep the heavy dose of sarcasm from lacing in my words. “And you know what? Good for them. They were a cute couple, weren’t they? His dark hair practically matches her eyes. Perfect.”
He still watched me closely. “She asked him. He didn’t say yes.”
No, but he said he’d let her know. Basically a maybe. Practically a yes. And after I’d told him to do it the other night, I’d be surprised if they hadn’t gotten together and talked about it already. They probably already planned what they’d wear. Hey, maybe they’d reuse those mermaid costumes.
“I don’t care, Donnie.” I scooped everything out a little more angrily, the rind of the pumpkin vibrating with my movements. “I really don’t. I mean, I was the one who dumped him. I did. I told him I didn’t want to be with him anymore. Good for him if he goes out and finds someone else.”
“Gosh, Blaire, would you stop that?”
I blinked up from my pumpkin, surprised by the sharpness in his voice.
Donnie put down his spoon and placed both hands on the pumpkin, eyes leveling to my own. “You haven’t told me why you broke up with Lucas, which I can’t figure out why you’re keeping it from me, but that doesn’t matter—what matters is that you’re lying. You don’t love Lucas anymore? Tell that to the look on your face every time you see him.”
I didn’t want to admit it, but I knew exactly what he meant. Every time I saw Lucas, it felt like I’d been punched. Left behind.
As Donnie went on, his voice rose in volume—or maybe that was me hearing the increasing severity in his tone. “You know, if you keep doing this, people are going to stop wanting to be around you. You can’t hurt people and expect them to keep crawling back. This is your chance, Blaire. Tell me what’s going on.”
A dark emotion stirred in my chest, and I gripped the spoon so tightly that it could’ve been a weapon. Tell him the truth? He practically knew it anyway. Was it really hard to connect all those dots? “I’m sorry you’re thrown in the middle of this,” I said to him, voice laced with venom, and I didn’t know where it’d come from. “But you’re seeing what you want to see. Nothing’s going on.”