Chapter 10 #2
The change hasn’t been drastic. I’m not suddenly strutting around in crop tops or anything. But instead of buying clothes three sizes too big, I’m buying my actual size. Wearing things that fit. Things that show off my waist and hips instead of drowning them out in fabric.
I even started wearing makeup—nothing heavy, just enough to feel polished. A little mascara. A tinted lip. Small things, yet still significant. It’s baby steps, but progress is progress.
I thought I’d feel self-conscious after spending most of my life trying to keep myself hidden. But weirdly it’s the opposite. I feel better. More confident.
I still don’t love drawing attention to myself, but for the first time in a long time, I don’t feel like I’m trying to disappear either.
Instead I just feel like myself.
“You look pretty today,” Layla says before crunching down on a chip, her eyes narrowing slightly as she studies me.
“And don’t even try to pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.
I know I’ve been busy as hell lately, but don’t think I haven’t noticed this little style switch-up you’ve got going on. ” She gestures down the length of me.
She really has been busy. I honestly don’t know how she functions going to school full-time on top of working full-time.
I feel exhausted enough dragging myself out of bed at two in the morning most days, but at least that means I’m usually asleep fairly early.
Layla, on the other hand, seems to survive on hardly any sleep and way too much caffeine.
So I’m not surprised this is the first time she’s said anything about my new and improved wardrobe. I wouldn’t even blame her if she hadn’t noticed at all.
“Just a couple of new pieces.” I shrug, brushing it off. “Still me.”
She gives me a pointed look. “Of course you’re still you. You’re just finally treating yourself like the baddie you are.” She pops another chip into her mouth. “I love it. Fully support it. And I promise to never bring it up again because I know how much you hate it when I point stuff out.”
A laugh slips out of me.
Layla goes quiet for a second, her gaze lingering on me a little too long.
“I just hope…never mind.”
“You just hope what?” I ask, a strange heat settling uncomfortably in my chest.
She sighs, like she’s debating whether to say it. “I just hope you’re doing it for you,” she finally says. “And not for some guy. Because you never need to change yourself for a guy. Ever. New clothes or old clothes—you’re already perfect the way you are.”
“It’s not for a guy,” I reassure her. “There is no guy.”
Her brows lift. “Not even the poetry professor?”
I can’t help but laugh. I ended up telling Layla a little bit more about Wes when we hung out last, but I didn’t really think she was listening.
“That’s going nowhere. Which is probably for the best.”
“Okay then,” she says slowly. I can tell she wants to talk more about it, but clearly I don’t.
Before she can push any further, a voice crackles over the loudspeaker mounted near the clubhouse patio announcing the shotgun start will begin in five minutes.
Across the green, a couple of volunteers set up a folding table beside the tee box, handing out scorecards and pencils. A small sign reads HOLE 7. According to the tournament brochure and the map printed on the back, this is where Ethan and Cole are starting.
The first thing I notice when their group assembles at the tee box is that Cole looks annoyingly good in a quarter zip.
The second thing I notice is that he hasn’t looked our way once.
Ethan spots us and waves. Cole doesn’t look over.
I tell myself I don’t care. I’ve spent the better part of two months telling myself I don’t care, so I’m fairly practiced at it by now. I take a long sip of water and keep my eyes on the course.
Beside me, Layla has already abandoned the nachos and is staring off, her arms crossed with impatience.
Ethan lines up his shot and swings. The ball slices hard to the left.
“Nailed that one,” Layla says under her breath.
I laugh louder than intended, which is when Cole finally looks over.
Our eyes meet for exactly one second before I look away first.
My stomach drops. Waves of awkwardness washing over me. One brief look and I can hardly stand the discomfort.
The round moves slowly the way golf always does, and Layla and I meander along the edge of the course with a loose group of family and spectators. I keep a comfortable distance, staying close enough to watch but far enough that running into Cole requires actual effort.
At one point, Layla drifts a few steps ahead, stopping to chat with one of the firefighters playing in the tournament.
It takes me a second to realize it’s Travis, which is…unexpected.
He used to be Ethan’s best friend, always over at our house.
I thought of him like another annoying older brother—right up until he betrayed Ethan.
Ever since then, no one in the family really talks to him.
I didn’t realize he and Layla were so chummy.
Chummy enough that she’s laughing at whatever he’s saying.
When she falls back in step beside me, I glance at her. “What’s up with you and Travis?”
She lifts a shoulder like it’s nothing. “He comes into the ER all the time. He’s a paramedic too, so we run into each other a lot. I was just saying hi.”
Her voice has that familiar defensive edge, so I know to leave it alone. Still, I file it away to revisit when she feels like telling me more.
At the next hole, Ethan waves us over to watch our dad line up a putt, and somehow in the reshuffling of people I end up standing two feet from Cole.
He glances sideways at me.
I laser-focus on the green.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hi.” I keep my voice light. Perfectly pleasant. The voice I use with customers I don’t know well.
I can be friendly. Friendly is my comfort zone.
A beat of silence opens between us, longer than it should be.
“You look—” he starts.
“How’s the round going?” I ask at the same time.
He stops, letting out a stifled chuckle. “Good. We’re losing to the old guys.”
“Yeah…that sucks.”
Cole shifts his weight, and I can sense his gaze on the side of my face, like if he stares long enough I’ll notice and give him my attention.
“Ariana.”
“Mm?”
“Are you going to look at me or are we just going to stare at the green until one of us dies?”
The laugh catches me off guard, slipping out before I can stop it. I turn, and he’s watching me with an expression that’s almost careful. Which is unusual for Cole, who approaches most things in life like he’s never once considered the consequences.
“I looked at you,” I say. “Earlier.”
“For about half a second.”
“That’s plenty long enough to confirm you’re still alive.”
The corner of his mouth lifts. “So you were checking on me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
His eyes drift over me—not in a creepy way, but it’s blatant enough to feel a burn take over my cheeks.
“You look different,” he comments.
I keep my expression neutral. “Different how.” It isn’t a question. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of sounding like I care about his answer.
“Good different.” His voice is even, like he’s stating a fact rather than offering a compliment. “You look good. Everything is more…fitted.”
I blink, not sure what to make of that statement. Of all the things I expected him to say, that wasn’t it. “That’s a strange thing to notice.”
He shrugs. “I am capable of noticing things.”
I tilt my head. “But you’re not capable of getting your own croissants?”
Cole winces slightly before catching it and turning it into a tight smile. “Blake was already planning to go; I just tacked on my order.”
I don’t know what to do with that, so I don’t do anything with it at all. He didn’t say he wasn’t avoiding me. Just that Blake was already going.
I look back at the green and take a slow, deep breath, pretending my face isn’t warm.
But the ice has cracked, just slightly, and we both feel it. He angles toward me a little more, hands in his pockets, and for a moment it almost feels like it did on the patio. Like summer. Like none of the last two months happened at all.
Then Ethan calls something out across and Cole turns to respond, and the moment dissolves just as quickly as it came.
I watch him walk away and something uncomfortable settles in my chest.
That’s it. That’s the full extent of whatever this is—a minute of stilted conversation before he drifts back to his world and I stay in mine. And I don’t know why I expected anything different. I don’t know what I thought this was.
I was reading into it. I made it into something it wasn’t.
The realization doesn’t feel good, exactly, but there’s a certain relief in naming it. Like finally putting down something heavy you didn’t realize you were carrying.
We were never really friends.
We were never really anything.