24. Chapter 24
twenty-four
“You kissed him?” Lex asked, her eyebrows shooting up to her hairline. “That’s adorable and weird.”
“ Told you my lasagna would work.” Hattie snickered.
“Shh.” Kris ignored Hattie and swatted at Lex. “You can think about that later. Something clearly happened after that. Look at her.”
I frowned, rummaging through my freezer for my last tub of ice cream. There may or may not have been three untouched tubs after the kissing fiasco last night. I’ll never say. “You know, you guys didn’t have to come all the way here.”
“Oh, poppycock.” Hattie dismissed with a flick of her wrist, ignoring the curious glances we sent her. “Of course we had to come. You haven’t missed a girls night since you got food poisoning last year.”
“Yeah, dude,” Annie cut in, “what’s going on? Your couch is broken, you’re still in pajamas, you have chocolate on your face, and your only explanation was that you kissed Max?”
After the-kiss-that-shall-not-be-discussed, the last thing I wanted was to socialize. I’d called out sick to work and girls’ night, but instead of wishing I felt better or offering to bring chicken noodle soup, my friends had all decided to crash my apartment and bombard me with questions.
I sighed in resignation, ripping open my tub of peanut butter brownie ice cream. “I knew he didn’t want to date anyone, but I kissed him anyway, and I thought it was the best kiss of my life, but he regretted it immediately and now he’s gone, and he hates me and he’s never coming back.”
They exchanged a look, which I would’ve asked them about, if I’d had the energy or desire to care. Which I didn’t.
“Walk us through what happened,” Kris ordered. “From the top.”
I’d rather regurgitate a brick and probably would’ve chosen that option instead if anyone else had asked. But these were my friends, so I obliged. Every excruciating detail leading up to and after the kiss. By the time I finished, we all had a bowl of half-eaten peanut butter brownie in our hands.
“I’m gonna kick his butt halfway to Taiwan,” Lex muttered, murder glinting in her green eyes.
“Please don’t beat him up,” I murmured, stuffing another bite in my mouth. “It’s not his fault I’m an idiot. Or that I pressured him into kissing me when I knew he didn’t want it.”
“Dude, you are acting like you came on to him.” Annie made a low, irritated sound in her throat, eerily similar to a growl.
With her leather jacket and line of piercings up her ears shining in the light, she looked like a modern-day angel of vengeance.
An angel of vengeance with ice cream. “Did you or did you not get his consent?”
I shrank down as if I could disappear into myself. “I did.”
“And when he stopped, you didn’t throw yourself at him or try to pressure him to keep going, did you?”
I shrank down even more. “No.”
“Then I don’t see a problem.” She reconsidered with a pinch of her lips. “Besides the fact that he’s a colossal moron for leaving like that without any more explanation. You’re better off without him.”
Guilt festered behind my heart. Maybe I hadn’t thrown myself at him like I’d catastrophized myself into believing, but he wasn’t the villain Annie thought he was.
“He’d already told me his stance on relationships, and I still asked him to break down his fence for me to cross.” I swallowed hard, my throat stinging. “This is exactly what I deserve.”
“For what?” Annie challenged. “Sharing a kiss between two consenting adults?”
I shrugged. “And everything else I’ve put him through.”
“None of which has been your fault.” Annie balanced on the arm of the couch, her expression thunderous. “He made his own choices. Sometimes things just happen , and it sucks.”
I snorted. Sure, things happen. But getting him stuck in an elevator, having him carry me while I was hurt, running into him countless times, and playing a role in his last breakup—he’d suffered enough because of me. It was probably best for him that he got as far away from me as possible.
“You do this, you know,” Lex said softly. “Blame yourself for everything.”
I opened my mouth to protest, only to snap it shut as her words sank in. I didn’t blame myself for everything . Just the stuff that was my fault.
“Why do you insist on taking the blame for everything? Does it feel good to think you had control over everything in the first place? Is it some form of penance—” Lex’s face went slack, the color draining from her cheeks.
“How” —she cleared her throat when her voice cracked— “how long have you been blaming yourself, Dekker?”
I shrugged again, focusing intently on my melting ice cream.
Did I really blame myself for things that weren’t my fault?
She seemed to think so. And, based on the nods from the rest of the girls, they agreed.
But if that was the case—if what I blamed myself for wasn’t always my fault—then why did I do it?
Was it about control? Did I find comfort in the illusion that, if it was my fault, I had the power to change the outcome in the future? Or was it something else?
“So, Dominick’s passing” —Lex paused, the apartment around her quiet as a graveyard— “do you blame yourself for that, too?”
Who else was to blame?
The tears that had stung my throat prickled their way up to my eyes. To hide the incriminating sheen, I shoved another spoonful into my mouth.
“Oh, Dekker,” Annie whispered.
And it broke me.
The tears leaked out, narrowly dripping into my bowl before I could swipe them away. It was like the hurt from all the years compounded again, capitalizing on my already fragile state to breach my walls.
“If I’d been there,” I gulped, “if I’d have talked to him that day, gotten him a 302, maybe he wouldn’t—maybe he would’ve—”
I didn’t finish before Lex’s arms wrapped around me. My shoulders shook and, possibly for the first time in my life, I abandoned my ice cream.
“How long have you been carrying this?” Lex whispered, barely audible over my sniffles. “How long have you been punishing yourself?”
So long. Too long. And I hadn’t given myself the chance to realize I’d been doing it. Was it punishment? Perhaps. I deserved it, didn’t I? How could I dare to be happy and try to find love when Dominick would never get the chance?
Easy. I couldn’t.
The pain was a penance. The loneliness and blame was a penance.
But would it ever be enough?
“It was never your fault.” Lex pulled away enough to twist me to look at her, bowl balanced precariously in her lap.
“And I know you won’t believe me about that, at least not now.
But hopefully someday you will. In the meantime, do you think Dominick would want you to atone for his mistake?
If you can’t see for yourself that you’re not culpable in this, can you at least let yourself try to be happy for him ? ”
If Dominick were here now, I could already imagine the scolding I’d be getting.
He wanted me and Lex to be happy. He always had.
That’s why he’d pushed me to apply to culinary school, why he’d sacrificed so many of his nights helping us with homework.
Because he’d wanted it for us so badly, pursuing it without him hurt even more.
“I don’t deserve it,” I whimpered, gracelessly wiping my eyes and nose.
“Who are we to choose what we do and don’t deserve?” Hattie piped up. At some point, she must’ve grabbed my bowl from my lap, since she now held two. “Take what you can get as long as you can get it and assume you deserve the best, because, honey, you do.”
“She’s right.” Kris waited until I met her eyes, offering a small smile. “You deserve happiness.”
I wasn’t convinced. Did I really deserve that?
For so long, I’d kept myself from truly pursuing happiness that it was second nature at this point.
Kissing Max was the closest I’d let myself get to chasing a happily ever after.
And maybe that’s why it cut so deeply that he regretted it.
In my eyes, he’d all but confirmed my fears that I wasn’t worthy of a happy ending.
But my friends thought I was. They’d been right about him not hating me in the first place, so maybe they were right about this, too.
Ironically enough, it was Max’s own words that came to mind. It’s easier when you’re the outsider looking in. Things look different when you’re too close to it all.
I was as close as it could get, constantly stuck inside my head. Some days it felt like I was a prisoner. Shackled to my brain while it ran away dragging me along the ground, often going four different places at the same time.
But my friends, people who genuinely cared and wanted the best for me, didn’t have the dust kicking up into their face. They could see things from a different perspective.
Maybe I didn’t deserve happiness. But maybe I did. Maybe I’d ruined my friendship with Max, and maybe I hadn’t. His text this morning hadn’t made it clear one way or the other.
Max: I need to apologize for last night. You didn’t do anything wrong, and it kills me to think how you might be feeling right now. I had to catch a red-eye to Miami, and I’ll be here for the next few days, but when I get back, I promise to explain everything and apologize properly.
His “explanation” could be anything from letting me down gently—after tossing me off the cliff in the first place—to apologizing for running out while putting the friend zone boundary firmly back in place, to breaking off the friendship altogether.
Only time would tell, and I wasn’t looking forward to finding out.
Lex slugged my shoulder, breaking me out of my thoughts. “I’m giving Max the benefit of the doubt for now, but if he doesn’t have a good explanation, I’ll kick his trash.”
“And I’ll help,” Annie offered a little too eagerly.
“ Regardless ,” Kris cut in, “we’ll always love you, girl. If he’s really your friend, you two will work through this. Everything will be okay.”
I smiled, wobbly and wet, yet lighter than I’d felt all day. “I’m glad you all came. This was… cathartic .”
Sure, I still felt like curling up into a comatose ball, but it didn’t feel permanent anymore. There was a light at the end of the tunnel. Hands reaching down to pull me out of the water, no matter whether I deserved to be there.
And you know what? I wanted happiness and love. Dominick would’ve wanted that for me, so, by guava juice , I was going to stop sabotaging myself, no matter what happened with Max. Or try to, anyway.
Baby steps.