Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Ten Years Ago
When I looked at daisies, all I could think of was Elio now, playing that dumb game I told him about. They were suddenly everywhere I looked, in every bunch of grass or field I saw. It was maddening.
Elio was going to ask Jude out today. I tried to pretend it didn’t bother me for some reason. It shouldn’t. It wasn’t like being his best friend meant he couldn’t hang out with someone else. Or kiss them. And cuddle them. And…
Fucking hell. I didn’t want to lose him or our time together.
I was afraid of something completely unknown.
It’d always just been me and Elio, the two inseparable weirdos.
We’d tried to have a third friend before.
What a fucking mess that had been. So, we stuck to each other, and Moon and Star were just in for the ride since they lived with us.
I remembered the first time Elio had a crush on a dude. It was in fourth grade—Braden Crysler. Elio had been so freaked out to tell me, worried I’d think of him differently, even though he’d met my family by then. My parents were nothing if not wholeheartedly supportive and loving.
I’d tried to be supportive and loving. I mean, I definitely didn’t care about the whole gay thing, but I cared about the someone else thing.
So now, because of a goddamn daisy I showed him, Elio was on his way over to someone else.
Jude, the quiet, tall type, who was nothing like me.
I was loud, not as tall as him, and just overall everything he wasn’t.
I’d barely interacted with the dude, but I was allowed to make assumptions, goddamn it.
I watched helplessly as Elio sauntered across the cafeteria, getting closer and closer to him. To ask him out. On a date. He’d even told Mom and Dad about it, and they were so happy for him while I had this sinking, ugly feeling in my gut inching its way into my heart. Was that even possible?
Moon had swooned for him, laughing about how fruity our family was. Star just watched, still too young to fully understand our woes.
Then Mom had asked me if I had anyone in my sights, though she didn’t specify gender like Elio had the other day.
I told her no. I told her I didn’t know if I’d like to.
Which was true, I guessed, since every time I thought about dating—or being around someone other than Elio—I felt all icky and gross on the inside.
I liked porn. I liked people. Objectively, anyway. I just didn’t want to date any of them because it was like my heart was already taken, and it didn’t make any sense, but it did.
Elio’s head bobbed. He took out his phone, handing it to Jude.
Jude took it and typed something into it.
Each smile between them had my chest tightening when it shouldn’t.
It shouldn’t be so fucking hard to watch.
It shouldn’t make me feel antsy as he walked back over to me, that lovesick grin I still wasn’t accustomed to stuck on his face while I tried to school my own.
I forced my lips into an excited smile, welcoming him immediately. “So, how’d it go?” Was my voice happy enough? Was it clear enough?
“We have a date on Friday night.” He was beaming. Happy, ethereal, sunshiney.
“Hell yeah, man!” I went in for a high five, shocked at how warm his hand felt against mine. The warmth he radiated sank into my bones, filling me with nothing but heat. Heat I shouldn’t have been feeling.
“You think Moon will let me borrow his car?”
“Is Jude not gonna take you? He has a car of his own.”
Elio shrugged. “I wanted to seem cool, I guess. But yeah, he does. I’ll just wait for him to text me the details and see.”
I nodded along, drinking from my milk carton as an excuse to not say anything more.
I tried to be happy for him. My sunshiney Elio. My radiant ray of everything good in the world. My best friend. My everything. I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe the reason I couldn’t think about dating anyone was because his name was already etched into my heart.