Chapter 22 Harper #2
Marissa bites her lip. “I was trying to help,” she says, glancing away like she can’t quite meet my eyes.
For the first time, she looks like she’s realizing she’s not blameless here.
“I thought it would get you the funding you needed, but I didn’t want to get your hopes up if it didn’t work out.
I was trying to surprise you. I was on your side. ”
She glances at me pleadingly, but I’m still processing. In the silence, one thought rings through loud and clear: Marissa let me suffer the consequences of her choice, while Dawson tried to clean it up.
Maybe he was actually the better friend to me this year.
Did I really throw that away because I was worried about what Marissa might think?
“Hang on.” I frown as another thought occurs to me. “You tried to get me to admit that I was the one who did it. You said you’d be mad if I kept it from you!”
Marissa looks back at me, her expression a little softer.
“I guess I wanted you to show me you were on my side still. I thought it would be this hilarious moment when I told you it was me, but then you acted so horrified at the idea that I couldn’t come clean.
I mean, it’s not like I made the story up!
Red is even worse than we thought! But when I tried to bring it up—like in the library the other night—you didn’t want to talk about it, and I chickened out, okay?
” My mind’s racing, connecting the dots.
Marissa furrows her eyebrows behind her glasses.
“I just… I figured eventually it would stop coming up, if we kept our distance from them this year. That’s what we’ve always wanted. I thought you’d keep wanting it.”
“Things can’t stay the same forever!” My voice gets louder and a few people look over, but I don’t even care.
“It’s one thing to dislike a few jocks for being stuck-up.
Some of them are, but not all of them! We can’t write off everyone who plays a sport, Marissa!
I’ve gotten to know them this year, and some of them are really nice, okay?
Despite your best efforts, I made some real friends, and I got to try some new things.
And I liked it, and I’m not ashamed of that. ”
She’s staring at me with wide eyes, and I clamp my mouth shut. But all I’m thinking about is Dawson, tugging me gently through the hockey party; Alex with his smiles and warm welcome; Ryan and his jokes; Sabrina and her badass competition and genius business ideas.
I try to breathe through the mingled shock and hurt. “I get why you did it. But I can’t believe you kept it from me. You’ve really betrayed my trust, and you hurt a lot of people I care about. Look, Marissa, I love you, but I don’t know how to fix that.”
Marissa’s glasses are fogging up, and I realize she’s crying when she removes them to clean the lenses against her T-shirt. She’s not even wearing any color today. Just jeans and a white tee, the sure sign she’s not feeling like herself.
The whole image hits me with a pang of tenderness, and I root in my bag for tissues.
I press one into her hand. “Don’t cry, okay?”
Sniffling, she says, “Let me make it up to you. You’re right, I messed up, keeping this all a secret.
I don’t even blame you for not telling me about Dawson.
Why would you, when I made it so clear how much I hated him?
But it still sucks that I’m the last one to find out.
I’ve missed so much. I miss you.” She leans forward, eyes intent. “What can I do to make things right?”
I bite my lip. I wasn’t lying about how she’d have to earn some trust back.
But she’s been my best friend for years, and she’s been a damn good one.
We’ve been eating lunch together under that tree every day of high school.
Meeting in the principal’s office to file petitions every week.
Texting our stupidest, snarkiest jokes back and forth at dumb hours.
We’ve been outcasts together, and I can only imagine how my sudden disappearance made her feel.
I’d be clinging to the past too, if I were her.
She saved me from my loneliness three years ago, and I can’t forget that. I want things to be good between us again. No—I want things to be even better than they were. Built on something more substantial than disliking the same people.
I don’t know that we can fix everything today, but we can start.
“You know Sabrina from the spirit committee?” I ask.
Marissa nods forcefully. Neither of us mentions the not-so-nice things Marissa’s said about Sabrina in the past for being a jock groupie.
“Well, she got them to put in a big order of bracelets for the game on Friday. School colors, you know?”
“Oh, fuck. Why didn’t we think of that?”
I throw up my hands in dismay. “I know, right?”
We burst into laughter so loud that several neighboring tables turn their heads to look, the old patterns of our friendship taking over. Both of us momentarily forgetting the ways we’ve hurt each other and all the repair still to be done. For a minute, it feels like everything might be okay again.
“I’m going to need help to get it all done in time. Even if I take off work, it’s going to be really tight, especially with finals coming up—”
“I’m in,” Marissa says before I can even finish asking. “We can take turns reading from the textbook, too. To multitask.”
The fiendish light in her eyes reminds me of many an all-nighter. I grin. “I’m not so sure how that’ll go, but it’s a nice idea. Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me.” Marissa’s already pulling up her calendar app to schedule this plan. “You need something to lock in that grant, right? And I haven’t done the best job being a present friend this year. This is the least I can do.”
We drink our coffee in silence for a minute while mapping out the next week on our shared Google Calendar, color-coding study sessions and jewelry making and class and diner shifts to get covered. Our truest love language, and the first step toward patching things up between us.
While I’m making a note about Monday’s diner shift, Marissa’s eyes drift back up to meet mine.
“So… Dawson?” I can tell she’s trying to replace her natural expression of disgust with curiosity, and I appreciate the effort, but I can’t help groaning at his name.
Her eyebrows shoot up. “Oh no. That bad?”
“I mean, no.” I blush, thinking about just how not bad hanging out with Dawson was. “God, it was so good.”
She leans forward, a million unspoken questions on her face. I bite my lip. Isn’t it enough to start fixing things with my best friend and my business? Do I really have to unpack the heartbreak of Luke Dawson today, too?
But Marissa’s eyes are big and open, locked on me in the way that always makes her interview subjects spill their deepest secrets. Even after all these years, I’m not immune.
I fill her in on everything. Getting trapped in the freezer during that cursed Black Friday shift. Driving with him though the dark streets of town. Talking until I fell asleep on his chest. The hot chocolate at the small business fair. Kissing him in the diner. Kissing him in the car…
“But I don’t know anymore,” I finish. “I thought he was a nice guy. Sweet. But if he really thinks he’s better than me?” I shake my head. “Nah. I don’t want to date someone like that.”
Marissa purses her lips and tilts her head.
It’s her tracking-down-a-story face, when she’s trying to make the pieces add up and find her narrative thread.
“Okay, you know I’m not predisposed to be Team Hockey Jock.
But let’s look at the facts, okay?” She grabs her ever-present reporter’s notebook from her bag.
“As if I could stop you.” I have to force the words out past a lump in my throat. It’s not until this moment that I realize how much I’ve missed our old friendship.
“Okay.” Marissa flips to a blank page. “Dawson invited you to Ryan’s hockey party… just because he wanted you there?”
I nod. “I mean, that’s what he said—”
“Noted.” She scribbles something down. “And he introduced you to people? And checked on you all night? And wouldn’t let you drive home?”
I nod again, that lump getting even bigger as I remember how taken care of I’d felt.
“Noted, noted, noted. And then you…” She squints at me. “Talked until the wee hours of the morning, falling asleep in each other’s arms?”
I press my lips together and nod again.
She mutters something that sounds suspiciously like romantic. “Interesting. In front of everyone. And he didn’t even make a move? And checked on you the next morning?”
Another nod.
“And in the next week, he stopped by the craft fair and bought— how many pieces?”
“Two,” I whisper. “Plus the ones he got his friends to buy.”
“Plus the ones he got his friends to buy,” she echoes. “And scrubbed the negative reviews from your website? By going to bat for you to his most judgy, asshole-y teammate?”
My fists clench at the mental image of Noah’s extremely punchable face.
“And then he asked you to Skate Night… where he wanted to hold your hand in front of the whole school?”
“Twice,” I choke out. “He asked me twice.”
She squints at me. “And did you act encouraging? Perhaps even pitiable, as if him asking you to Skate Night would be the peak of your high school career, and he’d get some good karma—or some good ass—by doing so?”
“Marissa!”
She raises her eyebrows innocently. “Or did you maybe act prickly and turn him down?”
“I ran away,” I mutter.
“Mhmmm.” She scribbles a few more somethings at the bottom of the very full page of notes before looking up to face me.
“Okay, Harper, I’m gonna be real. My journalistic integrity’s on the line here, and you know I don’t take that lightly.
So I’m just going to say it: Everything you told me doesn’t really sound like he thinks he’s better than you.
It kinda sounds like he’s head over heels for you. ”
I stare into my coffee. Not sure what to say. Too hurt by the echo of Dawson’s words in my mind.
Marissa holds up her hands defensively. “All I’m saying is, if you want a hockey player, goddamnit, we’ll get you a hockey player.”
Listing all the moments I’ve shared with Dawson over the last few weeks has brought the tears closer to the surface than they’ve been in a few hours, and I’m not sure I have it in me to show up and ask to be punched in the heart again.
But looking at her fierce expression, I can’t help a tiny smile.
Maybe I do want a hockey player.
Just one particular hockey player.
And maybe it’s not too late to win him back.