Chapter 33
“Wes?” I stand and brush the dirt off my shorts.
A mix of shock and uneasiness hits me right in the belly.
He looks a little rough—his hair isn’t as carefully styled as it normally is, and his clothes are a bit rumpled.
He even has bags under his eyes. It’s maybe the first time I’ve ever seen him not be completely magazine-shoot ready. “What are you doing here?”
I look around, wondering if I’m having another sugarinduced hallucination. It’s got to be from the sponge cake—what too much lemon can do to a person.
“Um, Graham’s parents are visiting and staying at a hotel here in town. We’re about to get lunch with them.” He looks around, at everything other than me. He shifts from one foot to the other as silence hangs in the air.
I blink. It isn’t a hallucination. It really is Wes.
“Hey, Sora. I have to get this out.” Wes rubs the back of his neck.
“I, um, have typed out a million messages to you since that night, but none of them were good enough. I even walked past your B and B like a dozen different times. Thought about leaving a note at the front desk for you. But it’s awkward, you know?
I don’t really like to get all serious like that, which is what I love best about us, but the more time that’s passed, the harder it’s been to find the right words.
The shittier I realize I was.” Wes jams his hands down in his pockets so hard he must be at a real risk for punching holes straight through them. “I was such a dick.”
“Yeah, Wes. I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have put you in that position,” I say.
I’ve been angry and I’ve been sad, but right now, standing in front of him, it all just floats away.
This is about as genuine an apology as I’ve ever gotten from him, and it does mean something that he’s been trying to find a way to broach the topic.
But it means something too that all this agonizing has never actually gotten me an I’m sorry, not in the whole week it’s taken to get here.
Would we ever have talked again if we hadn’t run into each other?
Would he ever have summoned up the courage?
Fearless Sora. I had been brave enough to tell him I loved him, and all he’s been doing ever since is run from it, dangling enough of a maybe and a someday to keep me chasing after him.
But when has he ever been brave when it’s come to me?
When has he ever mustered up the courage to stay when shit got hard?
Things will be so different once you’re at Armstrong.
Wes takes a couple steps closer. Before I even know what’s happening, he reaches for my hand. “Can we please have a do-over? I would do anything to be able to try again. To make things right. Go back to the way things were.”
I don’t know what to say. If you would have asked me this morning, I would say I’d never talk to Wes ever again.
If you would have asked me before this trip, I would say that a real, genuine I’m sorry is all I’ve ever wanted.
I stare at the tiny freckle under his right eye, chewing my lip.
Here he is, the beautiful boy I’ve dreamed about, asking for my forgiveness.
But it doesn’t escape me that, even now, what he’s asking isn’t love or commitment or even really me—it’s to reset to our familiar dynamic.
What he wants isn’t to move forward, it’s to go back.
I open my mouth, to say what, I don’t know.
“You almost done? I ordered you a caprese…” Nico walks out to find Wes holding my hand like he’s about to drop to a knee and propose. He stops short, nearly dropping my sandwich.
My stomach turns into brick. I yank my hand away and run it through my hair, like if I force myself to do a separate motion it will make Nico forget what he just saw.
I don’t know why I tried to use that tactic again.
Last time I tried, I was speeding past a cop and then swerved three lanes over to try to distract him.
It hadn’t worked then—the proof being the $243 ticket and a very demeaning scolding from said cop—and it’s very clearly not working now.
Say something, Sora. It’s silent as everyone stares at each other.
Finally, I put my hand to my forehead, like I’d simply forgotten my manners.
“Oh, Nico—meet Wes! Wes, this is Nico. His family owns the B and B we’re staying at. ”
Wes relaxes. “Oh, hey, man.” He sticks out a hand and I have to sit back and watch Nico stare at it for a long time before giving the stiffest, least hospitable handshake I’ve even seen. Nico doesn’t even say hi back. He just turns and hands me my sandwich.
“You almost ready to go?” he asks, like Wes isn’t standing here at all. His voice is flat. Straight ice.
“Yeah, um, I’ll be going. Just let me know, Sora. Okay?” Wes shoots one last look at me before putting his hands right back into his pockets and slinking away.
“Okay. Bye, Wes,” I squeak out before turning to Nico. “Sorry about that. I’m ready.”
“So that’s Wes, huh?” Nico asks dismissively, fussing with the moped to avoid looking at me.
“Yeah. Yup. Crazy running into him here.” I unwrap my sandwich and take a bite so that I have an excuse to not speak in this absolutely mortifying moment. “Thank you for the sandwich.”
“Very coincidental.” Nico grunts.
“Mm-hmm,” I add, my mouth full. “Small world.”
Thank God this is the moment our tour group decides to stream out of the café, distracting Nico and defusing the awkwardness that’s blanketed us.
“All right, everyone! It’ll be a forty-five-minute walking tour, but if anyone gets lost or wants to do a little exploring of their own, just remember to meet back here at the Piazza San Gennaro,” Nico instructs the group.
I fall into step alongside the group as I do everything I can to make things normal again, but it’s clear that things have shifted in ways that I don’t really know how to handle.
It’s not that Nico’s mean or unkind—he still smiles, he still waits for me outside every boutique, he still laughs at my jokes, but there is a politeness to the laughter that feels more like distance.
He doesn’t point out silly store names, only chortles dutifully at “Pasta la Vista” when I read it out loud.
We pass by a table of the kitschy penis-shaped noodles that are in seemingly every souvenir shop up and down the coast and I try to catch his eye, but he’s looking straight ahead, talking to Michael about the weather.
It’s fine, at least, because I find the most perfect gift to supplement the one I already have for Nico. I covertly purchase it, stealing glances behind my shoulder, then conceal it in my backpack so he doesn’t have a chance to see. Afterward, I find him a block away.
“You ready to head back?” I ask, and he nods. You could hear a pin drop as we walk back to our mopeds. The conversation that typically pours out so easily has completely dried up. The silence that used to feel tranquil is now painfully awkward. Torturous.
After what feels like hours of walking, we finally reach the mopeds.
I quickly tick off the head count, and we are off again.
But Nico’s back is tense beneath my hands, and when we pause at a pull-off to let some lagging mopeds catch back up, I take the opportunity to move my grip to the sides of the leather seat instead, praying that the sharp mountain turns won’t send me flying off.
And I wonder, as he takes another tight curve, if this is yet another friendship that has been ruined by my chronic case of Wes Nile Virus.