Chapter Nine
CHAPTER NINE
“Start from the beginning,” Camila says.
I pull my mimosa closer, eyeing the fizzing bubbles as they tame. Beyond our little airport restaurant, Camila’s sisters and cousins are lined up outside the gate even though we still have forty-five minutes until boarding starts. Giovanna isn’t even here yet.
I look Cami directly in her large, warm brown eyes. “You remember when we were freshmen and I told you about my high school best friend, Zoe?”
Camila nods. “She excommunicated you after you made out with her twin brother on senior spring break.”
I wince.
“Wait. That’s Will? Will’s the twin brother? Will Grant, our new consultant?”
My wince winces. “Yeah.”
She points at me, her sparkly pink fingernail flickering. “I knew something was going on between you two.”
“There’s nothing going on between us,” I assure her. “There never was anything going on between us. What happened that night when we were seventeen was just a random, drunken encounter that blew up in our faces—”
Cami holds up a hand, indicating I pause. “Backpedal. Walk me through it.”
I sigh, glancing at the ceiling. Telling my best friend of nine years about a seven-month friend I couldn’t stay on good terms with is cannonballing my anxiety.
“The issue started between Zoe and Will before they moved to Nashville,” I begin. “Zoe had this friend, Amber, whom she’d gotten close with in Austin. Apparently, Amber and Will were interested in each other and started dating. Zoe didn’t mind at first, even supported it, but eventually, it became obvious Amber had never cared about her friendship with Zoe.”
“Became obvious how?” Cami asks.
I tilt my head, remembering the story. “Zoe had never been included by other girls—they thought she was weird—and then Amber started being nice to her out of the blue. Since Amber was also spending more time with Will as a result of her friendship with Zoe, they got together. But then Amber told Zoe to stop being clingy? That they needed to redefine their friendship? Basically, Amber didn’t want to be around Zoe unless Will was also there.”
“Ouch,” Cami says.
I nod in agreement. “So, you can imagine the chip Zoe had on her shoulder when she moved to Nashville and tried to make new friends.”
“Did you know?” Cami asks. “Did Zoe tell you about that experience before you and Will…” She makes a kissy face, tilting her head back and forth with her eyes closed.
I wrinkle my nose. “I knew,” I admit, cheeks flushing. “Zoe told me what happened, and I understood her side of it, completely. She felt like she’d been used and then dropped.” I pause. Take a sip of my mimosa. “I felt so bad for her. I could see how hurt Zoe had been by it. Not just by Amber, but by Will, too, who was ignorant of the entire situation. I’d hardly spoken more than a greeting to Will Grant at that point, and frankly, I couldn’t understand what any girl would see in him other than his obvious good looks.”
“Such a shame girls never go for obvious good looks,” Cami intones.
“ Anyway, ” I go on, ignoring her. “There was this one night on the beach, the last night of senior spring break. We’d all been drinking heavily. There was music, a bonfire, drinking games. I got this call from my mom—about Oma.” I swallow thickly, and Cami reaches across the table for my hand.
“She passed away that night,” Cami guesses.
I nod, clearing my throat, training my brain away from the news my mom had given me on the phone. Oma had died alone in her home. It was an accident, a bad fall. No one was there to help her.
Camila smiles warmly. “I remember you telling me how close you were when you were growing up.”
It’s true; for years, I’d been closer with Oma than I’d been with my own mother. Oma was, for all intents and purposes, the fun relative and the love bomber. Oma is the reason I know anything about fashion. She explained the history of Ralph Lauren to me, showed me old photos of Coco Chanel and Jackie Kennedy. She used to say all the time: Men invest in real estate. Women invest in jewelry. She would tell me to look at the tennis wives, not the football wives, for fashion inspiration, and don’t trust any magazine but Vogue. Such a character. So thoughtful, and simultaneously vain at her core, but I loved her desperately. My whole family did.
“I was drunk and heartbroken,” I say. “I wanted a moment away from the bonfire crowd, and I spotted Will Grant down at the far end of the beach.”
I can still see the image of him that night so vividly: his knees pointed at the sky, hands behind him fisting the sand, hair flapping with the breeze coming off the waves. Something had pulled me closer. I’d stumbled my way over and sat down beside him, offering the last dregs of my Blue Raspberry Lemonade Smirnoff. He drank it in one pull as I let the salty air fill up my lungs. Then I exhaled a liquor-soaked breath over his profile.
My girlfriend dumped me this morning, he told me, his gaze not breaking from the ocean.
I was down in Rosemary Beach as a guest of the Grant family, so I’d borne witness to Will’s extra grumpy mood that whole day. Zoe had joked earlier by the pool he’d probably had another scary dream—she assured me he was a sleep talker and woke up often from night frights—but I thought maybe he’d gotten a rejection email from a college he’d applied to. A breakup, I hadn’t been expecting.
I don’t remember asking Will why Amber dumped him. I don’t remember caring, too swallowed by my own grief in that moment.
Good riddance, I said bitterly, choking back tears that would have alarmed him without context. Amber sucks.
You never even met Amber, Will said.
Zoe told me about Amber. She sucks.
Will had laughed at that, finally casting his head my way. The laugh was scratchy, scorching, and his eyes had the first drip of mirth I’d ever seen from him aimed at me.
I ruined it by saying My grandmother just died. Or, I mean, she’s been dead for a couple hours. But my mom just told me. And I really loved her, a lot.
Will said nothing, though I saw his eyes dampen. After five seconds, he pulled me against his side. Impossibly, it felt like the only right thing for him to do. I rested my head on his shoulder. We were not friends. We were not enemies. We were just two people with nothing in common except for Zoe and, right then, a sadness the other person could match.
Do you want to tell me about her? he asked.
No. It’ll make me cry.
You can cry if you want to.
We don’t know each other well enough for that, I said with emphasis.
I could go get Zoe, he offered.
No, Zoe is flirting with Forrest, and she has a crush on Forrest, so I don’t want to ruin their moment, I explained.
His focus on my face seemed to concentrate. There was a divot between his eyebrows. Sand on one temple. But your grandmother just died, and Zoe is your best friend.
Yes, Zoe is my best friend, and Zoe deserves a best friend who doesn’t put their own needs above hers all the time, I retort. More bitingly than I probably should have, given the girl I was referencing had just dumped Will anyway.
His gaze went past mine, as if searching the bonfire for Zoe.
How is she? he asked. Not tonight. But in general, the whole year?
You’re the one who lives with her, I said, my voice constantly on the brink of wobbling. But whether Will knew what he was doing or not, he was a good distraction from the weight of sadness pressing on my chest.
Zoe and I haven’t talked much the past year, he admitted.
Well, she’s happy, I think, I told him. It’s hard moving to a new city as a senior. I’m sure you know. He nodded, blue eyes on mine. One of his arms was still around me. The other dug into the sand, gripping it.
We were quiet for a few seconds, looking at each other for what felt like the first time.
I started dating Amber, Will said, because I trust Zoe’s judgment more than anyone’s.
The words felt like his defense.
If that were true, you would have warmed up to me by now, I argued.
What, like you’ve warmed up to me? he snarked back, though his tone was playful.
Somehow, our knees had fallen against each other. Our faces were still tilted in. Will’s gaze landed on my lips for a second time.
You’re hard to read, he said.
False. I’m actually incredibly easy to read. Everybody thinks so.
Will shook his head, and the distance between us narrowed. Not me, Josephine. The more of you I see, the more I discover I don’t have a clue.
I didn’t realize you were looking.
I was, and I wasn’t. After another moment he added, I was. While I told myself I wasn’t.
Our noses grazed, and my skin felt like it was caramelizing. My joints were unbolting, my body going limp. The hand Will had dug into the sand came to my knee.
Kissing, Will said, voice like gravel, when we’re both drunk, a couple hours after your grandmother died and my girlfriend dumped me, would be an incredibly stupid thing for us to do. Right? He did not sound at all confident in his own theory.
I don’t know, I said. I just want to feel less horrible right now.
Fair enough, Will concluded, and his lips met mine.
I’d kissed exactly two boys before: my first boyfriend, when I was fourteen and dating a seventeen-year-old senior, and then a Sea Island fling last summer.
None of those kisses felt like this. Intense, desperate, greedy, emotional.
When our mouths slid together, Will made an immediate noise, halfway between a groan and a growl, that elicited an immediate noise from me, halfway between a gasp and a sigh. His lips were warm. They tasted perfectly salty and sweet, like an Ocean Spray candy. We kissed so gently, nervous but highly eager, two drunk teenagers who wanted to dive into each other’s skin. Will breathed softly as he broke from my lips. His cool raspberry breath danced along my eyelashes. His mouth traveled down the side of my face, hovering and then sucking on the place where my jaw met my neck. I climbed onto his lap and his sandy palms went straight to my exposed lower back.
Slowly, we were developing a language. Kiss here. Touch here. That feels good. This feels better.
Wolf whistles from the bonfire were what broke us apart.
We turned toward the sound, our chests heaving. And even from that distance, we could see Zoe’s furious gaze dancing in the firelight. She had no context. She didn’t know Will was single. She didn’t know I was heartbroken, desperate not to feel my emotions, desperate to replace them with something tactile. All she knew was she’d confided her deepest insecurity to me—that girls used her to get to her brother—and I’d thrown it right back in her face.
“Soooo yeah,” I conclude, downing the rest of my mimosa. Cami is looking at me with alarmed eyes from across the table, her whole body leaned in. “That was pretty much the stupidest conversation I’ve ever had, followed up by the stupidest decision Will Grant and I collectively ever made. Followed by the stupidest drunk three-way fight I’ve ever partaken in. Zoe was equally intoxicated and screamed at both of us for like ten minutes straight before we got a word in edgewise. Obviously, it ended badly.”
“Josie, oh my God, ” Cami says.
“I know. I’d claimed to be such a good friend. But in that moment, I didn’t even consider how much what we did would hurt Zoe’s feelings.”
I’m flustered just remembering the aftermath. A silent car ride back to Tennessee in the morning. Confused parents. Sobbing and crying and feeling like the world was ending, like I was getting hit from all sides. Oma’s funeral, then two tense months of school leading up to graduation. I was devastated by the universe, disappointed in myself, for losing my oma and Zoe in one night.
Cami calls the waiter over and we order two more mimosas.
“Josie, baby.” Cami tilts her head. “I’m sorry you had to find out in those circumstances about your oma. That was a bad situation waiting to happen. Did Zoe not come around and understand it was a drunken mistake?”
“The last thing she said to me was that I shouldn’t speak to her again,” I admit. “I wrote her a letter apologizing and delivered it to her mailbox the Sunday before we started back at school. I tried to explain that I cared about her friendship more than anything and what happened between Will and me was simply because our emotions were running high. I didn’t tell her about my oma, though. I remember thinking it would have been a guilt trip. But the next day in study hall, Zoe kneeled by my desk to say I’m really sorry about your oma. Which means Will told her. But she didn’t say anything else, then walked off quick as a whip. I got the message. My letter didn’t change Zoe’s mind about our friendship.”
“What about Will?” Cami asks. “Did you ever talk to him again?”
“I avoided him at school. He tried to talk to me the next week, but I told him it wasn’t a good idea.” I can still recall the confusion on Will’s face when I’d walked away.
Not a good idea.
Oh my God. I’m the one who said it first. He simply repeated the sentiment to his boss ten years later.
“Maybe this reunion is fate,” Cami says. “Maybe Zoe wishes things had evolved differently.”
“She’s had ten years to reach out,” I say.
“And you?” Cami asks.
“And me what?”
“Other than the letter, how hard did you work to reach out?”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
Cami throws me a come on look. “I mean—and please don’t take this the wrong way, J, I know you were grieving, but—it kind of sounds like you threw in the towel and gave up on your friendship with Zoe without putting up too much of a fight? You didn’t have a real, honest conversation with her in person. Instead, you wrote her a letter. Even years later, you could have checked in, but you didn’t. The reason I think that’s so odd is because I know you, Josie, and you never give up. You’re a fighter.”
Cami’s right about one thing. I didn’t fight for my friendship with Zoe. I accepted it was over, then crawled into a corner and cowered there. Partially because I couldn’t make sense of why she’d allowed me to be her friend in the first place. We were so different. Not in a cute, opposites-attract way, but in a make-it-make-sense way. I’d packed three suitcases for that beach trip and Zoe had brought a carry-on. I took photos of my outfits for Instagram; Zoe was a short-story Tumblr girl. I was the one doing the hurting; she was the one getting hurt.
“She deserved to find a better friend than me,” I say.
“Josephine,” Cami says, reaching for my hand again. “Trust me. There’s no such thing.”