Chapter 29 Playlist TLDR We’re All Broken
I SLEEP LIKE CRAP. My head is too full of the faces of everyone I’ve already let down and everyone I’m about to, and I drift off and wake up again over and over. Somehow I finally pass out around four, and I wake up at nine to several text messages from Kat. I shoot up in bed and unlock my phone.
The first two are from early this morning:
Kat: Oh my God, just talked to my mom. Thank you so much for what you did for Luke
Kat: I know you’re still sleeping, text me when you wake up
Then, one from a half hour ago:
Kat: What the hell is this?
It’s accompanied by a grainy photo. It’s of Myles and me, from last night, taken from across the bonfire.
He and I are turned toward each other, one of his arms around my back like an embrace, the fingers of his other hand buried in my hair.
It’s affectionate and it’s intimate, like we’re about to kiss and we’ve done it a thousand times before.
My stomach rolls as my shoulders crumble and my head falls forward. Oh God.
I call her.
She doesn’t answer.
I call again.
It goes straight to voicemail.
Me: Please answer
Me: I know it looks bad, but nothing happened, I swear.
Me: Please let me explain.
The photo I assigned to her contact pops onto my screen with an incoming call. I don’t even have a chance to greet her before she says, “You have two seconds before I hang up.”
“I didn’t kiss him,” is the first thing that comes out. Which is really, really stupid—because even if I didn’t kiss him in that moment, we definitely did that day we swam to the beach.
A lot.
And Kat goes right in for the kill. “You didn’t kiss him right then, or ever? Because it sure doesn’t look like you’re just—what did you call it? ‘Coworkers who chat sometimes at Pearl’s’?”
“We… we are coworkers,” I babble. “And friends. Good friends—enough that I definitely should have told you that. But we’re not, like… together.”
“I’m not an idiot, Amelia. Nothing about that says ‘just friends.’ I know something’s going on between you. Ruby said she’d been watching you for a while before she took the picture.”
Ruby sent her the photo? Did Kat ask her to spy on me, or did Ruby do it on her own? I flip through my mental memory box, wondering if we ever mentioned the pact to her… but then I realize it doesn’t really matter. Kat has photo evidence, and I just have to tell her everything.
I stand and start pacing around my room. To my door, pivot, around my bed and to the window, then back again.
“It started out as nothing,” I say. “We saw each other at Pearl’s and we’d chat, but then he drove me home after work a few times, like when it was dark or raining, and we started talking a little more.
Becoming friends, you know? And then we started texting, too, and I saw him out at parties and stuff.
He’s a lot different than I thought, and it turns out we have a lot in common, and I think he feels sort of misunderstood and I realized maybe so have I.
But, God, Kat. I never meant for this to happen.
I didn’t mean to spend so much time with him, but it just happened, and you know I’ve always liked him, and now he likes me, too—”
“Of course you’ve always liked him! We both have!” Kat explodes. “That’s why we made the pact in the first place! You were never supposed to go for him, Amelia. Neither of us was. You promised.”
Hot tears build beneath my eyelids. “I know,” I whisper.
“And what’s worse is you lied to me. All this time you’ve pretended you barely knew him. You made it sound like you hardly saw him, and even then, that it was only at work. Friends don’t lie to each other like that.”
“You’re right.” I stop in the middle of my room, nodding miserably even though she can’t see me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do this.”
Kat laughs, and it’s awful. Harsh and nasty. “Right, your thumb slipped every time you hit Send on a text to him.”
“I just meant I didn’t plan for this to happen,” I offer weakly. “He actually texted me first by accident—”
“What do you mean, by accident?”
Shit. Why, why did I have to say that? I scramble to think how I can explain that away without mentioning what happened at that first bonfire of the summer, but then I remember what Ruby said last night.
Chuck remembered Myles saying he wanted to get Kat’s number before she moved.
Especially now that I know Ruby’s feeding local gossip back to her, it’s very possible that piece of information will be passed along too.
My guilty conscience needs to be wiped clean. If I ever have a hope of fixing this with Kat, I have to lay it all out. Every single thing, and then take it from there. Secrets are what got me here in the first place, and I’m learning what happens when they come to light.
Which they eventually all do.
I take a deep breath, then exhale slowly. “Do you remember that party we went to on your last night in town?”
“Yeah,” she says, and I can tell she’s wondering what that has to do with anything.
“I’m not sure where you were right then, because everyone kept wanting to say goodbye to you, but Myles came up to me at one point. He… he, um, asked me for your number.”
A beat of silence passes. “My number?”
“Yeah. But at the time, I was distracted and didn’t hear him right, and thought he wanted my number. Like, to switch shifts at work and stuff—I swear, I didn’t think it was for anything more. It wasn’t until he texted me and called me Kat that I realized my mistake.”
“Myles Ford asked for my number, and you never told me?” Kat says, her voice eerily calm. “And then you decided to snatch that opportunity for yourself?”
It sounds horrible, hearing her say it. What I’m about to say feels like it’s just an excuse, and maybe it is, but it’s also the truth.
“The first time he texted was right around when Margarine got sick, and I was so worried about her, and I couldn’t get ahold of you, and he was there and willing to talk me through it.
I told him right away that it was me and I’d messed up, but then we just sort of… kept talking.”
“So you never actually gave him my number? Like he wanted?”
A tear slides down my cheek. “No. I didn’t. I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying that! Stop saying you’re sorry.
This was no accident, Amelia. You kept this up all summer.
You obviously weren’t thinking about me or how I would feel about any of this.
The second I wasn’t around and you saw an opening with Myles, you took it.
” She exhales audibly with a sound of disgust. “I know a lot of girls who would do the same thing, honestly. I just never thought you were one of them. I thought our friendship was more important to you than that.”
“It is,” I insist. “You are important to me. I—”
“No. You know what? I don’t want to hear any more. Screw you, Amelia. I’m done.” Everything goes quiet, and I pull the phone away from my ear to check the screen.
She ended the call.
My room swims as my vision clouds with tears, and I stumble back two steps until my back hits the wall.
I slide down until I’m sitting with my knees against my chest, crying into my jellyfish pajama pants.
After a few minutes I try calling her again, hoping to convince her to talk this out.
To ask her what it will take for her to forgive me.
It rings once and then goes to voicemail.
I try once more, and the same thing: one ring, voicemail.
I think she blocked me.
My heart sinks. I pull up various social media accounts to check my status there—she’s already unfollowed me, and I can’t see her page on any of them.
She works fast, I’ll give her that. Honestly, I shouldn’t be surprised.
In fourth grade I witnessed the ferocity of Kat’s rage after a girl called me ugly and within sixty seconds she’d blacklisted not only the perpetrator but every single person in her group of friends.
Kat can be ruthless when she wants to be.
I just never thought I’d be on the receiving end of it.
My parents are both at work, and I have an hour before I’m due at Pearl’s for the lunch shift.
I don’t feel like eating, so I take a glass of water onto the back porch and sink into the couch, Margarine at my side.
I pat her head, grateful for her loyalty.
Even if I’ve screwed everything up and Kat hates me for what I did, I know Margarine never will.
I remember when I thought I’d never break our Myles pact. It seems like a lifetime ago. Deep down I know it’s not the worst thing anyone’s ever done, and that I just made a mistake. But intention doesn’t really matter when people get hurt, does it?
Suddenly I remember the broken look on Gregory’s face last night too, and I feel even worse. I pretended like there’s nothing between us.
Lies upon lies.
I have no idea what will happen next. Will everyone stay mad at me forever? Will I have to make new friends? Will I be a loner who just lies low and pushes through until I graduate and start fresh in college with people who don’t know anything I did this summer?
Eventually I go inside and get ready for work. Anders is with me today, and an older woman who usually works the dinner shift. This is one day I don’t mind a single bit to be working with my silent coworker. I just want to put my head down, work my shift, and go home.
Which is exactly what I do. I appreciate the distraction work brings, and I think I do a decent job putting on a natural-looking smile for my customers.
Gregory’s mom comes in, and my heart stalls out as I watch the door, wondering if he’ll step inside after her.
But instead of him she’s accompanied by another woman around her age.
I still take their table, and if the friendly way Gregory’s mom treats me and introduces me to her friend is any indication, he hasn’t said anything to her about our fight.
So I pretend everything’s fine between us too.
I spot Myles’s Bronco pulling into the lot as I head out for the afternoon, and I dart behind a building and sneak through an alleyway to head home.
I’m not ready to face him yet. He has no idea about Kat’s and my pact or that last night caused the destruction of our friendship, and it’s just too much for me right now.
He texted me this morning, asking about Luke, and after letting him know Luke would be okay, I told him I’d text him later.
As soon as I get home, I change and take Margarine for her walk. I try to lose myself in the waves and the sun and the briny breeze, but nothing works. My brain won’t shut off, and the heaviness weighing me down doesn’t abate.
Not even a little.
I guess even the ocean can’t heal me this time.
At dinner that night my parents can tell something’s wrong.
“Is everything okay?” my dad asks gingerly, as if I might detonate in an explosion of tears and hysterics any second. Which… come on. I thought he knew me better than that.
“I’m fine,” I say.
“Is it Luke?” my mom asks. Of course they heard about that. “He’s doing well today.”
“That’s good. I’m glad.”
The next few minutes of silent eating are unbearable. They keep sneaking worried glances at me, then at each other, and if I don’t give them something, they’ll just keep staring. And worrying. And will probably take turns stopping by my room all night to see if I want to talk.
“I did something that hurt Kat,” I finally say. “I messed up, and now she won’t talk to me.”
“Oh, honey,” my mom says. “What happened?”
I don’t know how to explain it all to them.
“I promised her I wouldn’t do something, and I did it anyway.
And then I lied about it. She found out, and even though I apologized, she still blocked me.
No calls, no texts, nothing.” A few tears slip out, the emotions of the whole situation bubbling to the surface again.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” My mom comes around the table to hug my shoulders. “That’s hard.”
“I can’t believe I did that to her,” I say, sniffling.
“Hey,” my dad says. “Everyone makes mistakes. You owned up to it and apologized, right? Sometimes that’s the hardest part. Besides, messing up is what being a teenager is all about.”
“This was a catastrophic mess-up. Kat hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you,” my mom says. “She might be upset and hurt, but these things tend to fade away over time. Give her some space and she’ll come around. I’m sure of it.”
I’m not so optimistic.
After dinner I go straight to my room, where my gaze lands on the shelf full of Kat’s origami creations.
My chest tightens and my throat feels thick, and I stride forward to grab the trash can underneath my desk.
I hold it up to the edge and swipe my other arm across the shelf, pushing them all into the garbage.
Kat made them for me when she believed I was her best friend who would never betray her, and tears flow down my cheeks as I stare at the empty space.
I don’t deserve them anymore.