Chapter Twenty-Four
Kennedy
I don’t knock before I enter her room and I find her on facetime with none other than Liam himself.
Miranda starts as I barge in, letting out a comical yelp.
I lean over her shoulder, flashing a saccharine grin into the camera.
“Hi, Liam, I need to talk to my best friend now. You understand, right?” He looks scared.
Good, the more I think about it, the more upset I am about this whole thing.
Miranda and Liam exchange goodbyes before she closes her phone.
I hop onto her bed and level her with a glare. “Spill,” I say, arms crossed over my chest, waiting for her to explain. “How could you not tell me about him? Everyone else, I can understand. But how could you not tell me?”
“Hang on, why are you mad? You did the same thing.”
“It's not the same and you know it.”
“Yes it is, Kennedy.”
“No, it's not! The only reason I didn’t tell you was because I didn’t want to destroy my most important friendship over something casual.
I’ve spent the last four months completely bent out of shape with guilt and anxiety that I was going to have to choose between you or Will.
Or that it’d all blow up in my face and I would lose both of you as friends forever.
And I still told you. I might not have told you the first time we kissed, but you don’t know the agony I was in, beating myself up about the fact that by dating your brother I was going to lose you as my best friend and it turns out you knew the whole time!
” I’m standing up now, chest heaving with indignation.
She looks at me, eyes wide as I keep going.
“And you let me carry on, sick with anxiety over losing you. Dating Liam is not at all the same thing. You were never going to have to choose between your boyfriend and best friend. Or even your boyfriend and your brother. Even if Will was mad at you, you knew he’d eventually come around.
Come on, Miranda, you know it's not the same.”
She plucks at the comforter in front of her, pulling at the pilling of the fabric.
“Okay you’re right.” I sit back down on the bed, feeling much better now that I’ve got everything off my chest. “I should have told you. At first I didn’t say anything because I was a little embarrassed.
You know how Liam is.” I hate to admit that does make a little sense to me.
Liam is sweet, and super good looking, but he’s also extremely nerdy.
He’s into anime and Pokemon and video games, all things I’d never in a million years associate with Miranda.
She continues, “I was going to tell you around the time you and Will became a thing. But then I felt like if I told you, you’d tell Will, and I don’t know… I just didn’t.”
I soften significantly. It's hard to stay mad at her when I completely understand where she’s coming from. “I get not wanting Will to know until it was serious. But I would have kept your secret, Miranda. When have I ever not kept a secret?”
“I know, I know,” she says, tossing an arm over her eyes. After a few seconds she drops her arm, turning her head in my direction with a small grin, it's really weird you’re Will’s girlfriend.”
I lay down on the pillows facing her like we’re 13 and I’m sleeping over. “I know, it’s so weird.” I swallow, “You’re not mad?”
She takes a second to compose her thoughts, lips twisting to one side of her face before she speaks. “I was a little at first. More disturbed than mad honestly. But I got over it pretty quickly. My dad’s right, ya know, everyone’s seen this coming for a long time. I’m talking, like, years, Ken.”
I don’t know why but that causes my cheeks to heat. I snuggle into the bed a little deeper, “Okay, tell me about you and Liam please. How did this happen? I need the details because I never saw this coming. Liam?”
“Hey, don’t be mean to him.” I throw my hands up in surrender and widen my eyes a bit.
“But I know. I didn’t see it coming either.
” She also snuggles a little deeper into the bed, “Okay, so you know the party Will and Adrian threw at the beginning of the year?” I nod. “That was the first time we hooked up.”
“Miranda!” At first, I’m a little shocked because she definitely could have said something to me, but the more I think about it, Will was pretty much always around at the beginning of the school year.
I close my eyes and channel calm. She already admitted that she should've told me. “Sorry–continue.”
“We were playing a drinking game and Liam was my partner. We ended up kissing because of some made up penalty and he’s a surprisingly good kisser.
I wasn’t about to hook up with him at my brother’s apartment, so I asked him to walk me home and he did.
” She rolls into the pillow and actually yells into the fabric.
Then she pulls her face out of the pillow and looks at me.
“It was really good. So good that I was the one who suggested we should be friends with bennys the next morning and he told me no!”
My jaw drops. I don’t think Miranda has ever been truly rejected before then.
“But then we hooked up again two days later and we’ve basically been together ever since.
” I have a lot more questions swirling around in my head.
Like how did he ask you to be his girlfriend and what kinds of things do you do together?
But she continues with, “Will’s horrible at hiding you by the way.
According to Liam, every guy on the hockey team already knows about the two of you. And has known since the beginning.”
“Wait, hang on, you already knew Will and I were together at SixtyForty?” She rolls her eyes and nods. “At the gala?” She nods again. “Bachelor in Paradise at my apartment?”
“Okay, that I didn’t know about. You were together then?”
“That was a test. You passed. When did you know?”
“There was a night where Liam came over to my place. Apparently Will was freaking out about a girl coming over and made them all clean the apartment. Liam said the girl that came over was you.” She really did know about us from the very beginning, then.
I think I know what night she’s talking about, the night we kissed for the first time.
We spend the next several hours catching up on all the things we’ve been missing out on due to the secrets. Since the initial anger’s worn off, I’m able to admit it's kind of fun piecing together the various overlaps of our relationships.
I’ve missed Miranda so much. I’m happy we’re on the same page once more.
That night, Will sneaks into my room again and I’m much more careful about where I leave marks.
In the morning, he’s still there, a bold choice considering my dad is still a little pissed off about him sneaking into my room the first time.