Chapter 35
Thirty-Five
CHLOE
Instead of home, I go to Coffee Jungle. My keys jingle in my purse as I half-jog up to the door. It’s closed because it’s ten at night, so of course it is.
I stick my employee key in the lock and push the door open. Blissful silence and the lingering smell of dark roast greet me. I disarm the alarm so the police don’t show up and arrest me for breaking and entering. Maggie told me I can come here whenever I need to.
Well, now I definitely need to.
I flick on a side light, cross behind the counter, and I ring myself out a large black coffee and a chocolate chip muffin even though I’m not hungry.
Sugar is a heartbroken girl’s best friend.
I don’t have to, but I slide some money into the register, anyway.
As the coffee brews, I try not to picture Candace in that leather jacket, effortlessly balancing an edgy and sweet look, like a cinnamon Pop-Tart.
I’ve always hated cinnamon Pop-Tarts.
I take my coffee and muffin up to the Tree House and settle into a beanbag chair. Closing my eyes, I sip the coffee, letting the caffeine replace my fading adrenaline, and take a large bite of muffin. I’m not going to sleep anyway, so I might as well enjoy it.
Out of habit, I pull out my phone. Thirteen missed calls from Rhoads. Eighteen text messages. Hmm. I don’t listen to the voicemails or read the messages because I’m not a masochist.
Whatever he has to say, I’m no longer in the mood to hear it.
I consider calling Anita or Charlotte. Anita’s probably asleep, even though she has the latest curfew of all of us, and Charlotte’s got some student council bonding thing. Char might answer, but I don’t want to have this conversation when so many other people are around her.
So I put my phone back in my purse, leaning my head against the squishy chair.
My eyes close again, and this time I see Rhoads’s face clear as day as I bumped into him at Peggy’s. That look of surprise. Like he literally had no clue why I was acting insane.
Tears slip out of the corners of my eyes again, slowly at first and then faster.
They stream down like water on a windshield, which makes me think of the car wash, which makes me think of Rhoads, which makes me cry harder.
Hiccups squeak in between my sobs, all my emotions from the first day of school to now flooding like a broken dam.
I’ve been so stupid.
“Chloe, is that you?” a male voice calls.
Dang. Not who I need right now.
I thought I locked the front door, but footsteps make their way up the stairs, so I guess I hallucinated that part. Good thing it’s not a robber or a kidnapper.
I wipe my face with my hands, not that it can mask that I’ve been crying.
A knock sounds on the door. “Chloe?” The door swings open. “Hey.”
“Hi.”
Kyle peeks in. “Can I come in?”
I shrug. “How’d you find me?”
His face shows concern as he steps inside and lowers himself into a chair.
“Rhoads texted me. Said you guys had some kind of disagreement. He was worried when you didn’t answer. But he had a hunch where you might go.”
“But he didn’t come after me himself.”
“He got the hint you don’t want to talk to him at the moment. Sent me as a proxy. So…what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
He glances at my uneaten muffin. “Your abandoned baked good says otherwise.” He stands up and heads back toward the door. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. I just wanted to check on you.”
“I’m fine.” Kyle and I have been friends for as long as I’ve known Anita. They kind of came as a package deal.
I tear off a bite of muffin and pop it into my mouth, as if finishing it will prove him wrong. Will convince him I’m fine. But it turns to sand in my mouth. I wash the bite down with coffee and put the muffin back on the desk, glaring at it as if it’s betrayed me.
He raises his brow. “Yeah?”
“No.” I count the chocolate chips in the muffin.
Kyle sits back down. “Simpson is a good guy. And whatever rep he’s got, he hasn’t earned it.”
I scoff. “You sure about that?”
“Positive.”
I pick at the muffin but don’t eat it. Just crumble it to bits on the desk. “He’s been hung up on you since freshman year.”
“What?”
Kyle laughs, then looks up at the ceiling. “He’s going to hate that I’m telling you this. But desperate times and all that. Did you know Rhoads and Graham used to be friends?”
I snort. “Right.” I squish a chip between my thumb and forefinger.
“Seriously. Unfortunately, they both liked the same girl.” Kyle nods at me.
“No.”
“Yep.”
The gears in my brain grind to a halt. “Wait, what?”
My mind flashes back to the car wash. Rhoads’s posture when Graham showed up. I thought the awkward tension was just from Graham’s and my past. But if Kyle’s telling the truth—and why would he lie about that? —it was from Graham and Rhoads’s history too.
And then when Dani bragged about Graham delivering her pizza and that I’d dated him. That tense tick of his jaw.
“Graham was supposed to talk Rhoads up to you.”
All of my muscles still. The coffee turns to magma in my stomach. “But he asked me out himself instead.”
Kyle nods.
Back at that party with Graham, when I’d thought of Rhoads as Porch Guy and a cocky striker and the guy who’d handed me a water bottle, he’d been interested in me. That night I’d wondered, just for a second, what it would have been like to be there with Rhoads instead.
I’d felt guilty for the thought, never knowing if Graham possessed a shred of loyalty that could have been a reality. More to myself than to Kyle I say, “I can’t believe he liked me back then.”
Kyle shoves his hands into his pockets. “He’s never stopped. Just give him the chance to tell you the whole truth. Not all guys are Graham.”