1. Winnie
Why the hell are there so many flavors of Pop-Tarts? There definitely weren’t this many when I was a kid, and that is a crime. I would have loved eating a pumpkin pie Pop-Tart while I watched morning cartoons.
It’s no wonder Dad always needed a very specific list from Mom when she sent him to the store. The options are practically limitless. I used to watch Mom toss things into the cart and not think much about it, but now that I’m doing the shopping, I realize it’s not that simple. There were many things I knew would change when I moved away from my mom and in with my brother for college, but struggling to decide which Pop-Tarts to buy was not one of them.
I grab a few boxes of new flavors and one of brown sugar cinnamon because Elijah would kill me if I didn’t get his favorite kind. They thunk against the plastic basket as I toss them in and turn away, right as someone calls a name I wasn’t ready to hear.
Looking over my shoulder, all I can do is blink. What are the odds? My first time out in Pinecove, and I run into the only two people I was hoping I wouldn’t see. I watch—or listen—to a lot of his hockey games, although I’d never admit that out loud. So I obviously knew he would be around, but I didn’t think he would be around. And I definitely didn’t think he would be linking arms with Zoey the first time I saw him.
Are they together?
It doesn’t matter, Winnie. He’s not yours.
He never was.
I need to remember that, even if seeing him with those hazel eyes I fell in love with so many years ago brings back feelings and memories I’ve done my best to block out.
“Never let the enemy see your weakness.” Dad would always tell Elijah that. He was talking about hockey, but it can be applied to real life, I’m sure. I don’t know if Reese Larson counts as an enemy, but Zoey Miller sure as hell does.
I force a smile and head their way, figuring it’s too late to take off in the other direction and praying I look as unbothered as I want to. It’s a good thing they can’t hear my heart, though, because the heavy beating would be a dead giveaway. I’m no longer in high school, and I promised myself I wouldn’t be meek in college, but there’s something about facing my old bully and the man I thought was the love of my life in the same place—touching—that threatens to bring that trait roaring back to the surface.
The first time Zoey ever approached me, it was to ask about Reese. She wasn’t the first girl or the last. I was always around Reese and my brother, and I guess I was more approachable than those two because many, many girls thought they could get to them through me. Like I was their door guard or some shit. Either way, Zoey was by far the most persistent. Most of the time, girls would want basic information about them that they could use to connect. It usually worked with my brother, although I prefer to not think about how many girls I set him up with on accident.
Reese, however, never entertained them. I always looked up to him for that, not knowing it was deep-rooted jealousy that made me happy for his rejection of those girls.
Zoey wasn’t like the rest, though. She didn’t take his blatant uninterest lightly and made my life hell because of it. Like somehow I was the reason he wasn’t interested in her.
Couldn’t be her horrendous personality or anything.
She tried to befriend me first, but it wasn’t long after she first approached me that I caught her talking about me to her friends in the bathroom, and it wasn’t nice. They made fun of my hair, my freckles, and the way I followed Reese and Elijah around like a “lost puppy.”
I never questioned my relationship with the guys before that, but when I heard them making fun of me for not hanging out with anyone else, I took a step back and wondered if my brother and Reese let me hang around them because they liked being around me, or because they felt bad. It was a real eye-opener and a thought that pricked my mind for a very long time. Even when Reese would knock on my bedroom window after he finished hanging out with Elijah, or when Elijah would call me into his room to play games with them without my prompting.
I guess, in a roundabout way, she’s the reason I haven’t gotten close to many people. I never wanted to come across as pathetic for being around people who didn’t want me there.