Chapter 29
Luke
Harper storms off into the tiny house, leaving me standing by the car, Cassie’s eyes pinned to me. I’m just as confused seeing Cassie here as Harper is, but her parking overnight seems harmless enough.
When I knocked on Cassie’s door, she looked exhausted, and her eyes were red and puffy like she’d been crying.
She mentioned something about her credit card not working and that she can’t call to get it fixed until morning, so she’s not able to pay for food, parking, or anything until she gets it sorted tomorrow.
Before I talked to Cassie, I was hoping I’d be able to talk her out of parking in our driveway, but by the time she finished her story, I wanted to bring her inside to get something to eat. I know that’s the last thing Harper would want, but I have to do something.
“She okay?” Cassie says, walking over, arms crossed.
While I’m almost certain all of Harper’s anger is over Cassie ditching her time and time again, part of me wonders if there’s more to it than that.
“Just one of those days,” I say, not wanting to reveal much else. “You going to be okay for the night?”
“Yeah, I need to make a food run, but hopefully I can get things sorted out with my card by morning.”
I look back to the house and then to Cassie. Her face is softer than the last time we were in this driveway together. I still feel a tiny twinge of guilt over the fact that I led Cassie on while having feelings for Harper, but whatever anger she had toward me seems to have lifted.
“I can take you to the grocery store,” I say. I probably can’t make up for how I may have hurt Cassie, but I can at least make sure she goes to bed with enough food to last until she can get her card sorted out.
“I don’t have the money to pay for it.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “Let me see if Harper wants to come.” I already know what Harper will say, but I poke my head in the front door anyway. She’s sitting on the couch, flipping through the channels on the TV. “We’re going on a grocery store run. Want to come?”
“I’ve had enough Cassie for one lifetime,” Harper says, her eyes glued to the TV. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so bitter before.
“Okay then,” I mumble, closing the door and heading back to the car.
Cassie’s leaning against the passenger door when I get there.
“Just us?” she asks, eyebrows raised.
“Guess so.”
The drive to the nearest grocery store is short since Vik is small. We find a Krónan, which might actually be the only grocery store in the town. It’s a decent-sized building, probably about a third of the size of a normal grocery store back home.
I expect that Cassie and I will split up in the store, but when I grab a cart, she tags along beside me, occasionally placing food in the front half while I put food in the back half.
She only grabs a few things here or there, probably self-conscious of the fact that I’ll be paying.
At this point, though, it feels like the least I can do.
“So, how’s the Harper situation working out?” Cassie says suddenly, grabbing an apple and adding it to the cart.
Leave it to Cassie to be bold.
“There’s no situation,” I tell her, thinking back to the conversation we had at the canyon where Harper finally brought up the text message from Wes. I probably could have handled that better.
“Yeah, okay.” She gives me a mocking laugh.
“Cassie, why does it matter?” I say, but it doesn’t feel like I’m saying it just to Cassie. It feels like I’m saying this to Wes and every other person who has wrongfully assumed Harper and I would make a great couple.
“Because.” She pauses, weighing her words. “If you care about someone, you should say something.”
I shake my head, dismissing her, so she continues.
“My boyfriend cheated on me with my best friend.” The change in conversation throws me so much that I stop pushing the cart and pause in the middle of the aisle. “I think he’d had a crush on her long before we started dating, but she already had a boyfriend, so he settled for me.”
Now I really feel like a jerk—my going out with Cassie was just the same. I couldn’t have Harper, so I settled for Cassie.
She must hate me.
“I’m sorry,” I start, but she cuts me off, shaking her head. Her face shifts from sad to angry, and now back to something more broken and soft, like she’s tired of being the girl nobody wants.
“Just. . .” She pauses. “Tell her how you feel so the other people around you don’t have to get hurt in the process as well.”
“She doesn’t feel that way about me,” I say quickly.
Cassie laughs in a cold, sarcastic way. “Well, that’s not true.”
“How do you know?” I say, feeling a little defensive. It’s not like Cassie was there to witness me making a fool of myself today.
I start walking down the aisle again, ready to wrap up this shopping trip.
Cassie follows and turns to me, eyebrows raised. “Harper’s jealous. She hates me. She hated me when we went to the waterfalls. She hated me when she saw my van in the driveway, and she can’t even stand to go grocery shopping with me.”
I roll my eyes. “She hates you because you made us keep ditching her and leaving her alone in a foreign country.”
She gives me a smirk. “We needed to keep ditching her because your eyes were all over her.”
I rub my temple, ready to be done with this conversation. “Harper not liking you doesn’t mean it’s because she likes me.”
“You’re telling me you’ve never questioned the way Harper feels about you?”
I think back to the conversation about the text. Harper didn’t look relieved to hear it was a joke. I’m not sure what had been going through her mind. I was just doing my best to diffuse the situation.
“She’s made it clear she only sees me as a friend.” I start to walk away, and Cassie trails behind.
“How?”
“She made me date you, for example. It was her idea.”
Cassie shrugs it off. “She was trying to hide her feelings. Next excuse.”
“Okay, last night she went out with some British guy and even dragged me along to meet his friends this morning.”
“And where is he now?” she presses.
“She ditched him because he was laughing at her for being afraid of something.” I don’t tell Cassie that it was over a fear of birds, because I know that isn’t information Harper wants out in the open.
“Sounds like he’s out of the picture now.”
I roll my eyes, knowing Cassie’s behind me and can’t see.
“She still went out with him,” I reiterate.
“The same way you went out with me.”
“I didn’t think it would make her want to date someone else too!” I shout a little too loudly for a grocery store. A woman nearby glances over, her eyes lingering on us.
“So you admit you didn’t want her to go out with someone else.”
I feel like I’m being interrogated. No matter how much I deny it to Cassie, she’ll still press me for a confession.
The worst part is, she’s exactly right. I didn’t want Harper to be going out with that guy.
Seeing her hand in hand with him walking down the beach made me jealous beyond belief.
Even worse, seeing him laugh at her when she was so clearly scared made me want to cuss the guy out.
And when we were sitting on the beach together, her head on my shoulder, I wanted to shift just the smallest bit to kiss her temple.
“Cassie,” I say, stopping in the middle of an aisle full of random cereals I’ve never heard of before.
She takes a few steps forward and leans on the grocery cart, forcing me to look at her. “Just admit you like her.”
We stare at each other, each daring the other to break eye contact. And then it finally occurs to me. I don’t care. Tomorrow, Cassie will go back home, and I’ll probably never see her again. If anyone has to know, I guess it can be her.
“I love her,” I say, the words so true that I’m embarrassed it’s the first time I’ve said them.
Cassie smiles. “There. Now just tell her that.”
I already regret telling Cassie. “It’s not that simple. We’ve known each other our whole lives. She doesn’t see me that way.”
“But what if she did?” Cassie counters.
I shake my head. “She doesn’t.”
Cassie looks at me like she thinks I’m crazy. “Why did you agree to go out with me if you had feelings for Harper?”
I know the answer to the question, but I don’t want to admit it out loud.
Cassie seems to sense that. “Go ahead. Can’t do worse than my ex.”
“I went out with you so I could get over her.”
Cassie looks like she was hoping I would say that. “Did it ever occur to you that Harper went out with that other guy for the same reason?”
I consider it.
“Have you ever even made a move?” she asks.
This time I laugh. “Like kiss her? No, of course not. Not unless I knew she wanted the same.” The almost-kiss on the beach won’t be happening again.
“If you wait around for Harper to ask you to kiss her, then you’ll die alone. And let me tell you, it’s not always a romantic move to ask to kiss someone. You gotta just. . . read the signals and make the move.”
I stare at her, skeptical. “And what are those signals?”
She rolls her eyes. “You’ve dated before, right? I wasn’t your first date?”
“Don’t you depend on me to pay for your groceries?” I say, getting more annoyed.
“Sorry,” she says quickly. “But you know what I mean. If you lean in, does she lean in? If you touch her hair, does she cringe away? If you put your hand on her back, does she lean into you or away from you? If you kiss her, does she kiss back?”
“Cassie, let’s just drop it.”
“Why? You clearly love her. Either you tell her, or I will.”
I stop walking. Would she be bold enough to walk up to Harper and tell her how I feel? Would Harper believe her? And if she did and Harper didn’t feel the same way, what would that mean for our friendship?
“Don’t you dare.”
Cassie rolls her eyes. “Calm down. It’s better if you tell her yourself. Though a kiss would communicate the same thing.” She gives me a wink, and I’ve just about lost my patience.