"There are only two options," I say, sighing heavily. "Either I move to Europe and change my name, or I apologize."
"You are not moving to Europe, Olive."
"I could. I even picked out a new name."
"Oh, this will be good," Sarah mutters, propping a hip on the counter. "Let's hear it."
"Alyvia Sandoval."
"You know the most frightening part?" She stares at me for a long moment before grabbing a coffee mug to pour herself a cup. "You're actually serious."
"I called the cops on a bird. The entire police department now knows my name. My hot neighbor thinks I'm a lunatic. Half the town will know about this by the end of the week. Come next week, I'm going to be the girl who called bird!"
"It's not that serious."
"They could have shot him." My bottom lip quivers. I thought about that endlessly last night. A lot could have gone wrong because of me. I sent the police to his house, where there were obvious screams. Had anyone panicked, had he been too sleepy to process the situation, had he looked like a danger, or not heard a command…there are so many reasons things could have ended badly. All because I called 9-1-1 and told them he had someone tied up in his basement.
I'm officially the crazy Karen in our neighborhood. I've replaced Letty.
"Hey." Sarah wraps her arm around my waist, resting her head against mine. "You did the right thing, Olive. It's funny in retrospect because it was just a bird, but if I'd heard someone screaming for help, I would have made the call, too. Any reasonable person would have. That's not something you just ignore, even if you do like the guy."
"I feel like a jerk," I mutter.
"You feel like a jerk because you like him," she says. "You've been spiraling and connecting all these dots to paint your own picture because it's easier than admitting the truth. That's kind of what you do, you know."
"Is not," I mutter.
"Yeah, it is. You panic-spiral and come up with reasons not to do the thing you want to do, even when the reasons aren't logical. That's precisely why you haven't gone on a single date in two years. You're scared to put yourself out there again."
"Fine, maybe I do that a little bit. But I'm not the only one with issues here," I say pointedly.
"I don't have issues."
"Oh, really? So we're just going to keep pretending that you didn't go out with my brother?"
She jerks, sloshing coffee across her hand. "Shit!" she cries, flinging it off before turning wide, panicked eyes on me. "I…I…"
"I know," I say quietly.
"You don't," she whispers, her face falling.
"I do."
"You really, really don't. I…we…" She huffs, turning pink. "My date was a jerk, Olive! Jasper rescued me, and then things just…happened."
"What?"
"My date was a jerk."
"What are you talking about? Jasper was your date."
"What?" She gapes at me.
"You were supposed to be meeting him."
"I was?"
"Yeah. I knew you would never make a move, so I made a fake profile and lied to you to get you to meet up with him, and I'm not even sorry about it," I say. "You like each other, and he's not overseas any longer. It was beyond time for this to happen."