I feel awful over how I left things with Jay. Of everything I’ve been worrying about, Jay being mad at me is at the top of my list. I try texting him throughout the day, but he never answers, and by dinnertime I still haven’t heard from him. For some reason, Jay ignoring me is a kick in the gut. Jay’sneverignored me. He always answers me, even if he’s busy or I’m bothering him about how shitty a date is going or he has no idea what I’m talking about. His absence is just as noticeable as Kalani’s and hurts just as deep.
In my room after an early dinner, I’m trying to distract myself, but I keep going back to Instagram. I thought it would be torturing myself, but instead, I see Jasmine has posted an Instagram story, so I open it. It’s a picture of her and Maddie, their faces pressed close together, and they’re at the cliff. Caleb is in the background talking to Jay, both oblivious of being in the picture. I sit up in bed, hope renewed. This picture was posted five minutes ago. That means he’s going to be there for a while and isn’t coaching tonight. I wonder if practice was canceled?
Either way, this has to be a sign. I can’t do anything about feeling shitty because of the videos and rumors, but I can do something about feeling awful because of how things left off with Jay. He isn’t talking to me, so I’m going to go to him.
I throw on a baby-blue bikini under a baby-blue sundress, since I’m determined to dress the part even though I have no plans of jumping off the cliff, and slip on flip-flops to make walking the trail easier.
Mom’s in the shower, and Dad went to play golf with some friends, so I send Mom a text letting her know I’ve gone out so she won’t worry when she finds me missing from my room. As I grab my purse and head down the stairs without being intercepted and interrogated, I figure this is fate. I’m meant to go find Jay and sort this out right now. I may not have been invited to the cliff with them, but it’s a free cliff! Anyone can go, and nothing can stop me.
He says I don’t tell anyone how I feel?Ha!I’ll show him. I’ll tell him how I feel. I’ll tell him how I feel so hard he’s going to ask me to shut up because it’s like he’s living in my head from how in-depth I’m telling him how I feel.
“Where are you going?” a voice asks as I’m locking my front door, and I jump ten feet into the air.
Spinning around, I shoot Emi an accusing glare. “You totally snuck up on me on purpose!”
She shrugs a shoulder and gives me an innocent smile. “If I announced my arrival, you would’ve run right back inside and refused to talk to me.”
She’s not wrong, and the shame heats my face. “I’m sorry, Emi. I needed some time to process.”
Emi nods and follows me to my car. “Cool, I get it. So where are you going?” Her eyes dart to my sundress. The straps of my bikini peek through the dress, giving me away.
“The cliff,” I reply.
Emi nods again. “Cool. I call aux.”
“Wait, what?” I ask, blinking at her. She ignores my clear confusion and instead walks around the car to stand beside the passenger side door.
She rests her hand on the door handle and looks at me expectantly over the car’s roof. “You know I hadnothingto do with Kalani’s pure idiocy of setting you up on dates just to fail. That issomessed up in so many ways, and I’m incredibly pissed off I didn’t clue in to it. Ineverwould’ve gone along with it if I knew, or if I knew you genuinely didn’t want to do it. I thought going on the dates was what you wanted.”
The time I’ve spent reflecting has helped me reach the logical conclusion that Emi was oblivious to all of this. The signs were clear, and I never noticed. She had nothing to do with any of the date picks except Wyatt, and that was the one date that went well until food poisoning screwed it up. Shedidagree with Kalani when she picked Jay, knowing I hated him, but in Emi’s defense, she didn’t know he was being paid, and she was right when she thought something was there between us. Jay’s awesome, and I suck for pissing him off for a stupid reason.
“I believe you, Emi,” I reply. “But I don’t want to talk or think about Kalani right now.” It hurts too much, and I can only focus on one thing at a time. Jay first, since I can do something about it right now, and he’s not the one who betrayed me.
“Fine. If you want to ignore what’s going on then that’s cool with me. We don’t have to talk about anything if you don’t want to. It can just be me and you and ‘Emi and Carina’s Ultra Cool and Fun Playlist’ like the good old days.”
Mindlessly singing to some 80s rock in the car with my friend, not talking or thinking about anything that’s happened? “Actually, that would be awesome.”
Emi shoots me a grin, and we get into the car and buckle up. She connects her phone to the Bluetooth in my car, tapping the screen until a Mötley Crüe song comes on. It’s a headbanger that hypes you up instantly, the perfect road trip song when you don’t want to talk. So I turn it up full blast, reverse out of my driveway, and enjoy the ride. We spend the hour jamming out with the windows down and sunroof open, just enjoying each other’s company, both of us too busy singing our hearts out and playing air guitar or seat dancing to talk or think or be sad.
It’s exactly what I needed.
—
It’s a good thing Emi is here, because I wouldn’t have remembered theentiredrive to the cliff by memory. The GPS only got us so far, and for the last few turns I needed her directions. Now we’re pulling into the little dirt road with room for only one vehicle, where the overgrown tree branches slap at my beautiful car. Like before, I wince every time there’s a scrape against the paint or a rock dinging against the car. I reduce my speed drastically.
Emi lowers the music’s volume and twists in her seat to face me. “My throat is sore from the singing.”
I laugh, my throat also feeling raw from singing over the car’s stereo. “Me too.” I pause a moment, letting myself be vulnerable. “I missed this.”
“Me too.” A mischievous smile lights her face as a Def Leppard song starts playing. “Remember when Kalani got her license and we spilled two full iced capps in the back of her brand new Audi when this song came on?”
I can’t help but join in her merriment. “Yes! She was so pissed, but she couldn’t stop herself from belting out the chorus when it came on. But how could she not? ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’is a song you must sing to, even if you don’t like rock classics like Kalani.”
The clearing comes into view, and I park near some other cars. I recognize Jay’s a few spots over.
We step out, and Emi meets my eyes over the car’s roof. “God, when did we stop doing that? Having nights where we just drive around pointlessly with the windows down and the music loud?”
When Kalani started dating Emmett.