“Here you go.” I hand it to him, refusing to let my eyes dip to the mess I created. When he takes it, I make sure our hands have minimal contact. The thought of his skin on mine sends shivers down my spine. I tell myself it’s because I’m repulsed by him.
“Thanks,” he says, still eyeing me like I’m a puzzle he can’t wait to solve. “See you around, Princess.”
“God, I hope not,” I say before I can stop myself as he leaves.
He pauses at the door just as Kalani walks in, sends me a wink, then disappears outside, hopefully out of my life for good.
Three
It’s Emi who ends up convincing me to come to couples’ night at Murphey’s. She called the restaurant, and they said it was fine if I teamed up with her and her girlfriend, but we’d forfeit our right to win their grand prize of a $100 voucher, which Emi and Daphne insisted they didn’t care about. So I show up on time and feel grateful that my friends made the effort to include me when it would’ve been so easy to just hang out without me. Besides, I hang out with them and their partners all the time, so I shouldn’t feel weird about this specific event being designated for couples only.
“Welcome, everyone,” a waitress greets us. Murphey’s isn’t a fancy restaurant, but it’s still nice. The atmosphere is lively, and there’s hip music playing in the background over the buzz of conversation. The lighting is dim, giving the space a casual vibe, but it’s still a popular family restaurant. Because we signed up for trivia tonight, we’re led past the dining area to the all-ages bar section, where couples have gathered at tables and booths around a makeshift little stage where I’m assuming the trivia leader will stand. My friends and I squeeze into a booth that was clearly designed for four people. The waitress sets menus and waters down on the table as she says, “Trivia starts in thirty, so feel free to check out the menu, and I’ll be back in a few to take your orders.”
“How great is this,” Emmett says once she leaves. He’s sitting beside Kalani on the bench across from me, but thankfully she’s the one directly in my line of sight. That should help me avoid getting caught up in his ocean-blue eyes every time I look up. “I’m so glad you came, Carina,” he adds with a brilliant smile that has butterflies erupting in my stomach. “I wouldn’t have felt good about excluding you.”
He wants me here!“Yeah, I, um . . .” I take a sip of water and pray my face isn’t beet-red. “I just feel bad I ruined Emi and Daphne’s chances for that gift card.”
Beside me, Emi waves my concerns away. “Please, we were going to lose anyway. I’m really here to order two tons of nachos and watch Emmett panic every time someone pulls out a phone.”
“It’s not allowed!” Emmett says, defending his strict rule-abiding. “You can’t use a phone during trivia because searching for answers defeats the purpose and takes away the integrity of the game.”
Emi grins and exchanges a sly look with her girlfriend on her other side, one that says she proved her point.
Kalani lays a supporting hand on Emmett’s arm. “We’llallplay according to the rules,” she assures him, looking at Emi when she emphasizes her point. “But maybe we should’ve invited Wyatt along for you, Carina. That way we would all be coupled up.”
They brought up inviting Emmett’s friend multiple times, all of which I shot down. He transferred to Oakwoods this year and shares homeroom with Emmett, but our school is so big I have no idea who he is, and I don’t want to be set up with a random guy. It would already be awkward enough going on a triple date with my best friend and her boyfriend—my secret crush whom I know I can never be with—so I don’t need the added pressure of trying to get to know a guy I have no interest in. All I want to do is have fun with my friends.
“Again, that’s very kind of you,” I start, “but I don’t need help dating.”
Kalani snorts a laugh. “We all know you need a little help when it comes to boys. Remember what happened with Kenji in third grade? Or Andre in fifth grade? Or Josh in seventh grade?”
I sink deeper into the booth, my stomach churning with the remnants of shame. “All you’re doing is proving I have a thing for jerks, not a problem with dating.”
“Wait, what happened?” Daphne asks innocently, her curious eyes bouncing between us.
Kalani doesn’t wait for further prompting. “They’re all boys she had crushes on. And she went up to them and told them about her crush, and they all essentially very loudly went ‘Ew!’and ran away. Josh even shoved her into the mud trying to get away.” Kalani leans in like she’s sharing something juicy, not dragging up some of my most mortifying childhood memories. “She was the talk of the school each time. That’s why it took her two years after each one to gather the courage to talk to her new crush.”
“I’m sitting right here, you know,” I grumble, only slightly annoyed. I don’t care if my friends know about my past—it’s something I’d share with them anyway. But the way she tells it makes me sound like I’m unlovable or something.
Emmett sends me a soft, pitying smile. “Boys are idiots at that age, Carina. Don’t let it get to you.”
He’s trying to be helpful, but it only makes me wish the table would swallow me whole.
Three different boys. Three times I worked up the nerve to talk to them. And three times I was horribly and embarrassingly rejected. It took three cataclysmic crash-and-burns for me to finally learn my lesson: keep my crushes to myself, hope they feel the same way, and wait for them to make the first move. It’s the only way I’ve found to protect both my heart and my pride, and so far, it’s worked.
If I had said something to Emmett about my feelings, he would’ve had to turn me down and awkwardly explain that he was into my best friend. Then once they started dating, I’d be the last person he’d want around. He wouldn’t want to hang out with his girlfriend and the girl who spilled her guts about being hopelessly in love with him. If I had put myself out there and told Emmett how I felt, I wouldn’t only have embarrassed myself and made things super uncomfortable for everyone, I’d also have lost my friend.
My voice comes out strong when I say, “And then Kalani called Kenji a poopy butthead and threw his lunch bag out the window, beat Andre so badly at one-on-one basketball during recess that he didn’t step foot on the court for the rest of the year even though that was his favorite sport, and made Josh grovel to get an invite to her birthday party, which the whole grade was constantly talking about, just to turn around and say it was a ‘no jerks allowed’ party and he wouldn’t be allowed in.” I smile as I remember how mad he was when he got up from his kneeling, groveling position and stormed away. “I don’t need guys when my best friend has my back like no one ever will.”
Emi gives Kalani an appraising look, as if begrudgingly impressed. “That’s cool of you. I would’ve kicked them all right in the balls. Do they go to Oakwoods? I can still do it. They won’t even see it coming. They’d be all, ‘Oh hey, Emi,’ and I’d be likebam! ‘That’s what you get for being a dick to my best friend!’”
I laugh, knowing that she’s not just joking to lighten the mood, it’s a real offer. Of the three of us, Emi is the too-cool-to-care edgy girl. Her hair and piercings break school uniform policies and she has more decorative pins tacked onto her backpack than books in it, but she still makes honor roll and will call you out in front of the entire class if she hears you talking badly about one of her friends. In fact, she did exactly that at our welcome assembly in ninth grade when one of the assholes on the lacrosse team called Kalani fat. Emi didn’t even know Kalani, and yet she stood up right on the bleachers and embarrassed that jerk so badly he hasn’t so much as looked in Kalani’s direction in the last four years.
“There is no need to kick anyone in the balls,” I tell Emi with a laugh. “I’m not focusing on boys right now. I just want to get through exam season and hang out with my friends as much as I can before we start university in September.”
Kalani and Emi are both incredible and could’ve been friends with anyone, but they’re friends withme. I didn’t even have to try hard to get them to be my friends—fate intervened for me. Kalani was assigned the seat next to me at snack time on her first day of school, and when she pulled out her container of delicious-looking fried dough balls—panikeke, I later learned—she set one in front of me. I offered her one of the pizzelle my dad had packed for me, and it started a tradition of splitting our snacks that lasted until high school ended snack time. At that ninth-grade assembly, when Emi stepped down from the bleachers, I turned in my seat and told her she was the coolest girl I’d ever seen. Then I noticed her Aerosmith pin, and she immediately added me to a joint Spotify playlist so we could swap song recommendations.
“There’s no reason you can’t do both,” Kalani starts, her eyes drifting over my head to something behind me. She gives a surprised gasp. “That’s Jamie and Alonso. We had English lit together last semester—don’t turn around!” Emi, Daphne, and I freeze, all caught mid-turn. Kalani holds up her phone and uses the camera function to check her makeup and smooth out her hair. “I’m going to go over and say hello. If I can get their vote for prom queen, the drama club is basically locked up. Come on, Emmett.” She drops her phone onto the table and grabs her boyfriend, hauling him up before he even has time to register who Kalani’s talking about.