Her twin nods. “Totally see it.”
My cheeks flood with even more color. “I don’t love him.”
“Look, it’s okay. You don’t have to lie. We won’t tell anyone.” Ophelia pauses, growing contemplative. “I am sorry, though. Falling for a friend is the worst kind of painful if they don’t feel the same.”
Odette nods. “Unrequited love…ugh. The angst. The torturous, torturous angst.”
“For the last time,” I practically growl. “I don’t love Archer. He definitely does not love me. We’re just—”
“Friends?” Ophelia finishes doubtfully. “Right.”
Odette’s eyes are brimming with sympathy. “Have you told him how you feel?”
I glance sharply out the window. I suppose there’s no use lying. They don’t believe me anyway. “No,” I murmur softly. “He doesn’t know.”
“And you think… he doesn’t return your feelings?”
I shake my head. “Definitely not.”
“But you’ll never know for sure unless you tell him,” Ophelia points out. “Maybe he’s hiding his feelings too, because he’s just as afraid to cross the line between friendship and… something more. Maybe he’s scared you’ll reject him and it’ll ruin everything.”
Her words tumble inside my head, stirring up feelings I’m not sure I’m equipped to process. Giving me foolish hope for something that’s never going to happen.
“He slept with Sienna,” I say bluntly, grounding myself back in cold reality. “At the party last weekend. I think that makes it pretty clear he doesn’t want to be with me.”
“Oh…” The twins cluck their sympathy. “We didn’t know.”
For a moment, the car is completely silent. I stare out the window, trying to keep a tight leash on my tears. I will not waste any more on a boy who doesn’t deserve them.
“You know, this isexactlywhy we don’t have any male friends,” Odette announces, shattering the quiet. “Lines get crossed. Feelings get hurt. Sexual tension gets in the way… Such a mess.”
Her twin glances at her and snorts. “O, we don’t have any male friends because we always sleep with them.”
“That’s true, too.” Odette pouts against the glass rim of her lemonade bottle. It’s almost empty. “Did Archer ask someone else to prom?”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”
“Is he planning to?”
“No idea.”
“Hmmm.” She tilts her head to the side. “Well, if he doesn’t get his act together, we can definitely scrounge you up a date.”
“You guys don’t need to do that…”
The twins make eye contact. I listen in amazement as they fly through a roster of male names, their mouths moving rapid-fire.
“Chris Tomlinson?”
“Taking Sienna.”
“Andy Hilton?”
“Taking June Woods.”
“Steve Abbott?”
“Going with George Massey.”