Page 26 of A Life Where We Work Out

Oof. Ouch. Yikes.

She scrunches her nose in what must be a colossal summoning of courage, then blurts out–

“But I think I want more. Well, I know I want more. And I think you might too, and I won’t know until I ask, and I feel like we’ve been dancing around it, and I thought maybe I should take it into my own hands, so–” she rambles off at lightning speed.

“So here we are. I like you, Griffin Hart. Like,like youlike you.”

I’ve imagined, dreamed,hopedfor this moment a thousand times over. Hearing her say those words is the brightestjoy I’ve ever felt–like fireworks and lightning bugs and Christmas lights wrapped in the sun.

I stand there like an idiot, desperately trying to find the words to convey how much Ilike herlike her back.

“This is a really bad time to decide to finally shut up,” she says with a nervous laugh.

I manage to get my brain working again, stumbling over my words I’m so fucking excited to tell her how I feel. “Eleanor, I’ve wanted to–”

“Damn it bro, of course you got it done right at the last minute,” David interrupts with a shout. “You better use my hundred bucks to take her somewhere nice.”

My heart stops. My breathing stops. Time stops. Everything stops.

I didn’t fall into a dream–I fell into my worst nightmare.

Jack punches David square in the chest, looking angrier than I’ve ever seen him. David’s grin drops as he looks from me to Eleanor.

I quickly turn back to her, opening my mouth to try and explain before it goes any further. But I can’t get a word out before she slowly asks,

“What is he talking about Griffin?”

David tries to interject, but Jack silences him with a sharp look (and a hand over his mouth).

“Okay I know this is going to sound bad, and it was only a joke for like five minutes before we actually got to know you, but I swear…”

My sentence trails off, and my chest cracks open as her face shifts from confusion to hurt.

“I was a joke to you?”

“No, not a joke, Eleanor,” I say desperately. “You hated me so much, and David made this stupid bet that he’d give me twenty bucks if I could get you to be my friend–”

“But he said a hundred. What changed it from twenty to a hundred?”

I’ve never felt desperation like this in my life. How can I make her understand that it was never actually a bet to me?

“Eleanor, I swear it was never about that for me, it just gave me an excuse to–”

“Why did it change, Griffin?” she demands in a cold, firm voice that I’ve never heard from her.

I have no choice but to tell the truth, even though it’s the last thing I want to do right now.

“Because you want more than friendship now.”

This is the most awful scenario I could have imagined. I knew David might do something stupid, but I didn’t expect it to go so wrong so fast.

“So I was a bet to you. You’ve all lied to me from the very beginning.”

I can see her lip trembling as she looks at each of us in turn. Jack’s pained face shows more emotion than I thought was possible from my stoic best friend, and it makes me feel ten times worse.

David looks horrified, and even though I know he didn’t mean to do it, anger burns in my chest and at this exact moment, I don’t care if I ever see my oldest friend again.

They both stammer out protests, please, explanations, but she lifts her hand to cut them off and they fall silent immediately.