Page 79 of Blitz

Mason forces a laugh. It’s clearly fake. “No, it’s not.”

Yeah, it is. I’m the source of the awkwardness, the big pink elephant in the room. The Prince twins dumped me, and I fell apart. Now Mason and I are back together, but Micah and I aren’t friends, not anymore.

I don’t know that I want to be his friend if the terms are conditional on my dating his sister. I love Mason; I want to be with her. But that shouldn’t impact my relationship with Micah. I thought our friendship was strong enough to withstand her and me crumbling to pieces. It turns out I was wrong.

Micah clears his throat. “So tell me who’s going to be at this party. Do I get to meet the infamous Mark?”

She glances at me, her brow furrowed. I remember the way Mark wrapped his arms around her at that first meet I went to. I know she’s dated other guys. Did she and Mark have a thing?

No. I don’t care. I can’t care. She’s not with him now; she’s with me, and she’s not about to cheat on me, so I can’t go down that path. It only leads to heartbreak and misery.

Mason clears her throat. “Yeah, Mark will be there. So will Bryce.”

“Fucking Bryce! Man, that dude cracks me up.” Micah wipes at his eyes. “And Fredericka?”

“If you call her that, she will stab you in the foot,” she warns. “I’ll even tell her which is your bad ankle.”

“Okay, okay, don’t tease Fred. Melissa is still a hot mess?”

“Always. She doesn’t know how to stop at one drink. She always ends up hungover on race day.”

“Rookie mistake,” he says, shaking his head. “I showed up hungover on game day once—once!—and Coach reamed me a new one. Played like shit. Felt like shit. Never made that mistake again.”

Our coaching staff has us on strict curfew on game nights. Guys who get caught partying the night before a game don’t get benched—they get kicked off the team entirely. It’s not worth it.

Mason set her hand on my thigh again. “You okay, baby? You’re quiet.”

I force a smile. “I’m good.”

“You want to get out of here?” Her voice softens. “Maybe save your sandwich for later?”

My jaw clenches. “I’m not a child, Mason. You don’t have to treat me like one.”

Her eyes flash. “That’s not what I’m doing.”

Yeah, it is. My frustration boils over. “I’m coping. I’m surviving. What do you want from me?”

“I want you to thrive. I want you to not need your coping mechanisms,” she says loudly. Too loudly. People at other tables look over at us, eager for drama. “I want you to tell me what’s bothering you.”

“Nothing. I’m fine.” I push back my chair. “I need some air.”

I grab my coat and my sandwich and get the fuck out of there. The cold January air seeps into my bones and chills me from the inside out. I take a bite of my sandwich. Everything sucks. Everything is awful.

He’s here. He’s here and he’s acting like absolutely nothing is wrong.

Mason and I can pick up where we left off, but he and I can’t. We’re not dating. We can’t kiss and make up. I take another bite. Peanut butter soothes my soul in a way that nothing else can. It makes everything better. Nothing is insurmountable with a peanut butter sandwich in my hand.

Oh, no.

Am I using my peanut butter sandwich the same way other people use alcohol? I stare at the remains of the sandwich in my hand. It’s so good. It tastes delicious. It has never treated me poorly, always been there for me when I needed it most.

I’ve always been an emotional eater. I eat when I’m happy. I eat when I’m sad. I eat when I’m stressed. That’s nothing new. There are far more destructive vices I could have: alcohol, drugs, gambling, meaningless sex…

Shit.

I want to be an addiction counselor so that nobody else has to struggle like my mom and my grandfathers had to. And I seem to have inadvertently developed an addiction of my own. My coping mechanism isn’t helping me anymore: now it’s having a detrimental impact on me. What am I going to do? Call up a clinic and say I have an addiction to peanut butter sandwiches? I can’t just stop eating altogether: I can’t go on a feeding tube and skip meals for the rest of my life. How do I cut food out of my diet? How do I walk the line between emotional eating and healthy, sustainable eating?

There are footsteps behind me. I cram the rest of my sandwich into my mouth. Farewell, dear friend. You have treated me well.