Page 81 of The Design of Goodbye
“Oh.” I took the gloves from him and threw them in the trash can behind me, trying to give myself time to form a response.
It sounded so easy—admitting to him right now that I liked him more than a friend. If I did, I’d finally know if he liked me, too.
But I was scared of him not liking me. Scared he did. And scared I was completely misreading his question.
“Of course it was.” I pointed to his cheek, trying to distract him from what I’d cryptically admitted. “You have some...”
“What?” He lifted his hand to his cheek.
I grabbed a rag and wiped the smudge of oil off. “There. All better.”
* * *
“What do you think?”
Liam and I were lying underneath the Christmas tree. I thought back to our day and how amazing it’d been. We’d blared Christmas music on our way to the tree farm. We’d played hide-and-seek during our search for the perfect tree. We’d bought a dozen apple cider doughnuts and ate them crammed together on a small bench outside. At home, my dad let Liam and I decorate the house with every Christmas decoration we owned.
“I wish I didn’t have to go to work,” said Liam, gazing up at the tree. “Because I could stay here forever.”
“I could, too.” I rolled onto my side to face him. “Did you have fun today?”
He rolled onto his side as well. “Did I do something to make you think I didn’t?”
“No,” I said quickly. “It’s...last night you said holidays were hard for you, and I was worried—”
“They are.” His gaze became distant, but it was fleeting. “But don’t worry, today was good. I was with you. Did you have fun?”
“Well, duh. I was with you.”
My phone lit up between us, ruining our conversation and Christmas ambiance. I groaned when I saw it was Jules again. Her eighth text in the last hour.
“Everything okay?” asked Liam.
“It’s Jules,” I said, rolling onto my back and typing a response. “She’s obsessed with prom. It’s six months away, and she can’t stop sending me inspo pictures for her dress.” I sighed. “It’s exhausting.”
“You don’t like talking about that kind of stuff?”
“I used to.” I moved an ornament that kept hitting my forehead before admitting, “Ever since my mom left, I lost interest in a lot of stuff. Most things my friends talk about seem so pointless. Football games. Dances. It’s—” I paused, struggling to find the right words. “I listen to them complain about East Reed losing a football game, and I get jealous like, wow, this is all they have to be mad about? A football game? What about me? I’m mad I no longer have a—that my mom...”I paused, trying to maintain my composure. “Left me.”
He found my hand and squeezed.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. I couldn’t tell if the lights from the Christmas tree were causing his eyes to look wet because of his glasses or if they actually were.
“Does high school seem pointless to you?” I asked when I’d composed myself enough.
He nodded. “Most of it.”
My phone lit up again. I regretfully broke contact with Liam’s hand to slide my phone underneath the tree skirt. “Jules told me high school was going to be magical,” I said. “For her, it has been. She has good reason to think prom is going to be the most magical night of her life. I don’t even know if I want to go because, so far, every high school moment that was supposed to be magical has been awful.”
“Like what?”
I remembered my first homecoming dance, how Jules had made me wear four-inch heels, and how I’d twisted my ankle right as I’d entered the school. Or homecoming last year, when I spent most of the night hiding in the girls’ bathroom because Bruce wouldn’t leave me alone. “Homecoming.”
“Never been.”
“You’re not missing much.” I ran my fingers over the pine needles. “And getting my license—you can only imagine how that went.”
We both laughed.
